This year's Bergenfield St. Patrick's Day parade — music, magic, and some grand old names

"A name that a shame never has been connected with."

That's Harrigan — according to the old George M. Cohan song. Though it might just as easily be Murphy, Kelly, O'Brien, Ryan, Byrne, O'Connor, Walsh, O'Sullivan, McCarthy, Doyle — the 10 most common Irish surnames, according to IrishCentral.

Names — no less than music, poetry, shamrocks and soda bread — are part of the Irish legacy in this country. And rest assured that those names will be well represented at the 42nd Annual Bergen County St. Patrick's Day Parade, kicking off 2 p.m. on Sunday March 10 in Bergenfield, hosted by the city's Council of Irish Associations of Greater Bergen County.

"You just run into so many people growing up named Murphy," said Brian Murphy, one of this year's parade marshals. "Everyone would always ask me if I was related to this Murphy, or that."

This year, once again, the parade will launch 2 p.m. from South Washington Avenue and East Englewood Avenue in Bergenfield.

This year, again, it will travel north up Washington Avenue for one mile, ending up at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church. (You can watch the parade in person, or live on northjersey.com/watchparade, where we will livestream it. There's also a QR code with this story that will take you right to the video).

And as always, the fun and music will continue afterwards at Tommy Fox's Public House on South Washington Avenue.

Once again, you'll see green derbies, green bowties, green beer, green hair, green costumed leprechauns, green-accessorized dogs and babies.

Once again, there will be vintage cars ahh-OOO-gah-ing down the street, courtesy of Restored Rusty Relics Antique Auto Club.

Once again there will be the grand old tunes — "Garryowen," "Dawning of the Day," "The Minstrel Boy" — played by the grand old masters: the Bergenfield High School Marching Band, The New Milford High School Marching Knights, The River Dell Marching Band, The Dumont High School Marching Band, Rockland County Firefighters Pipes and Drums, Tri-County Irish War Pipe Band, Bergen County Firefighters Pipe Band, Clan Na Vale, Fusion Core, Police Pipes and Drums of Bergen County, The Bergen Irish Pipe Band, and Ninemile House.

Once again, newcomers will mingle with the old lineup: The Academy of the Holy Angels Gaelic society from Demarest, and the Ramapo Saints Youth Hockey Club. And leading the parade, a brand new set of grand marshals: Sally and John Roche of Bogota.

And once again, there will be the names. Always, the names.

Storied names

Irish names have history, tradition, and pride — above all, pride — connected with them. They are names of places, names of saints, sometimes transliterations of Gaelic words with specific associations.

O'Connor, for instance. From the Gaelic "ó Conchobhair" — "descendant of Conchobhar," meaning "lover of hounds." An important Irish clan.

"There's a great sense of pride, definitely, around our name," said Maureen O'Connor of Clifton, who wouldn't dream of missing the Bergenfield parade this year (for one thing, her brother James — a Cullen — is a volunteer helping to organize).

"We had a shield in our house, a family crest, with the name O'Connor, and where it came from," she said. "My father was very proud of being an O'Connor."

The O'Connor roll of honor is an illustrious one. From Sinéad to Flannery to Donald to Sandra Day, the list is long. That's the one drawback to any popular surname. You have to share.

"There are a lot of O'Connors," she said. "There used to be a Facebook page just for Maureen O'Connors. There were a couple of hundred women on the page."

O'Connor is a common name in Galway, where her father Morgan was from — though it's even more associated with County Kerry, she said. "There were a lot of O'Connors where he was from," she said. She herself married an O'Riordan, and her two children, Bridget and Owen, dropped the "O." They are Riordans.

But what's one O'Connor, more or less — when the county is swimming in them?

"There was another Maureen O'Connor growing up in Dumont, and she was a year younger than me," she recalled. "She only lived a couple of blocks away from me. She was a very bright student. One day I came home to some mail that was for 'Maureen O'Connor.' Two of the letters were almost full scholarships — one to Seton Hall, and I forget what the other school was. I had to go to the high school and tell them they had the wrong Maureen O'Connor."

And her sister didn't have it any better.

Her name was Eileen O'Connor. The other Maureen O'Connor also had a sister named Eileen O'Connor.

Kith and kin

It all comes with the territory — especially in this part of Bergen County.

"In Bergenfield, Dumont, New Milford there's always been a big Irish population," O'Connor said.

Which means there are also a lot of Murphys.

The name has its roots in the Gaelic "ó Murchadha." That's "descendant of the sea warrior" to you.

It's such a quintessentially Irish name that it's almost become shorthand. "Murphys," in 19th century England, were potatoes. A popular song of the same era asked, "Who Put the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" And if you want to let people know you're a Celtic punk band, what better name than The Dropkick Murphys?

And then there are all the celebrity Murphys who keep the name green: Eddie Murphy, Cillian Murphy, Brittany Murphy, Audie Murphy.

"It's like being part of a little club," said Murphy, a Westwood resident. "Its a funny thing about having a name that's so common. I grew up in Dumont, and I lived on a street with only 13 houses, and on that street there were three different Murphy families. None of them related."

He himself is a first generation American — his parents were both from Ireland — so he's unlikely to be kin to any of the American Murphys who periodically ask if he's their long-lost cousin. But he's proud to bequeath the family name to his wife, Christa Murphy (born a Maloney) and his children Emma Murphy, 14, and Charlie Murphy, 12.

"In her grammar school, there's another Emma Murphy in another grade," Murphy said. "[My daughter] was the older one. So they always had to say 'Emma Murphy, 6th grade, 'and 'Emma Murphy, 3rd grade' — or whatever it was."

Of course, it's possible to be Irish through and through, even with a less common name. A name like — oh, say — Spollen.

In her case, says Deirdre Spollen-LaRaia, president of the Council of Irish Associations of Greater Bergen County, which sponsors the annual Bergenfeild parade (both her parents are from Ireland), the first name more than makes up or it.

"Deirdre is a very, very common first name in Ireland, and also in the U.S.," she said. "And my two siblings are named Kathleen and Colleen. If that's not Irish, I don't know what is."

For more information...

Visit bergencountyirish.org.

To watch a livestream of the parade, go to northjersey.com/watchparade, or scan this QR code with your smartphone:

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bergenfield NJ St. Patrick's Parade 2024: What to know