Yes it does. My grandfather came over from Ireland to the UK. He was illiterate and had no paperwork. I don't know his date of birth. We think he was in his 80s when he died in 1979. So difficult, when you have so little to go on.

it can become very confusing as families tended to live in the same area; each family might have 8-10 children, with sons and daughters appearing at random intervals, so it is not uncommon to have three of four options of kin with the same name separated by only a few years.

Much of the old Irish naming traditions stand true when researching one's family tree Irish lines. However the many Irish that both emigrated freely and or were sent to the Colonies (Australian and others) via Convict transportation etc often changed or 'anglicized' their names once here and thus the 'original' spelling of the names were often confused by this or lost all together. This included and more often were surnames. Along with the very poor rates of literacy and so much of the 'original' sound and spelling of names were altered due to the lack of ability to read and write, in particular this was very high among convicts and those who came out as free on bounty ships or were sponsored etc. The convict era from 1788 through to 1868 saw a myriad of 'new names' having been born out of the anglicizing and illiteracy of the this period. Marry that to the deliberateness of changing one's name in order to hide the convict past and lastly the smaller but none the less importance of 'transcription errors' along the way all add up to making the journey of finding the right ancestors and their original heritage rather more difficult than one realizes when the 'geni journey'  begins. 
I would strongly suggest that the first task when beginning to do the family is to compare original records eg shipping, convict and others for the spelling and then set about sourcing the 'original' spelling of the name eg seek out the Irish records of that name on a more generic scale first then compare to see how if at all your closest ancestral version of that name is. Then over time and further comparisons one can usually see a pattern of change or one can locate the original name from that town or county eg County Clare Ireland etc and work out if it would have been more likely to be spelling A or spelling B. Then apply the naming traditions up the point of the person who emigrated eg 2 x great grandfather etc and see if his name matches on the documents. And so on from there you will see if the name spellings still match up. Many of our ancestors dropped those naming traditions once in the colonies/Australia so it was also common to see them fall by the wayside after having been here for one or two generations. So cover all bases when doing names they are not just about 'traditions' from the past and if you only stick to naming traditions of the ancestors previous country or birth country I can assure you, you will miss the bulk of the facts and often end up with other peoples ancestors in your tree and or the wrong names all together and you will create more brick walls that you have already. 
 
So a name such as O'Byrne might be shortened or anglicized to a more simple version of Byrne or Burn. Whilst that isn't a huge shift from its original, the name O'Byrne/Byrne was not the most common name. Many such as Kelly and Walsh were more difficult to shorten and thus often stayed the same. So its wise to seek out the 'original' spelling before you go hunting as this can lead you to the correct family and origin in Ireland and will save you a lot of tiring work looking for a name that does not connect to the right line or family in Ireland. The same can be said for many of the immigrants such as Scottish, German and Italian were also all prone to being shortened or anglicized for ease of use once in Australia.

I am a formally qualified professional genealogist and historian with over 40 yrs experience in research and ancestry.  I specialize in Convict , Irish, Scottish and American Ancestry. I also do genetic genealogy and have long been a search angel via on line websites and fb in both others and my own fb groups. 

If you catch the 'geni bug' be warned you'll never be the same again! 

:)