A few favourites, in no particular order are Clodagh, Cliona, and Reiltin...Of men’s names I like Conor, Ciaran, and Ronan...
When I was a kid -mostly, children were named after
Catholic saints and almost all girls had the name Mary somewhere in their set
of names. There wasn’t much into the way of native Irish names, which were
thought of as pagan or new-fangled. However that was starting to change as I grew up… In the 1980s or so, more people wanted give their children an
authentically Irish name... And they began to look up meanings and adapt Irish
words, to make a pretty and new name.
So all sorts of new names seemed to crop up. People
looked into Irish history and folklore and found names like Aoife (Beautiful), Cliona (Daughter of a
poet in Legend), Reiltin (little star). Maeve
(originally Medbh) meaning “She who makes drunk” – was the name of a queen in
Irish legend and has become well known. In America and Australia, people of Irish descent
did the same, often adopting odd spellings to make name seem more “Irish”. Names of Rivers like Shannon or Slaney or
Clodagh became popular- but Megan which is a Welsh name is sometimes re spelled
Meaghan because it’s believed to be Irish. Another name which has been popular
in Australia is Colleen which is rare in Ireland.
Of male names, Sean, Brian, Brendan and Liam have
now become popular enough in the UK for them to be no longer really seen as
Irish names... but other male names that are becoming very popular are Conor,
Ronan, and Fergus. These respectively
mean “High desire”, - “Seal” and “Valorous
man”.
I learned enough Irish Gaelic to be able to sing folk songs and so far as i can gather, any cluster of consonants is pronounced 'v'. I've been having fun tracing the way names change in Ireland, Man, Scotland, the Hebrides, Wales and Cornwall. Sean is of course John, which was originally Jehan and became in French Jean, closest of all the versions in pronunciation to Sean; then there's Ewan, Iain, Evan, Ioghan which became in turn Eoghan. the only Celtic name I can trace right back to the Brythonic celts of the Roman era is Tangwstyl, a female name which has no Irish equivalent that I can find. The mixing and matching of Irish and Scots leads to many similarities, and both have names deriving from Viking names as well. The Isle of Man has a lovely mix, and has some names used today no longer in use in Ireland - like Affrica who was IIRC a 7th century Irish princess. Fionghualla is common to all gaelic speakers too, usually as Fenella these days.
ReplyDeleteyes the V sound is made in Irish by usually Mh or Bh...I like some Irish names esp girls ones like Clodagh which are very pretty iwth the soft sound...
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