Origin of the Name Keegan
The ancient history of the name
Keegan was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name Keegan
include Hegan, MacEgan, Egan and Kegan. These names are derived from the native Gaelic MacAodhagain sept that was of the Ui Maine of County Galway but who later settled in County Tipperary.
A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
These families were well-known Brehon scholars. Their territories comprised of part of County Tipperary, Kilkenny and Offaly, where the most important Chief Brehon, to the O'Connor Faly, was MacEgan. In some parts of Leinster and Connacht their name was changed to Keegan through the period of Gaelic submergence. In modern times the name Keegan is mostly found in Counties Dublin , Wicklow, Leitrim and Roscommon.
The Keegan coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Keegan descendants.