Tadhg or Paxton

I'm in Ireland & my oldest DS is a Tadhg! (He's 18 now)There are 2 in his class, and I know at least one more. I guess it's just not as popular in your area.

I obviously love the name OP X

@SeanCailleach
O Dineen got a bit carried away sometimes.

Thaddeus and Timothy are not related to Tadhg but they were used as official names on documents where Irish language names were not acceptable, as approximations of the name. These approximations were mostly not translations or even etymologically related. They might have had a few letters or sounds in common.

For names in Irish that were clearly Irish versions of names from Latin, French, Greek, or English, it was far easier to find an English version - Margaret for Mairead, Bridget for Brighid, Mary for Mairin or Maire. Names like Eithne or Tadhg or Damhnait, which are old Irish names, or Nabla, an Irish version of the unusual Annabel/la, could end up with a variety of 'equivalents' depending on the mental name bank a particular clerk was drawing from.

No, it's a complete balls up of the names Tadhg and Thady.

Tadhgh would be pronounced Tye in Irish.

Both awful. Please dont!

.

Tadhg is lovely and starting to become more well known. I teach lots of children with traditional names from different countries. If I come across a name I don't know how to pronounce, I check with the child or parent at the beginning of term and then it's fine. Children do the same with each other. It's not an issue.

Grma don chláru @LizzieAnt
Scribbling notes. This name is epic.

I really like Tadhg.

FWIW I’m in London and I don’t have Irish in my personal background or anything, but it’s a name I’ve come across before and recognise. In general I think MN has way more ‘you can’t possibly use that name, have you thought about John?’ than real life! (I have an uncommon name but a combination of politely correcting people when I need to, and being gracious when someone gets it wrong in spite of trying, makes this a painless experience.)

Paxton works as a middle name IMO (and goes well with Tadhg). I wouldn’t personally use it as a first name, but I don’t think it’s bad if you do - I haven’t come across it before but it’s not unlike any of the other perfectly normal ‘surnamey’ names which are widely used.

@SeanCailleach
My Hiberno-English pronunciation of 'th' is much the same as the broad Irish language 't' (I think). That's why the start of the English word 'thigh' is same as the start of the Irish Tadgh for me.
I'll stop confusing people now!

@SeanCailleach
No, I think @mathanxiety has explained it better now thankfully. I was starting to tie myself in knots with 'th's' I will add that the pronunciation of the Irish slender 't' varies a lot between dialects...you don't really get that 'ch' sound in Munster as you do in Ulster. That's not relevant to Tadhg though.

@LizzieAnt we might have 4 th sounds now...
A mhaithe, @mathanxiety an cainteoir dúchais thu?

@SeanCailleach, there is a difference between an English T sound and an Irish T sound.

An Irish broad T sounds like a French T. I think this is what posters are getting at, not the silent TH of various cases where the nominative begins with T.

For example, the word 'tá' is pronounced thaw, not taw.

(A slender T is more of a CH sound).

How does Tadgh = Tiger without the r? I'm in awe of anyone who teaches phonics in Ireland . I think it's a lovely name.

For starters, it's Tadhg, not Tadgh.

The phonics part is easy:
In the middle of a word the DH in Irish is always silent. Just like GH in English it gives a long I sound (as in sigh, light, fight, right, Blighty). At the beginning of a word it is sounded as a Y.
The G in Tadhg is sounded.

Irish orthography is incredibly regular. English otoh is incredibly irregular.

"Tadgh" would read "tad-y" in Modern Irish, not "tayg".
In Irish nouns change so:
"Tadhg is ainm domh" (T is my name)
"Slán , a Thaidhg!" (Bye T)
"Tigh Thaidhg." (At T's house.)
When people say they say th for the first sound, like in English "thigh", that's like in Classical Irish (C13 - C19). Modern Irish has a h sound instead, but personal names hang onto old sounds longer . Often people think of the vocative form as the name, instead of the nominative (root) form. Hence "Thayg", "Hayg".

@Gifgif
The letters/letter combinations just make different sounds in Irish and English. Irish is a very phonetic language so no problems there. An issue I've noticed, though, is that in most (English language) schools in Ireland, children learn the English language phonics via Jolly Phonics etc, but aren't taught the sounds in Irish in the same way. They're just expected to pick up that the letters can make different sounds, and Irish language phonics aren't directly taught at all. I know it's caused my DC some problems learning to read Irish. (A smaller number of schools teach through the medium of Irish.)

Also the female name above, where I am from is pronounced Sigh-ve’.

@Gifgif I leave you with the female name of ‘Saidhbhe’ to figure out so I think because we learn Irish language from the day we start school over here that it just becomes natural to pronounce things for us but I am fully aware our language and pronounciation is very messy outside of here too! If I said to you that we say Tadhg as Tige I am not fully sure the sound would be like the word tiger if you removr the last letter :)

@DramaAlpaca
I pronounce Tadhg the same way. I'm an English woman living in the west of Ireland and that's how I've been taught to say it by my in-laws, with an Irish 'th', not an English one. I can do the Irish 'th' no problem, it's other sounds I have to make a real effort with.
Oh dear, I think there might be three different 'th' sounds now...
When I referred to an Irish 'th', I meant the Irish language one where the 't' isn't pronounced.
My English 'th' (your Irish 'th'?) is a Hiberno-English one really. Like @Pomegranatemolasses and you, the start of Tadgh and the start of Thigh sound the same to me.
The proper English 'th' is different again as my children have learnt from watching too much television.

How does Tadgh = Tiger without the r? I'm in awe of anyone who teaches phonics in Ireland . I think it's a lovely name.

Im in Ireland so Tadhg is a common enough name where Im from pronounced Tiger without the r so because of its popularity here I would choose Paxton as I like my own dc name to stand out.

There's a Tadgh in my DS school in England. Until today I'd never seen it written, but I instantly made the connection as I'm sure others will. It's a very nice name. We can't all be called Bob because it's 'easy'.

@SeanCailleach
Thanks
Meant the English 'th' sound just to clarify. Things are changing though. My children correct my th's now sometimes - the influence of Cbeebies when they were small, I suppose...

Whatever way you say th is totally fine by me. I love all the different dialects.