I'd heard rumors that earlier on (before Michael O'Rourk's birth) some Irish in Worcester changed their names to sound less Irish. (Mack, Gill and Cuddy sound less Irish than McGillacuddy.) I found no proof, and we are talking about the 1880's. Doesn't matter in this case, as Rourke, with or without the "E" at the end or an "O" in front, is pretty Irish. This may be merely a case of him assuming his common name on documents by the time his kids were born, but having to use his "official" name when he married, or the priest assumed he went by the same name as his father. I would wonder if the kids were O'Rourkes in church records. I doubt it. If he was raised a Rourke, son of a man who commonly went by Rourke, or chose to different his line from other (possibly unrelated) O'Rourkes, it wouldn't matter. Either way, I doubt he saw any need to legally change his name. Of course by the 1880's it may have been more common among the Irish to go through the legal system.
Those familes needs to be teased out, as I think there are unrelated families in the area.
As for the dropping of the "O," Richard O'Flynn spent his childhood as Richard Flynn.
