According to Irish academic Paul Tempan, Derryclare was most likely translated by the Ordnance Survey Ireland from the nearby townland of Derryclare, located to the east of the mountain. translates as a wood, and usually an oak-wood, and Tempan also notes that translates as either a plain or a board/plank-bridge, and thus could also mean peak of the oak-wood at the plain or bridge; such a translation would be consistent with the easterly slopes of Derryclare, where the Derryclare Wood is bounded by Derryclare Lough and Lough Inagh.