Given name & surname
Mccarthy
“son of Carthach”
McCarthy is a surname from Irish.
Original IrishMac Carthaigh
Meaning & origin
What it means
McCarthy goes back to Irish Mac Carthaigh, meaning “son of Carthach.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Irish Mac Carthaigh (“son of Carthach”); its root is Proto-Indo-European *keh₂-.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1994. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Mccarthy through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 59
- 59 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2019
- 8 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 2024. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 8 in 2019. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 220 as a first name in 2020; 80,108 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Mccarthy’s family of names
In English usage, Mccarthy shares an earlier linguistic root with Cedric. In English usage, Mccarthy as a surname was borrowed from the Irish form Mac Carthaigh. In English usage, Mccarthy shares an earlier linguistic root with Caradog.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Around the world
Mccarthy has relatives in 4 languages. Lines run from its Irish roots to each of them.
Irishwhere Mccarthy comes from · 1 name
Nicknames & forms 2
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 4
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 3
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
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