Origin of the Name Killeen
The origin of the name
Killeen 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 Killeen
include Killen, McKillen, Killin and Killian. This name in Irish is O'Cillin and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this. This sept came from the west of Ireland .
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.
They were located in the three Atlantic seaboard counties of Clare, Galway and Mayo. In the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they are recorded in the Composition Book of Connaught as residing near Ballykileen in the parish of Annagh, County Mayo. Some families migrated across the Shannon and settled in Westmeath, they using the form Killian. Killen is chiefly found in County Antrim where some are of a Galloglass family who were taken from Scotland by the O'Donnells in the fifteenth century.
The Killeen 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 Killeen descendants.