Brandon

Brandon is generally considered an Irish name, from the Old Irish Bréanainn which apparently was ultimately derived from an ancient Welsh (Celtic/Brythonic) word “brenhin” said to mean “king” or “prince”. The name has since been anglicized to either BRAN-den or BREN-den. There are several Irish saints bearing this name but none so famous as Bréanainn of Clonfert, also known as Brendan the Navigator, who is considered one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Tradition holds that Bréanainn was born in the late 5th century in present-day County Kerry (near Tralee). The Diocese of Kerry (of which Brendon is the patron saint) claims that “he was originally to be called Mobhí but signs and portents attending his birth and baptism by Bishop Erc led him to be baptized Broen-finn or 'fair-drop'”. The child was raised by the most prominent of Christian tutors and eventually became a monk, establishing monastery after monastery on his voyages around Ireland. Finally, a vision led him, accompanied by 14 monks, on a seven-year seafaring quest to find Paradise (i.e., the Isle of the Blessed). Several documents written in both Irish and Latin survive to tell St. Brendon the Navigator’s fantastical tale (the first appearing in the 9th century, three hundred years after the purported events took place). The journey became legendary throughout medieval Europe and Brendon enjoyed a cult following for centuries after his death. While largely considered a religious allegory, there are several scholars who believe the events described actually took place and that St. Brendan the Navigator was the very first European to cross the Atlantic and reach North America (about 400 years before Erik the Red landed on Greenland, 450 years before Leif Ericsson landed on Canada, and nearly 1,000 years before Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America). If true, that would be quite a feather in the Irish cap. Aside from Brandon’s connection to the Old Irish Bréanainn (St. Brendan), the name is also considered the transferred use of an English surname, from the Old Anglo-Saxon elements “brōm” (broom or spiny bush) and “dūn” (hill).