Mallon
An Irish surname most often understood as a form of Maeldán, meaning roughly “devotee of St. Dán” or “bald monk.”
The #6,531 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 59,511 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is generally explained from Irish Gaelic Maeldán, built from mael, meaning “bald” or “tonsured,” and a diminutive or personal-name element -dán. In older surname scholarship, this was often taken to mean “bald one” or “monk, disciple,” reflecting the common early Irish use of mael in religious names. The surname Mallon is therefore usually treated as an Anglicized Irish form of an older Gaelic personal name.
History
The surname is long established in Ireland and appears in medieval records in forms such as Mallon and Mallan. Later English-language surname dictionaries also grouped Mallon with Irish names beginning with Mael-, and it has remained especially associated with Ireland and the Irish diaspora. In modern use it is a fairly common Irish surname in English spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books sometimes glossed the root mael very literally as “bald,” but in many Irish names it also carried the sense of a religious devotee or tonsured cleric.
From the historical record
“MALLAN 1 (Celt.) Bald; Monk, Disciple [Ir. MALLON \ Maeldn—mael + the dim. suff. -dn\ MALLIN " MALLARD (Fr.-Teut.) i a nickname from the Wild Drake [M.E. O.Fr. malard, malart, a wild drake] 2 the French Ma{i)llard, L.Lat. Male- hard-us, O.Ger. Madelhard = Speech- or Council- Strong [the Cont.Teut. cognate”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Mallon
- Mary Mallon (1869–1938)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.