Anyone know anything about prefixes on graves. In particular the 'o'

Tomaspls

Over the weekend we buried my grandfather, with his father and mother. I was curious because his father's grave said 'Sullivan' when we've always been 'O'Sullivan' at first I assumed it was the old wives tale about the soup. But after a little bit of research I found out that he moved to New York, where he met his wife, (who grew up only one town over here in Kerry).
Anyways I then found a death cert for his wife and she was 'O'Sullivan' but that was 30 years after her husband died. So I'm not sure if we just decided to take it back or not.
Also heard an elderly lady say that in the olden days only rich people had their o on the headstone.
This whole thing has sparked a lot of confusion in the family and I was wondering if anyone knew anything about it

Peregrinus

Names were fairly flexible things until comparatively recently. It's common to find different spellings, or versions with or without an O', in the same family, and sometimes even in the same individual at different times in their lives. There could be any number of reasons for this. In the case you mentioned, your great-grandfather could have dropped the O' when he when to the US (or had it dropped for him - it's ultimately other people who determine your name, and they won't always accede to your wishes) and upon on some time after returning to Ireland (or his widow) resumed it.

TheBeach

Could it be a case that while the grandfather was Sullivan the rest of family members became O'sullivan as in the irish for 'of' i.é. Of or from Sullivan.

tabbey

The O' prefix was largely a re- creation in the 1880 - 1922 period, part of the gaelic revival and growing nationalism. It was a way of saying we are Irish, not English. From a practical point of view, it serves no useful purpose, just slows down our writing and wastes paper & ink. Unfortunately, it is too late now to change, everybody is registered with so many outfits, computers would refuse to recognise us if we simplified our names.