An Irish surname-name meaning "son of Patrick," from Fitz "son of" and Patrick, ultimately from Latin Patricius.
Fitzpatrick is a name with a boldly hyphenated heritage: it is an Hiberno-Norman surname pressed into service as a given name, built from the Norman French fils (son) and the deeply Irish Gaelic Pádraic, itself the Irish form of the Latin Patricius, meaning "nobleman" or "of patrician rank." The Fitz- prefix was introduced to Ireland by Anglo-Norman settlers in the twelfth century, and the Fitzpatricks — descendants of the king of Ossory — became one of the few Gaelic families to adopt the Norman naming convention while retaining their ancestral lands and status. They ruled as Lords of Upper Ossory in what is now County Laois for centuries.
As a given name rather than a surname, Fitzpatrick belongs to a well-established tradition — particularly in the American South and among families with strong clan identity — of turning surnames into first names as a way of honoring maternal lineage or preserving a family name that might otherwise disappear. The practice gained particular traction in the nineteenth century and has never entirely gone away. Celebrities, athletes, and literary characters named Fitzpatrick carry an air of old-money Southern gentility or Irish-American pride depending entirely on context.
The name is long, stately, and slightly formal, which gives it a certain gravitas on a birth certificate even as it invites the easy nicknames Fitz or Pat. Fitz in particular has enjoyed a small revival as a standalone given name, sleek and modernist, which means that Fitzpatrick functions as a kind of full-dress version of a trend already in motion — rooted in real history but wearing it with studied nonchalance.