Explore the Family Name Hallahan

The meaning of Hallahan

Irish (Cork and Waterford): Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hÁilleacháin ‘descendant of Áilleachán’, a personal name from a diminutive of áille ‘beauty’. This Cork surname is sometimes confused with Halligan, an Ulster surname.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Hallahan in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname Hallahan witnessed a slight dip in popularity between 2000 and 2010. The rank of the surname dropped from 19,991 to 21,157, indicating a decrease of about 5.83 percent. In terms of count, the number of individuals with the Hallahan surname also saw a marginal decrease from 1,242 in 2000 to 1,241 in 2010. As a result, the proportion of the Hallahan surname per 100k people declined by 8.7 percent during this decade.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#19,991	#21,157	-5.83%
Count	1,242	1,241	-0.08%
Proportion per 100k	0.46	0.42	-8.7%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Hallahan

The ethnicity distribution for the Hallahan surname shows some interesting changes according to the Decennial U.S. Census data. While the vast majority of people with this surname identified as White in both 2000 and 2010 (96.70% and 96.54% respectively), there was a notable increase in those identifying as Hispanic, rising by 55.86 percent to reach 2.26 percent. However, the proportion of people identifying as Asian/Pacific Islander or Black with this surname dropped to zero. The counts for those identifying as American Indian and Alaskan Native remained constant at zero, while the group identifying as Two or more races saw a small increase of 1.39 percent.

	2000	2010	Change
White	96.7%	96.54%	-0.17%
Hispanic	1.45%	2.26%	55.86%
Two or More Races	0.72%	0.73%	1.39%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0.56%	0%	0%
Black	0.56%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%