Rego History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
Ireland

Etymology of Rego

What does the name Rego mean?

Irish surnames are linked to the long Gaelic heritage of the Island nation. The original Gaelic form of the name Rego is Ó Riagain. In County Waterford, the Gaelic form Ó Reagain is used.

Early Origins of the Rego family

The surname Rego was first found in County Meath (Irish: An Mhí) anciently part of the kingdom of Brega, located in Eastern Ireland, in the province of Leinster, where they held a family seat from very ancient times.

One of the oldest records of the family was Morice Regan (fl. 1171), an Irish interpreter. He is stated in an old French poem, of which the only text begins 'Par soen demeine latimer.' He is thought to have acted as an interpreter and herald, or envoy in the service of Diarmaid MacMurchada, King of Leinster. 1

Early History of the Rego family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Rego research. Another 137 words (10 lines of text) covering the year 1172 is included under the topic Early Rego History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Rego Spelling Variations

Official documents, crafted by early scribes and church officials, primarily contained names that were spelled according to their pronunciation. This lead to the problem of one name being recorded under several different variations, creating an illusion that a single person was many people. Among the many spelling variations of the surname Rego that are preserved in the archival documents of the time are Reagan, Regan, O'Regan, O'Reagan and others.

Early Notables of the Rego family

More information is included under the topic Early Rego Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Rego Ranking

In the United States, the name Rego is the 6,583^rd most popular surname with an estimated 4,974 people with that name. 2

Rego migration to the United States +

In the 18th and 19th centuries hundreds of thousands of Irish people immigrated to North American shores. The early settlers were enticed by the promise of their own land, but they were moderately well off in Ireland when they decided to emigrate. Therefore, they were merely carrying out a long and carefully thought out decision. The 1840s saw the emergence of a very different trend: thousands of extremely desperate people crammed into passenger boats hoping to find any type of opportunity. The Irish of this decade had seen their homeland severely stricken by crop failures which resulted in widespread disease and starvation. At whatever time the Irish immigrants came to North America, they were instrumental in the rapid development of the emerging nations of the United States and what would become known as Canada. An exhaustive search of passenger and immigration lists has revealed many persons bearing the name Rego, or one of its variants:

Rego Settlers in United States in the 19th Century

G Rego, aged 39, who landed in Alabama in 1858 3
Miss Jose do Rego, aged 15, Portuguese laborer who arrived in New York aboard the ship "Vega" in 1892

Contemporary Notables of the name Rego (post 1700) +

Kelly Rego, American Libertarian politician, Candidate for U.S. Representative from California 11th District, 1996 4
Gilbert Blaize Rego (1921-2012), Indian Prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
Vicente do Rego Monteiro (1899-1970), Brazilian painter
Dame Paula Rego DBE (b. 1935), Portuguese visual artist
Luís do Rego Barreto (1777-1840), Viscount Geraz Lima, known as General Luis Rego, Portuguese military officer and colonial administrator who distinguished himself in the fight against the French invasion
José Lins do Rego Cavalcanti (b. 1901), Brazilian novelist
Emanuel Fernando Sheffer Rego (b. 1973), Brazilian six-time gold medalist beach volleyball player

Sources +

Smith, George (ed), Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885-1900. Print
"What are the 5,000 Most Common Last Names in the U.S.?". NameCensus.com, https://namecensus.com/last-names/
Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)
The Political Graveyard: Alphabetical Name Index. (Retrieved 2015, October 8) . Retrieved from http://politicalgraveyard.com/alpha/index.html