Tag Archives: same names

Part of the Duggan Clan? Your Family History, Explained

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The last name “Duggan” is one of the 3,000 or so most popular surnames in the United States. That doesn’t sound very popular, but the U.S. is a big place, which means there are about 10,000 Americans — give or take — with this particular surname.

Add in variations on “Duggan” — Dugan, Dougan, Douggan, and O’Duggan, among others — and you’ve got thousands more people with similar names.

Duggans Around the World

Elsewhere in the English-speaking world, the last name “Duggan” is even more popular. It’s estimated that more than 6,000 Australians share this last name, far more on a population-adjusted basis than the United States. Among all Australian last names, Duggan is around the 600th most popular.

Duggan is nearly as popular in tiny New Zealand, where about 1,000 Kiwis share the name. The United Kingdom has nearly 10,000 Duggans, many of whom live in Northern Ireland. Other countries have smaller shares of Duggans, but hey — every person counts.

Linguistic Origins of the Duggan Family Name

Where did all those Duggans come from? The one-word answer is “Ireland,” but the full story is a bit more complicated.

The name “Duggan” is a derivative of the old Gaelic name “O Dubhaigan.” Unlike some common Irish names, the exact meaning of “O Dubhaigan” has been lost to the mists of time — we know that “dubh” means “black” in Irish, but we aren’t sure what the rest of the word means. It’s possible that it’s a modification of an earlier name, possibly in an archaic form of Gaelic or even a predecessor tongue.

Further complicating the linguistic history of the Duggan clan is the fact that there’s no evidence of standardized spelling for the name (or any Irish name) before the 19th century. Families passed the name down, of course, but poor recordkeeping meant that local officials simply recorded the name as they heard it — leading not only to the various spellings that persist today but to more “out there” early spellings like “Dewgan,” “Deegan,” and “Deugan.”

Early History of the Duggan Clan

People with the last name O Dubhaigan (Duggan) have lived in Ireland since at least the 14th century.

The first records come out of County Clare, in the west of Ireland. There, the name was associated with local royalty, and apparently the bloodline was traceable from Fergus the Great — one of the most important chieftains of medieval Ireland. The family name was also associated with King Ir, who ruled over parts of Counties Tipperary, Waterford, and Cork.

An apparently separate origin for the name Duggan — though it’s more likely that poor recordkeeping obscures the relation — occurs on the eastern part of the island, in counties Clare and Roscommon. The Duggans in this part of Ireland were notable enough to secure “naming rights” for the town of Ballyduggan, in the Loghrea area.

The Duggan Diaspora: Movin’ on Out (of Ireland)

Along with millions of other people from Ireland and northern Europe, members of the extended Duggan family sought greener pastures elsewhere in the English-speaking world beginning in the early 19th century. By this time, the Duggan name was common not only in Ireland but in Scotland and England too; many who landed in North America or Down Under came from somewhere other than Ireland.

Irish migration in particular was spurred by the Great Potato Famine, which devastated the island’s agricultural economy and put countless families on the brink of starvation. Many felt they had no choice but to leave for the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. 

People named Duggan turned up outside the British Isles even before the potato famine. Local records show an Eliz Duggan living in Virginia from about 1705 and a Catherine Duggan living in Philadelphia from about 1745, for example.

But the famine saw a surge of new arrivals, especially in North America, where nearly 250,000 Irish immigrants arrived in 1847 alone. Duggans who turned up in North America around this time include Helen, Denis, and Ellen, all of whom first appear in New York-area records in 1850.

North of the border, Duggans had established a foothold in the Canadian Maritimes by 1830, perhaps because of the relatively short distance to Ireland and the region’s cultural affinity with the British Isles (“Nova Scotia” is latin for “New Scotland,” after all). We have records of a John, Patrick, Timothy, and James Duggan arriving in Nova Scotia between 1810 and 1830, for example.

