Often in a locality there would be so many persons of a given surname that a secondary name was added to distinguish one family from another. The names CRONICANE and CRONAKANE are said to be O'Driscolls in Sherkin Island. Riobard O'Dwyer's series of books Who Were my Ancestors? connects the name MINHANE with the O'Driscoll on the Beara Peninsula.

According to Nora M. Keohane Hickey the following are such secondary names for the surname O'DRISCOLL or more properly agnomina:

BOHANE, CADOGAN, COFFEY, HOOLEY, KERUKAN, WHOOLEY

She also points out that BOHANE may also refer to an O'SULLIVAN. LORDAN, HOURIHANE, GRAHAN, MONGAIN, MANNING AND CORCORAN are all said to be agnomina for O'BRIEN in the Barryroe area. If you dig deeper into the subject you will discover that many of these are adjectives such as RUA for red hair persons or BAWN for white haired persons. These names in some instances have evolved into ROE and BOHN respectively. Their use as an angomen for any given surname seems as likely to apply to one as another when one considers all of Cork but its use is likely to be unique when applied locally for otherwise it would introduce just more confusion and defeat its purpose.

All this complicates our genealogy for in many vital records the entry might appear via the surname, via the agnomen or the two in concert. The extracted records below are for names said to be agnomina for Driscoll but it is not known if any of them in these records are in fact such an example. They are presented here in part for their stand alone value but also in hopes that someone can identify any of the individuals presented and state whether or not the surname is a name in its own right or an agnomen.

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