HISTORY OF THE OWEN NAME 

Description: OWEN, OWENS 

Motto: SEMPER EADEM 

Translation: Ever Constant 

"Eoghan" pronounced "Owen" is a very ancient Gaelic personal name. It means "well-born". In olden days it was commonly given to the sons of chieftains. Thus, for example we find an early genealogical record tracing the ancestry of a group of families back to Eoghan Mor, a son of Oilioll Olum, a famous Munster king of the second century. This group of clans was known as Eoghanachts, "descendants of Eoghan", and from among their chieftains the Kings of Munster were for many centuries regularly chosen.

 When the name, Eoghan, came to be used as a surname, it appeared with the prefix "Mac" or "O". The "Mac" group has come down to us in its commonest forms as "McOwen" and McKeown: while the "O" group is Anglicized simply as Owen and Owens. 

Most "Owens" families of Irish origin trace their ancestry to two clans: the one, a Dalcassian tribe of the same stock as the O'Neills of Thomond; the other, a distinguished family whose home was in County Fermanagh where they were noted administrators of ecclesiastical lands in the vicinity of Lough Erne. Descendants of this clan are still numerous in Ulster. Today, however, the name Owens is fairly widespread throughout Ireland as it is also here in the United States.