Gibbons — Son of Gilbert

Gibbons comes from Mac Giobúin, ‘son of Gilbert’ — a branch of the Burke (de Burgh) family in County Mayo who took their name not from their Norman surname but from one ancestor's first name, Gilbert, in the same pattern as Costello and Redmond.

A name that dropped an entire Norman surname and kept only a first name — proof of how far some Norman families let themselves be renamed by Irish habit.

Irish form: Mac Giobúin