Quote Originally Posted by slohairt View Post
Dia Dhuit, A Bill!

Holland: Yes, Holland is Irish. It also has nothing to do with the Netherlands!
It is an anglicisation of Ó hAoláin (OH HAIL-AWN) meaning "descended from Aolán." Aolán is a corruption of Faolán which means "little wolf" and would denote someone who is cunning. Occasionally it was anglicised as (O')Whelan, though this particular anglicisation usually refers to the name Ó Faoláin.

Other anglicisations include: O'He(a)lane, O'Hayllane, O'Hil(l)ane, O'Hylane, O'Heolane, O'Hoolan, O'Holane, O'Hollan(d), Heelan, Helen, Hillan(e), Holan, H(e)yland, Hiland, and Holand.
If you are of British descent and named Holland, it is far more likely that your patrilineal ancestors are of English origin than Irish. It is a surname of place name origin, likely from one of 3 location there in Essex, Lincolnshire and Lancashire. In 1881 most Hollands were in the English midlands. http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLn...y=GB&type=name

If you really want to know who your ancestors actually were, rather than who you would prefer them to have been, there really is no substitute for the laborious process of tracing them backward in time, one generation at a time, as did my Holland cousins.