Wade
An Irish surname of Dublin. In the 2010 US census it was carried by 97,040 people, the 319th most common surname in the country.
Wade is the anglicised form of two distinct Irish names. Some you can hear in the English name; others look and sound nothing like it, and were simply swapped for it.
Mac Meadhachain. This family stood in Co. Mayo.
Uada, son of Wada (a common Anglo-Saxon personal name). This family stood in Co. Dublin.
Where the name comes from
Mac Meadhachain is probably an attempted translation of the English surname Wade. It was in use in Mayo, but it was rare.
The name is on record in Dublin early: Thomas Wade was one of the free citizens of Dublin between 1225 and 1250.
Dublin, photographed
Photographs made in Dublin.
Dublin
Dublin is a county as well as a city. The bay has Howth at the north end and Killiney Hill at the south, the Muglins are a pair of rocks off Dalkey, and the Dublin Mountains start about half an hour from the city centre.
About this page
The counties on this page are where the name was thickest on the ground in Ireland a century and a half ago, not a claim about any one family. Names moved around inside the country as much as they left it. The photographs are mine, made in the counties named.
More Irish surnames: Kelly
How common the name was
In 1890, 30 births were registered under Wade in Ireland, most of them in Dublin.
| Leinster | 17 | 57% |
|---|---|---|
| Ulster | 7 | 23% |
| Munster | 6 | 20% |
| Connacht | no figure printed | |
| Ireland | 30 |