Paul Tempan's Irish Hill and Mountain Names database notes that its name is shrouded in uncertainty, and that Unlike some lesser peaks, such as Mangerton or Croagh Patrick, it is not mentioned in any surviving early Irish texts. The official Irish name is Corrán Tuathail, which Tempan notes is interpreted as Tuathal's sickle, Tuathal being a male first name. Patrick Weston Joyce previously interpreted it as inverted sickle, translating from the Irish language term tuathail meaning left-handed but according to PWJ, is applied to everything reversed from its proper direction. From yet another perspective, one of the earliest written accounts of the mountain by Isaac Weld in 1812, calls it Gheraun-Tuel, and Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) calls it Garran Tual; suggesting the first element was géarán (fang)—which is found in the names of other Kerry mountains—and that the earlier name may have been Géarán Tuathail (Tuathal's fang).