Down under, Australia and New Zealand saw considerable Duggan migration during the first half of the 19th century as well. In keeping with its reputation as a penal colony, Australia welcomed several Duggans convicted of property crimes in England: a Walter Duggan, a Margaret Duggan, and a William Duggan, all of whom were permanently banished to Australia between 1800 and 1840. Walter settled in remote Tasmania, while Margaret and William took up residence in New South Wales, near Sydney.

Across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand, newly arrived Duggans were free as soon as they touched dry land. Though a relative trickle — New Zealand’s non-Maori population remained low during the 19th century — these Duggans were important to the island’s economic development. Many were farmers or merchants who came to seek opportunity; several came from Australia, whose coastal cities were increasingly crowded by the 1850s.

Duggans Throughout History

Most historical Duggans lived in relative obscurity — working, raising families, and passing on without much fanfare. But a few rose to professional prominence or fame in their own day; others had a front-row seat to major historical events (sometimes with tragic results).

One of the most professionally renowned Duggans was Dr. David Duggan, one of the first medical providers in Newfoundland.

Other Duggans were notable for surviving deadly shipwrecks, including the Lusitania (which was torpedoed during World War I) and the Empress of Ireland.

Some others weren’t so lucky. Several Duggans died in the great Halifax Explosion of 1917, when an explosives-laden ship caught fire and exploded in the Canadian city’s harbor. This was the largest manmade explosion to date — the equivalent of a 3-kiloton nuclear bomb.

Chris Duggan is a Footballer?

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Chris Duggan is a footballer (that’s soccer player for the Americans in the audience) of Scottish and Australian extraction. Born in Perth, Western Australia, he began his playing career at Queen’s Park, in Glasgow, before moving to Hamilton Academical, in South Lanarkshire. After a brief stint playing in the United States, he returned to Scotland and notched an impressive showing at Irvine Meadow. His adult professional career formally began in 2013; he played for Partick Thistle for three years (much of it spent on loan to other clubs) and then bounced around a bit before landing at East Fife in 2019.

Christopher Duggan – Happy to Assist Clients!

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Christopher R. Duggan is a senior attorney in Dorsey’s Tax Group, where he advises clients on strategies to minimize exposure to sales and use, business and occupation, state and local income, and excise taxes. Mr. Duggan’s clients include international retailers and e-commerce companies that do business in hundreds of separate tax jurisdictions. It’s a complicated business, but someone has to do it!

Christopher R. Duggan is also a pro when it comes to federal tax issues, including credits like the New Markets Tax Credit. And he’s only too happy to assist clients with audits, appeals, and matters related to Section 1031 exchanges.

Stay Safe, Chris Duggan!

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Chris Duggan has one of the more exciting — and dangerous — jobs in our clan. He’s a bona fide Hollywood stuntman who appears to specialize in slam-bang action work. Major film credits include Get Carter (2000), Dreamcatcher (2003) and First Wave (1998), according to his IMDB page, but he’s busier than that limited filmography lets on. Mr. Duggan wasn’t available to comment on what the life of a professional stuntperson actually involves, but we can safely assume that it’s far more exciting than whatever you or I happen to do for a living. To our man in Hollywood, we say: Stay safe, Mr. Duggan!

Chris Duggan – British Illustrator and Portraitist

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Chris Duggan is a British illustrator and portraitist whose works have appeared in numerous publications over the decades: Punch, Vogue, Time Out, The Financial Times, The European, and more. Full-length books to his credit include “Conned!( a History of Scams, 

Frauds and Scandals)” and “Hic! The Entire History of Wine” — which sounds like a delightful, intoxicating read, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Mr. Duggan’s work is apparently impressive enough to earn notice from some of Britain’s most prestigious cultural institutions. His illustrations, according to his website, have been featured in the collections of the Bank of England Museum, the Cartoon Museum, and the British Cartoon Archive, among others.

