Origin of the Name Falvey
The
Falvey family history 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 Falvey
include Falvie, Falfey, Valvey and Valvie. This name is derived from the Gaelic Ó'Fáilbhe sept name that it has been suggested is taken from the word 'fáilbheach' meaning 'lively'.
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.
When Gaelic names were anglicized during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were often changed to Anglo equivalents that sounded most like their original Gaelic name. The O'Falvey's can trace their descent to Conaire, who was King of Ireland at the beginning of the Christian era and were recorded as being the powerful Chiefs of Corcu Duibne, located on the Dingle Peninsula. The name Falvey is most associated with County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland but is also well represented in Counties Clare and Cork .
The Falvey 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 Falvey descendants.