Irish baby girl names

Orla
Fiona
Bree
Callie
Lana
Kiara
Enya
Erin
Maeve
Nola
Shauna
Tara

This thread is fascinating.
I have no idea with Irish names but they are popular in the UK.

I far too frequently comment on the Welsh name threads, and the issues are similar.

Both languages are phonetic and some of the suggested Welsh pronunciations just won't work because of how the language works.

Many of the Welsh names suggested are spelt wrongly or are dated, and the same list of names usually get trotted out.

The web site that someone listed for the top 1000 names used in England and Wales in 2019 included some Welsh names, but they seemed to be names that I consider dated, and I would be willing to bet that they weren't chosen by Welsh speakers.

What irritates me is that as names become mainstream, the anglicised pronunciation becomes accepted so you haven't a hope of getting someone to say your name how it sounds in your own language.

Is this link any good?

Did you mean Ashling?

@LizzieAnt and @ILoveStickers

Yes - Sorry!

Niamh is supposed to be pronounced Nee-uv.

The vowel combination IA should always be pronounced as two separate syllables in Irish. In practice the A is often pronounced as 'uh' (schwa).

I see Una as an older lady who runs a shop and is quite tense: as you say, Oonagh is very cool and likely wears jeans and wonderful scarves.

@Ritascornershop - I think Úna is really old-fashioned and frumpy whereas Oonagh is cool and hip. Weird, isn't it?

Thanks @mathanxiety - for whatever reason I really like O’s in names, the more the better, so you can imagine how keen I am on Oonagh vs Una. There was a character in the old film What’s Up Doc named Una, pronounced Yuna, and she was dreadful, so that’s what I think of with Una (apologies to Una’s).

Yeah I guess it could be a Dublin-isation. I know a lot of Niamhs up here who all pronounce it as Neeve, never Nee-uv.

@SionnachRua
Dunno about that, plenty of Niamhs going around Ireland pronouncing it as Neeve.
Always hated the Nee-uv pronunciation myself but it's definitely regional.

I don't know if you'd get native Irish speakers saying Neeve for Niamh though? Open to correction here, but my understanding was that the Nee-uv pronunciation was truer to the Irish language? I know it's Nee-uv in the Munster and, as far as I know, in the Connacht dialects too - not so sure about Ulster though.

Sounds like someone wanted to name their kid Rosie but decided to make it 'more Irish' tbh. If that's what it is it's dreadful
Ah. I thought it might be, thank you. I didn't meet the person so I can't ask them for their name origins, but I was a bit surprised at it and how I couldn't find any reference to it online.

I agree, the name Róisín is lovely!
Thanks for your help all.

@SionnachRua - Dunno about that, plenty of Niamhs going around Ireland pronouncing it as Neeve.

It's more 1.5 syllables than 2 though so not neve but more nee-iv, with the iv bit very short. Except in Cork obviously where it's Nee-uuvv.

Sounds like someone wanted to name their kid Rosie but decided to make it 'more Irish' tbh. If that's what it is it's dreadful

Yes. I'd say you're right. And yes, pretty dreadful.

Roisín is a common Irish name meaning little rose. I think it's beautiful.

@ShaNaNaNaNa - I want a Teletubbies Tiocfaidh ár La-la T-shirt 😆

Everybody should have one . Although I'm not sure if there's a hyphen in his name. My teletubby days are long past.

I came across the name Rosaidh today, never heard it before. I'm not Irish - any of you knowledgable people know this name and anything about it - what it means for instance? I couldn't find anything. Is it Irish? Is it a new, made up name?
Thank you.

When my dd was doing the leaving there were lots of videos and memes doing the rounds about the Irish exam. One referred to some fella coming on and making whale noises for the Donegal Irish section

Yeah, I listen to Donegal Irish and marvel, because it sounds like Martian a lot of the time to me -- lovely Martian, for sure, but it doesn't always code as 'different dialect of language I speak/understand with reasonable competence'.

I want a Teletubbies Tiocfaidh ár La-la T-shirt 😆

@LizzieAnt - That's interesting, I didn't know that before.

I have friends who learned donegal Irish and some of the differences are bizarre. Snámh is pronounced sneew rather than snawve. Subh is sue.

Mind you, I can't really talk. Prátaí in connemara are fataí. And my favorite, rubble for eireaball.

I absolutely love Orla for a girl and Iarla for a boy, but they both sound awful in an English accent imo - Awwla and Eaala

Yes, DS was nearly Iarla, which I love, but it sounds god-awful in a non-rhotic accent.

@OchonAgusOchonO
That's interesting, I didn't know that before.

Do you live in Ireland? Because half of these names are hard to know how to pronounce if you don't live there and aren't familiar with them so for that reason l would go with one of the more well known ones like Niamh or Ciara. Only so your dd won't spend her life telling people how to spell/pronounce her name. Congratulations xx

Mind you, fadas sound much more similar in the other dialects. Ulster Irish may be due to the influence of Scots Gaelic?