Your Initials Are More Popular Than You Think: 6 Notable People With the Initials “K.D.”

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We don’t know much about you, fellow reader. That’s the beauty of the Internet — it’s basically anonymous. 

However, there’s one bit of information we can fairly surmise about many of the visitors to this website: Their initials begin with “K” and end with “D.”  Maybe your name is Kris Duggan? Or Katherine Doherty? Or Kip Dillon? We have no idea.

But if you are indeed a “K.D.,” you’re in surprisingly good company. These six notable people, some of whom are quite famous entirely on their own, also share those initials.

Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant is a legendary American basketball player. Long part of the almost-champions Oklahoma City Thunder squad, he’s now an integral piece of the Golden State Warriors superteam. Born in Washington, D.C., and blessed with an outrageous vertical matched only by an even more outrageous reach, “K.D.” is already a lock for the basketball hall of fame.

Kevin Duckworth

Kevin Duckworth was another basketball-playing K.D. of an earlier generation. Sadly, he left us far too soon, dying at age 44 of complications of heart failure. His career was largely spent with the Portland Trail Blazers, and though he never ascended to the heights of contemporaries like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, he left behind a respectable basketball legacy. After retiring, he remained in Portland and did extensive charitable work in his adopted hometown.

Karen Duffy

Karen Duffy is an American actress whose turn as one of People Magazine’s “most beautiful people” (1993) was just the opening act in an illustrious career that was just as notable for what Duffy accomplished off-screen as on-. A certified hospital chaplain and sufferer of a rare, painful disease, she’s a prominent advocate for chronic pain patients.

Kitty Dukakis

Katherine “Kitty” Dukakis is the former first lady of Massachusetts and wife of former Massachusetts governor (and unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate) Michael Dukakis. Dukakis has long been a prominent advocate for those suffering from substance abuse disorder and other mental health issues.

Kim Deal

A key member of groundbreaking act Pixies and a founding member of the Breeders, Kim Deal was among the most prominent women in the U.S. alternative rock scene of the 1980s and 1990s. Fun fact: Kim Deal has a twin sister named Kelley — another member of the K.D. clan.

Kirk Douglas

Last but not least, a posthumous mention for legendary actor Kirk Douglas of Spartacus fame. Douglas appeared in dozens of critically acclaimed films over the course of eight or nine decades in show business (depends how you count “decades”) and remained in public life almost until his death in early 2020 at the remarkable age of 103. Like some of the other K.D.s on this list, Douglas used a pseudonym; the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, his birth name was Issur Danielovitch. 

That’s it — 10 of the best-known K.D.s around today. Is your favorite K.D. on the list, or did we miss an important name?

The Destiny in Our Names — A Retrospective

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In 2008, The New York Times’ Stephanie Rosenbloom wrote a moving piece about the long-distance bonds forged by people sharing the same first and last names. Among other examples, Rosenbloom mentions:

  • The writer Angela Shelton, whose 2008 book “Finding Angela Shelton” chronicles Shelton’s encounters with 40 other Angela Sheltons.
  • The illustrator Keri Smith, who had completed six drawings of people with her exact name when Rosenbloom went to press. 
  • The pediatric oncologist Sam Blackman, who kept close tabs on fellow Sam Blackmans through periodic Google searches.
  • A huge cohort Mohammed Hassans seeking to break the world record for the largest gathering of individuals with the same name. (The article does not disclose whether their endeavor was successful.)

Rosenbloom describes these efforts and encounters with a whimsical flourish, but the thrust of her article is much more serious and thought provoking. Namely: Do our very names influence the paths we take through life? This question is particularly relevant for the Kris Duggans reading this — those who’ve found their way here for reasons they can’t fully explain.

More Than a Familiar Combination of Characters

For those not predisposed to superstition, this question feels decidedly off-the-wall. But Rosenbloom cites a number of contemporary data points suggesting that, indeed, our names do have some real-world effects — both tangible and psychological.

