Irish Name spelling - asking those with Irish knowledge

[birchygoo]

we have settled on a boys name and we love Cahir. However we have been looking at alternative spellings.

Cathair - which I like until it is broken down into Cat Hair (which I know will happen in school

Cathaoir - which is chair - I cant call him chair!

Any thoughts on a preference - will be said in Ulster dialect.

Can you explain the origin and meaning of the name?

Cathal pronounced Kay-hill?

Cahir as Cahir Healy? Why not just stick with the spelling as you have it?

Cahir as in the town?

Its pronounced Care, so I would think the simplest thing would just be to leave out the H and spell it Cair.

My preference would be cahir though autocorrect may drive you mad changing it to chair! I love the name, and am in the north so would prob pronounce it the same as you would. Means warrior doesn't it?

Cathair is city in Irish

Cahair (no t and with 2 a's) is the only way I know it spelt and how (Irish) people I know with the name spell it

In my accent it's sort of prounounced Ka-her.

I've never come across anyone with this name - I'm in Ireland. Did you find it in a book of baby names?

I prefer Cathal tbh - it's less harsh sounding

Are u Irish OP?

I know someone called cahir. It's nice but I also prefer cathal. Ceallach and Cormac are other similar options. You'd have no spelling issues with cormac!

I've never heard of it as a person's name. I only know it as a place name. And the town sounds like 'care'.

And you definitely cannot call him Cathair. 'Cathair’ is the Irish word for city. Make life easy for him and just use the Cahir spelling. I might cause offence here (and aplos if I do!) but I have noticed that some people from NI go out of their way to look for the most obscure spelling of an Irish name that they can find. Orfhlaith instead of Orla etc.

Cathair and Cathaoir are both pronounced completely differently than each other and Cahir. So you can't really use those spellings.

I don't think it's just people from NI mitzy. Plenty in the south and UK too.

Michael Davitt - famous agitator for land rights for Irish tenant farmers and founder of the Land League had a son called Cahir. He became a judge.

Cahir Healy was prob the best-known northern nationalist politician after Joe Devlin in the period after partition.

I've just googled Cahir Healy and another present day Cahir Healy has also come up. His Twitter profile says '29. Primary Teacher. Hurling/Football. Portlaoise. It's Cahir not Care'

The cathair and cathaoir that I know are both pronounced exactly the same and we are all.in ulster. I was going to suggest cahir also! I think they are all much of a muchness to be honest. If you aren't in Ireland i'd probably go for cathaoir or cahir so the cat hair thing isn't broken down.

Mitzy none of those spellings are obscure!! All completely common where I'm from!

Mitzy none of those spellings are obscure!! All completely common where I'm from!

No offence but it seems you're from a place where naming a person 'chair' or 'city' is normal.

OP don't name your son 'chair' or 'city'.

In my accent:

Cahir = care or CAH-hir
Cathair = COH-hir
Cathaoir = cah-HEER

Sorry I mean coh-HEER

They both mean warrior?!