Favourite Irish names

[NoGoodDeed]

Tell me your favourite Irish names, along with pronunciation.

Oh no, FourFried! Some racist bigots might laugh at my kids’ names! Let me just go and change their names by deed poll to Elizabeth and William so no-one looks down on us...

Oops no, it’s not 1955 so it’s totally ok for anyone to give their child any name that reflects their heritage and take pride in where they come from. Phew. Thank goodness for that.

Oisín - Usheen

Riley

Girls - Fionnuala (pronounced Fuhnula) and Aoife (Eva)
Boys - Finbar, Cormac and Ruari (Rory)

Lasairfhíona (Loss-er-EE-nah) and Iarla (EAR-lah) for girl and boy respectively.

Love the name Finnabhear for a girl (Finnavear) or Finnbharagh (Finnvara) which is more of a boys name. This is what I wanted to call my kids when I was a teen but DH didn’t agree

Saoirse and Roisin, and maybe Aisling - gorgeous names! I think it's maybe the 'sh' sound in them.

But no Irish connections, so didn't feel able to use them, oh well.

Girl:

Niamh - pronounced Neev.

Boy:

Stiamh - pronounced Steve

Finnabhear is gorgeous! I also love Aedamair but I wonder if we're spelling them correctly as they aren't obeying 'caol le caol agus leathan le leathan'?

Sadhbh (rhymes with Five)
Siun (Shoo-in)
Sinead (Shin-ead)

Donnacha
Malachy

Colleen 💚

Dearbhla (dervla) for a girl and Donncadh (don-acka) for a boy

Orlaith - Orla is my fave

Noise can also be a girl's name. And I love Aisling above but prefer the Ash-ling pronunciation.

Senan is gorgeous for a boy and I love Fionn.

Naoise, not Noise. Seems autocorrect doesn't like Irish names.

I really love Saoirse

Also Aoife and Maura

For a boy, Daragh or Lorcan

Aoibheann is pronounced Ee-vin/vun. Aoi makes an ee sound, as in Aoife, not an Ay sound. That would be Ao, with no I. Or, I guess, Éi.

villainous I actually have now idea how to spell it as it’s over 30 years since I saw it written down and my dyslexic brain has a tendency to see a scattering of random letters when I look at irish names . I love them though and would happily have used an Irish name had DH let me ( I am irish but live in UK)

@FourFriedChickensDryWhiteToast
These are lovely names, but unless you live in Ireland or London, people will just say 'what , what? and even mock.

Do not live in Ireland Do not live in London. Have no Irish connection Have a daughter called Aoife.. She doesn't get mocked. No one says " what?" Some might say "How do you spell that / say that" (on hearing/ seeing)

Her main issue with her name is people saying " Efer" not Ee-fa When they first hear it. Over all she likes it, and she likes knowing she was given her name simply because her dad and I thought it was beautiful.

Have friends with Roisin and Siobhan, work with an Aisling None of them have issues over names after they have first spelled them out.

Aoife - ee fa
Maeve - may ve

" Oops no, it’s not 1955 so it’s totally ok for anyone to give their child any name that reflects their heritage and take pride in where they come from. Phew. Thank goodness for that. "

I can assure you that I was born way after 1955.
Anyway OP clearly stated that she is not Irish, doesn't live in Ireland.
Personally I think that if you don't live in London, Ireland or Wales, and you have no Irish heritage, giving your child a name that they have to explain every time they say it to a new person, is setting them up for a lifetime of paininthearseness.

And quite honestly a lot of English people are quite ignorant about 'funny names' esp if they are Irish. I am "just saying".

Mumsnet doesn't represent real life in the UK.

I agree, some people can be funny about Irish names, but in a sneery way. Fuck them. My argument is, if you can learn to pronounce Tchaikovsky, Beyonce, and a whole host of foreign footballers names (Neymar, Agüero, Dembele, Schmeichel) you can wrap your tongue around an Aoife, Róisín, Cillian or Ciarán.
People are lazy when it comes to Irish names, probably because they subconsciously view them as 'inferior' so they think they can continually mispronounce it and it's no big deal. It doesn't get done to any Francois or Sergios or Ilarias though 🤔

" Fuck them. " true, true.

Meant to add though, don't let that stop you OP! Crack on with an Irish name and spread the word so we can end headless mispronunciation