One of the bases for these effects may be the name-letter effect theory, which Rosenbloom describes as “maintain[ing] that people like the letters in their own names (particularly their initials) better than other letters of the alphabet.”

Recent evidence for the name-letter effect is compelling. 

For instance: Data culled from public records indicates that people with surnames beginning with “B” were more likely to contribute to candidate George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election, while people with surnames beginning with “G” were more likely to contribute to candidate Albert Gore. To be clear, there is no indication that people bearing “B” surnames are more likely to vote Republican than people whose last names begin with “G”.

There’s more. According to Rosenbloom, studies led by research psychologist Dr. Brett Pelham found that:

  • “Johnsons are more likely to wed Johnsons,”
  • “[W]omen named Virginia are more likely to live in (and move to) Virginia,” and
  • “[P]eople whose surname is Lane tend to have addresses that include the word ‘lane,’ not ‘street.’”

No word yet on any research into the proclivities of those named Kris Duggan, but here’s to hoping it’s coming.

Comfort in Familiarity?

The name-letter effect also has strong circumstantial evidence behind it, too. 

Rosenbloom recounts the story of a Virginia-based graphic novel editor named Jason Rodriguez with a strong affinity — and perhaps a twinge of jealousy as well — for an identically named stuntman whose credits included “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Later, she tells the tale of Tim Connor, a photo editor who wrote that he “felt in some way I already knew” a fellow Tim Connor glimpsed in a photograph.

Is there a scientific basis for our attraction to those who share our names? We may never know for sure. But the prospect is sufficiently compelling to warrant further inquiry.

Have Your Say

Has your name (first, last, middle, or all three) affected your choices in life? Do you believe you’d be the same person if you had a different name?

Common Names Are Easy to Remember, But They Can Be Confusing Too

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We’ll leave it up to the jury to decide whether “Kris Duggan” counts as a common name. In its ancestral Ireland, that may be the case, but K. Duggan isn’t among the world’s most common first-last name combinations.

That’s okay. Fellow Kris Duggans are in good company, and plenty of it. They don’t need a surfeit of hangers-on.

Likelier than not, we’ve welcomed readers with names more common than Kris Duggan. Perhaps you’re among them. According to a 2014 study by Ancestry.com, the 10 most common name combinations in the United States featured just a handful of surnames. In order of popularity, they were:

  • James Smith
  • Michael Smith
  • Robert Smith
  • Maria Garcia
  • David Smith
  • Maria Rodriguez
  • Mary Smith
  • Maria Hernandez
  • Maria Martinez
  • James Johnson

It’s no surprise that “Smith” and “Rodriguez” are among the most common last names in the United States, nor that “James” and “Maria” are among the most common first. 

In other parts of the world, and in other times, the mix varies. Variations on “Mohammed” almost certainly comprise the most common male first name on the planet; “Fatima” is a very common female name. 

So, whether your name is James Smith or Maria Martinez or Fatima Hassan, you know better than any Kris Duggan what it’s like to exist in a very large cohort of identically named individuals.

It follows that you know how to stand out from that crowd — if that’s your preference. You’ve probably tried out one or two of these strategies:

 

  • Make a Subtle Change to the Name’s Spelling or Pronunciation: Change a letter, change the meaning. That’s the hope, anyway. Whether it works out that way is anyone’s guess. But going from “John” to “Johnny” is a start.
  • Go By a Less Common Middle Name: Your middle name most likely isn’t as common as your first. Adopt it as your “given” name and see how things feel. This is an especially potent tactic for those with “family” middle names borrowed from obscure, long-dead relatives with obscure, long-dead names.
  • Adopt a Nickname: It works for athletes and media personalities. Why wouldn’t it work for you, whoever you happen to be? Just make sure it’s a nickname that’s utterable in polite company.
  • Use Your Middle Initial (Or Two, If You’re So Fortunate): “Mary H. Johnson” is better than “Mary Johnson,” and “Mary H. T. Johnson” is better than both. 
  • Add a Suffix: Are you a “junior”? A “the third?” Insufferable as it may appear at first, you know what you must do to distinguish yourself once and for all.

