Malone surname meaning

Malone is an Irish patronymic usually anglicized from Ó Maol Eoin, “descendant of the devotee of John.” Maol was used in Gaelic personal names with the sense of a devotee or tonsured servant, while Eoin is the Gaelic form of John. The phrase became a hereditary surname through English-language recording and later spelling simplification. O’Malone, Maloon, and related forms can appear in historical records, but they do not establish one modern branch on their own. Parent’s name is the high-confidence catalog type because the Ó construction explicitly records descent from a named ancestor.