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Updated January 25, 2024

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English and Scottish : topographic name for someone who lived in the woods (see Wood).
  • Irish : English name adopted as a translation of Ó Cuill ‘descendant of Coll’ (see Quill), or in Ulster of Mac Con Coille ‘son of Cú Choille’, a personal name meaning ‘hound of the wood’, which has also been mistranslated Cox, as if formed with coileach ‘cock’, ‘rooster’.

Famous people with this last name

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