Origin of the Name Hoey
The ancient history of the name
Hoey 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 Hoey
include Howe, Haughey, McCaughey, McCaghy, Haughie, Haughy and O'Hoey. This name in Irish is O'hEochaidh and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this. This sept came from Ulster .
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.
The O'Hoeys have anciently been located in Ulster Province but suffered at the hands of the MacDunlevys at the start of the fourteenth century and went into decline in importance after that. Some O'Hoey families may have been of immigrant stock, giving the variant name Huey. Another Hoey sept was located in County Meath.
The Hoey 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 Hoey descendants.