Filan

Filan is a surname of Irish origin. It is most commonly found in Ireland and among communities with Irish ancestry. The precise etymology is not firmly established; it is often described as an Anglicized form of a Gaelic personal name and may be related to other surnames with elements such as Fial- or Fian- in their older forms. The spelling Filan appears in various records from the 19th and 20th centuries and has spread through emigration to the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Notable people with the surname include Shane Filan (born 1979), Irish singer and a member of Westlife. He achieved international fame in the late 1990s and has pursued solo projects since the group's peak period in the early 2000s.

Filan is occasionally used as a given name in some families, though it is far less common than its use as a surname. In contemporary contexts, the name is primarily encountered as a family name among individuals of Irish heritage.