Need names that work in France, Wales & Ireland

[Machin]

Any ideas? We're struggling.

Good idea Flora.

Lots of good ideas. Thanks everyone

Anne/a
Emma
Charlotte
Celine
Anne-Marie (I think this would get around your hesitancy over the pron. of Marie)
Rose
Estelle
Lucie
Natalie

Paul
Christian
Daniel
Zachary

Charles will be Sharl in French
Robert will be Robair
Thomas will be Tomah
And anything beginning with a J will sound more like zh

ooh, doing a similar exercise here! - though unfortunately neither Irish or Welsh have anything to do with Breton (Cornish does though!)

I am afraid Fiona or anything "fion" is out (fion = arse in French slang), Saul is pronounced like the willow tree (not a nice thing in France)

Here is what we have collected so far (bit of a mix bag for French names):
Brittany:
For girls: Gwen (and derivatives: Gwenaelle, Gwenola…), Enora, Erell, Yuna (or Youenna, Youna), Morwenn/Morwenna, Sterenn (= "star"), Aziliz (= Cecily), Lena (= Helen), Corentina (possible nn Tina), Mariwenn, Rhiannon would also work.
For boys: Gwendal, Gweltaz, Alan, Armel, Malo (v popular in France at the moment), Erwan/Ewen, Yann (= Ian), Yves (= Ivo), Youenn (pr "Yoon"), Mael, Tristan

France:
Girls: Louise, Anna, Anouk, Charlotte, Juliette, Chloe, Alice/Alix, Judith, Madeleine, Gabrielle, Raphaelle, Laure, Rose, Marianne, Astrid, Zoe, Constance, Alexandra, Josephine, Faustine, Eva. Depends on your naming style here!
I would avoid Erin here (sounds too much like "urine" for it to work here)
Boys: much harder - Paul, Louis, Amaury (pr Amori), Baptiste, Samuel, Henry, Thibault (pr Teebo), François (Franswa), Rémi, Antoine

Insane amount of Breton names listed here: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_prénoms_bretons

Classy but trendy French names: www.lefigaro.fr/assets/carnet/Carnet%20Prenoms%202014.pdf

good luck!

OF COURSE Irish and Welsh are related to Breton. Welsh is fairly close; Irish is more distant, as I said yesterday. They are all so-called 'Celtic' languages. There are six of these still spoken today. Linguists divide them into two groups:

Brythonic (also known as P-Celtic) = Breton, Welsh and Cornish

Goedelic (also known as Q-Celtic) = Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx

Together, they form a group of Celtic languages known as Insular Celtic.

www.gaelicmatters.com/celtic-language.html

Sorry - the capitals and the bold text look as if I'm shouting. That was not my intention; not did I mean to appear impolite. I just wanted to set the facts straight.

That should be 'nor did', not 'not did'. Sorry again!

thanks florascotia but as a Breton native speaker I can bloody well assure you that that Breton, Welsh and Irish do not have anything to do with each other as in, unlike the Breton/Cornish case, those languages do not sound the same at all for our purpose here because we are trying to find baby names that would work in some of those cultures/languages here

There is no way Irish names, even the most straightforward/well known names such as Aoife or Eanna would ever be pronounced correctly straight away in Brittany.

Now, though this is not the place, yes Breton, Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Scottish .. are all in the same celtic language group.

Kitty (if I may, because it sounds friendlier than beginning a message
I hate ). As you say, this is not the place for disagreements.

I absolutely agree with you that Breton and Cornish names sound most similar to each other, but that was not the OP's original question. She asked for names that might work in France, Wales and Ireland, and I suggested Breton names. Because - and I genuinely believe this to be true - there is some overlap linguistically between them.

A post then said that Welsh and Breton had nothing to do with each other. But I think we are agreed that they do belong to the same language family, and so does Irish Gaelic (at one remove) .

As someone living in a Gaelic-speaking area of Scotland, there are several Breton names which I can easily recognise, even at this distance - Ronan, for example, means exactly the same in Breton and Scottish Gaelic. Alan, Ewen, Gael, Glenn, Conan are also familiar here. Other names are very similar: Breton Govran = Gaelic Gowan, Breton Morvan = Morven in Scotland (although it is used for girls...); Nevan/Nevin, Per/Pedar, Taran...

Let's celebrate what we have in common....

Whatever you do, DO NOT name your child Connor.

Marie is pronounced MuRee in France.

For a boy Evan is a lovely welsh name which is also popular in Ireland and France. It means John - 'god is gracious'.
For a girl I love Marie.

flora

I think you're right. My mum is a fluent Welsh speaker and when on a school trip to France in the 70's/80's could converse with the grandfather of the host family she stayed with. He in Breton and she in Welsh.

This is all v helpful. Thanks :-)

You need a nice Breton name then

One of these?

As for Cornish and Breton and Welsh, I personally think they sound nothing like one another! Cornish - full of Ks (none in Welsh), Breton - full of Zs (none in Welsh), Welsh - full of lls, dds, and goodness knows what. Some nouns, numbers and colours look similar granted. My friend and I spoke some Welsh to an elderly Breton man when we were little and he looked bewildered and answered charmingly in English "I'm sorry, I don't understand. Could you try again please?"

Girls; Haf, Seren, Bethan, Tirianne,
Boys; Geraint, Lewys, Ieuan, Gareth.

Btw it's BronwEn

Stephen/Stefan for a boy maybe?

Hmm. Can't use Stephen. Stefan is v nice. I wonder if it is diff enough from Stephen?

I think a lot of Welsh and Irish names would cause consternation in France.

I like Florascotia's suggestions of Patrick, Dominic and Joseph for a boy and would add Adam and Louis, and French names for a girl would go down well in both Wales and Ireland. There are lots to choose from -- Leonie, Ines, Camille, Zoe, Leah, Chloe, Madeleine, Louise, and on and on..

Other girl names that would work well everywhere are Germanic -- Mia, Anna, Eva, Frida, Emma, Otto, Frederic, Alfred. Leon, Max, Alexander..

Liam and Kevin are very familiar everywhere. Kevin might raise a few eyebrows though.

Stefan/Stephane would work well in France and is pronounced very differently than Stephen.

With all due respect to HobbitWife, please disregard her last post. French people would have no idea how to pronounce those names, and not just because they can't say the "th" sound.

Manon
Yvette

Patrick
Jean Yves

Manon is beautiful.

I went to school in Wales and did an exchange with a Breton school based on the link between the languages.

Stella
Anna
Aimee

Patrick
Samuel
Thomas