An Irish surname, Crotty, the very ancient Gaelic name generally referred to the first chief of a clan. Earlier references even had it mean a person deformed such as a person with a hunchback. The spelling variations for Crotty include O’Crottee, O’Crotaigh, Crontone, O’Crotty, Crottee, Crothon, Croffey, O’Crottie, Crotti and Crotton. In Ireland the Crotty family originated in the Thomond region which became the County Waterford, County Clare, County Cork and South Tipperary; all in the southeast section of Ireland. They were part of the original O’Brien family. In England the most common areas for those with the Crotty name were Lancashire, Essex and the city of London. In Scotland Crotty families were in Midlothian, Lanarkshire and Angus counties. Within the United States the earliest Crotty individuals to America settled in the late 1700s into the mid-1800s in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia and Massachusetts. Famous: Raymond Crotty (a 20th century author and historian), John Crotty (a professional NBA basketball player), James Crotty (an 19th century miner originally from Ireland who developed the North Mount Lyell Mining in Tasmania, Australia), Elizabeth Crotty (a noteworthy Irish musician in County Clare), Jim Crotty (a professional football player), William Crotty (known as ’Crotty the Robber’ for being a notorious highwayman and eventually hung in Waterford, Ireland in 1742) and Mick Crotty (a sports champion in hurling from Kilkenny, Ireland).