Origin of family name

"O'Connor, with its variants Connor, Conner, Connors etc., comes from the Irish Conchobhair, from the personal name Conchobhar, perhaps meaning 'lover of hounds' or 'wolf-lover'. This was one of the most favoured of early Irish names, and gave rise to the surname in at least five distinct areas, in Connacht (O'Conor Don), in Offaly (O'Conor Faly), in north Clare (O'Conor of Corcomroe), in Keenaght in Co Derry, and in Kerry (O'Connor Kerry). The Offaly family take their name from Conchobhar (d.979), who claimed descent from Cathaoir Mor, a second-century king of Ireland. They remained powerful in their original homeland until the sixteenth century, when they were dispossessed of their lands.

The O'Connor Kerry were chiefs of a large territory in north Kerry, displaced further northwards by the Norman invasion to the Limerick borders, where they retained much of their power down to the seventeenth century. Today, the descendants of these O'Connors are far and away the most numerous, with the majority of all the many O'Connors in Ireland concentrated in the Kerry/Limerick/Cork area.

However, the most famous of all the O'Connor families is that which arose in Connacht. The ancestor from whom they take surname was Conchobhar, King of Connacht (d.971), and direct ancestor of the last two High Kings of Ireland, Turlough O'Connor and Roderick O'Connor, who ruled through the twelfth century. Unlike the vast majority of the rest of the old Gaelic aristocracy, the O'Conors of Connacht managed to retain a large measure of their property and influence through all the calamities from the seventeenth century on. The line of descent from the last Chief of the Name is also intact; the current 'O Conor Don', recognized as such by the Chief Herald of Ireland, is Denis O Conor. The family seat remains in the ancestral homeland, in Castlerea, Co Roscommon."Thanks to : Eolas na hEireann

I am sure some of you have come across our name spelled in gaelic, but for those who havent; heres how the name looks in Gaelic (at least in the west Dingle [Munster] version of Irish) :
O'Connor = Ó Conchúir

There are six distinct septs of the name. The first are the OConnors of Connacht-the main branches being OConor Don, OConor Roe and OConor Sligo. They are descended from Conchobhar, King of Connacht(d.970) and claim the last two Kings of Ireland, Turlough OConnor(1088-1156) and Roderick OConnor(1116-1198). Their direct descendant is the present OConnor Don: Denis OConnor. It should be noted that this important family consistently maintained its position AND remained inflexibly Catholic.The O'Connor Kerry derive their name from a different Conchobhar who was Lord of an extensive area of Northern Kerry, but after the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1170, they were pushed northward toward Shannon. The OConnor Kerry sept is the most numerous sept. Estimates put the number of this sept in Ireland today at 30, 000. Some members of this sept changed their name to Conner.The OConnors of Corcomroe, a barony in North Clare, are descended from Conchbhar, lord of Corcomroe(d. 1002) The OConnors of Offlay are descended from OConnor Faly, who in turn was descended of Cathaoir Mor, King of Ireland in the second century.
"Our name, in Irish Gaelic, is Ó Conchubhair. Today this is pronounced owe-kru-who-ear. In other pronounciations it ranges from owe-con-ear to owe-con-coo-ear.The spelling of the surname varies from sept to sept - mine, above, is O'Connor Kerry - and there are regional adaptions and other approximations such as Conaire (Conroy).