 

What’s In a Name, Anyway?

These strategies could distinguish you from all the other Maria Garcias or James Johnsons in the world. But you don’t need them to distinguish your identity from theirs. 

To put it another way, you must never forget that you’re a unique individual, quite unlike anyone else who’s ever lived or ever will. Your name is just that — a name. It’s what you do that matters most.

Do you have a plain vanilla name? Or is your moniker more memorable than your neighbor’s?

You Share a Name With a Household Name. What’s to Be Done?

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If you’re reading this, fellow Kris Duggan, you know what it’s like to share a name in common. But what if your name-ganger (like doppelganger, but for names) happens to be someone more famous than yourself? 

Must you be consigned to a life lived in the shadow of a fairer, better-known person? Or is it within your abilities to turn this association to your advantage and embrace the awesome power of name recognition?

Our bets are on the latter. Here are some ideas to make the most of your name association with a celebrity name-ganger — past or present.

Get to Know Your Famous Name-ganger Better

Under ordinary circumstances, the person with whom you share a full name may not be someone to whom you’d pay any special attention. But these aren’t ordinary circumstances. 

Read up on your name-ganger; Wikipedia is a good start, but probably should not be your only resource. Learn more about their background, what they’re famous for, their lifestyle, and any extracurricular activities or causes for which they’re known.

Figure Out How Popular (And Likable) They Really Are

Tease out how popular this person really is. Not every famous person is equally well-liked or well-regarded. In certain domains, such as politics and sports, you’ll find characters that “enjoy” near-universal revulsion. 

Elsewhere, it’s just as common to find public figures with remarkably high “Q” scores — a key measure of personal likability used in show business. How well your name-ganger comes off is important to your treatment of the association.

Identify at Least One Thing You Do Better Than Them

Next, turn the tables on your name-ganger by identifying at least one thing you do better than them and emphasizing this difference in your personal branding. Since you’re unlikely to work in the same profession as your name-ganger, this could be as easy as calling yourself a better lawyer or nurse or economist than whatever start of the screen or page or stage you happen to share a name with.

Call Them Out by Name, But Know Where the Line Lies

While we’ve thus far assumed that it’s best to lean into your name association with a particular famous person, it’s important not to take things too far. You don’t want a good-natured running joke to turn into fodder for a lawsuit. Above all else, be respectful of your name-ganger’s privacy and humanity, just as you’d prefer them to be of yours.

Keep Your Head Up — It’s Yours, After All

In the end, you are your own Kris Duggan (or whatever your name happens to be). No one can take that away from you, not even the far more famous person with whom you happen to share a first and last name.

The last thing you want to do is permit an inferiority complex to take root. Sure, you might never be as well-known as your name-ganger, but you still have much to be proud of. Name recognition isn’t the only measure of personal or professional success.

So, while it’s perfectly acceptable to lean into your celebrity association, you should resist allowing that association to define you. There’s so much more to your story than a mere accident of birth.

Do you share a name with a famous person? How do you handle the burden?

Honorary Kris Duggan

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Kenuric Duggan (Kris Robson (Duggan))

Mr. Kenuric Duggan is an “honorary” Kris Duggan — his family name is actually Robson. Mr. Duggan/Robson hails from the Lansing, Michigan, area, and works in the healthcare industry.

This honorary Kris Duggan’s real passion, however, is history. An avid Renaissance Faire participant, he’s become quite good at medieval sword fighting — with full regalia and armor, in case you’re wondering. Despite his home region’s harsh winters, he practices outdoors year-round. Concerned friends and family members needn’t worry — it’s all in good fun, assures Mr. Duggan/Robson. Here’s hoping it stays that way!