Paul Irish Surname: History, Origins & Heritage of an Ulster Family

August 25, 2026

Paul family crest woven blanket with Irish national tartan

Tucked into a slim 1923 pamphlet titled Some Anglicised Surnames in Ireland is a single line most readers would skim past without noticing: Paul, in Scotland and the northeastern parts of Ulster, is listed as the anglicized form of Mac Phóil. A few entries later, the same surname turns up again, tied this time to a second and entirely unrelated Gaelic name, Ó Maolfábhail, from the Inishowen side of County Donegal. That small reference work, still cited by Irish genealogists a century after it was printed, is where the documented history of the Paul surname in Ireland actually starts — not with a heraldic legend, but with two separate families whose Gaelic names were folded into an English-looking surname that few people today would guess is Irish at all.

Quick answer: The Paul surname in Ireland has no single origin. Genealogical sources document it as the Ulster anglicization of two distinct Gaelic septs, Mac Phóil and Ó Maolfábhail, concentrated in Donegal, Derry, Antrim, and Down, and separately as a straightforward English or Scottish personal-name surname carried in by settlers. No Irish genealogical source documents a Huguenot origin for the Paul name, despite the name sometimes being lumped in with other French Protestant refugee surnames.

Where Does the Paul Surname Come From?

On its own, "Paul" is one of the oldest personal names in the Christian world, from the Latin Paulus, meaning small, and carried by the Apostle Paul. Rev. Patrick Woulfe's 1923 dictionary Irish Names and Surnames records the Irish form as Pól, genitive Póil, and notes plainly that it was "never a common name in Ireland." That matters for anyone researching the surname: unlike in England, where Paul became a common surname simply because the given name was common, an Irish family named Paul is rarely descended from an Irish ancestor who was baptized Pól.

Instead, the surname almost always arrived in Ireland already formed, through one of two separate paths documented by Irish surname scholars.

How and When Did the Paul Name Reach Ireland?

The first path is Gaelic. Mac Phóil, "son of Paul," was established in Scotland and crossed into the northeastern corner of Ulster, where it was anglicized in different households as Paul, McFall, and McFaul. This is the same broad naming pattern behind many surnames that carry the Mac or Mc prefix in one generation and lose it in the next, a pattern explained in more detail in our guide to what the O and Mc/Mac prefixes mean in Irish surnames.

The second Gaelic path is older and unrelated to the first. Ó Maolfábhail, meaning descendant of Maolfábhail, belonged to a Cinél Eoghain sept seated around Carrickbrachy in Inishowen, County Donegal. The Annals of Ulster record the death of Maelfabhaill mac Loingsig, lord of Carraig Brachaighe, around 878 or 881, placing the family's eponymous ancestor in the ninth century. A separate, larger branch of the same root name settled in west Connacht, mainly County Mayo, where it was anglicized almost universally as Lavelle rather than Paul. In Ulster, by contrast, the recorded anglicized forms include Mulfall, MacFall, MacPaul, and Paul, which is why the Donegal and Mayo branches of one original Gaelic surname now look like entirely different family names on paper.

The third path has nothing to do with Gaelic Ireland. English and Scottish settlers who carried Paul as an ordinary baptismal-name surname arrived in the same northern counties during the Ulster Plantation of the early 1600s, adding a non-Gaelic line of Paul families to a region that already had two Gaelic ones.

Where in Ireland Did Paul Families Settle?

Every documented source ties the Paul surname to Ulster, principally Donegal, Derry, Antrim, and Down, rather than to any county farther south. The Inishowen peninsula in Donegal carries the oldest documented association, through the Ó Maolfábhail sept's territory around Carrickbrachy, while Antrim and Down reflect the later, Scottish-influenced Mac Phóil forms. For a family researching exactly which townland a Paul ancestor came from, nineteenth-century land records such as Griffith's Valuation are the standard starting point, and the process for using them is covered in our guide to finding your Irish family name and county of origin.

Why Are There Two Different Paul Families in Ireland?

This is the detail that makes the Paul surname genuinely unusual, and it is specific to this name rather than a general feature of Irish surnames. Two Paul households in the same Ulster parish in the nineteenth century could easily have no shared ancestor at all. One might descend from the Gaelic Ó Maolfábhail line of Inishowen, another from the Scottish Mac Phóil line of Antrim, and a third from an English or Scottish settler family who simply happened to be named Paul. All three would appear identically in a parish register or a Griffith's Valuation entry, with nothing in the written record to separate them. That is worth knowing before assuming every Paul family shares one origin story.

Families researching this heritage today, whichever branch they descend from, often want something tangible to mark it. Our Paul family crest woven blanket sets the name against the Irish national tartan, our Paul family crest accent mug is a smaller everyday version of the same design, and our Paul family crest garden flag puts the name on display outdoors.

The Paul name lives on in more than just the historical record. Our Paul Irish Family Gifts & Heritage collection features mugs, garden flags, woven blankets, and more carrying the Paul surname crest.

Where Do Paul Families Live Today?

The Paul surname is still recorded most heavily in its historical home ground of Ulster, split across Northern Ireland and the Republic's border counties, but Ulster was also the epicenter of Ireland's heaviest eighteenth- and nineteenth-century emigration. Families from any of the three Paul lines left in large numbers for North America, Britain, and Australia, and the surname today is common in all three without being unusually concentrated in any one country. Because the name reads as thoroughly English on the page, many Irish-descended Paul families outside Ireland are unaware of the Ulster surname history behind it.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Paul Name

Is Paul an Irish or an English surname?

Both, depending on the family. Sources document Paul as an Ulster anglicization of the Gaelic surnames Mac Phóil and Ó Maolfábhail, and separately as an ordinary English and Scottish surname brought in by settlers. The written record alone cannot say which applies to a given family without further parish and land research.

What does the surname Paul actually mean?

As a personal name, Paul comes from the Latin Paulus, meaning small. As an Irish surname, its meaning depends on which Gaelic name it anglicizes: Mac Phóil means son of Paul, while Ó Maolfábhail means descendant of Maolfábhail, a personal name usually explained as fond of travel or movement.

Is there a Paul family crest?

Family crest designs linked to the Paul name are generally tied to its English and Scottish branches rather than to the Gaelic Ó Maolfábhail or Mac Phóil septs, which did not use the same heraldic tradition. Anyone researching a specific crest should confirm which branch of the Paul name their family descends from first.

Was Paul a Huguenot name in Ireland?

No documented evidence supports this. Standard reference lists of Huguenot surnames recorded in Ireland, including the cemetery and church records compiled by Robert Matheson, do not include Paul among them. The name is occasionally grouped informally with French Protestant refugee families, but no Irish genealogical source backs that connection.

Are all Paul families in Ireland related to each other?

No. The surname documents two separate Gaelic septs and at least one unrelated settler line, all converging on the same spelling, so two Paul families from the same county can have entirely different ancestries. Tracing a specific line requires parish records, land valuation records, or DNA evidence rather than the surname alone.