Irish Boy Names

[RaisedByPuffins]

Help needed for DS2 due in a couple of weeks!

Husband is Irish, I'm English and we live in London. We already have a 3 year old boy called Cuilean (pr. Quillan) and are totally stuck on boys names for this one. We want to give him a fairly unusual but not too hard to say Irish name. Particularly as we live in London so lots of lovely names won't work so well without the accent.

The spelling is less of a thing as I have a very dull/ordinary name that has 3 spellings so I always have to spell mine as do so many people I know Claire/Clare Sara/Sarah Rebekah/Rebecca etc.

We like but are not totally in love with:

Diarmuid
Ferdia
Lorcan
Donnacha
Tiernach

Middle name will be Thomas and we like but can't have:

Cillian
Colm
Ronan

Any suggestions gratefully received!

Has anyone mentioned Cillian? Beautiful name.

Setanta?

Cian or Ruan

I like Cormac, Dara, Ruaidrhi (love that one)

Oh there are some lovely ones here.

Fiachre and Darragh I love but have been family pets so can't use them and husband's surname is Keating so can't have Ronan! Its actually my favourite but I accepted long ago it was off the table.

Thinking no fodas as we are in the UK plus I know some people with foods who have had issues with online forms etc.

Oh God this is so hard! Husband wants Cormac but I'm just not sure and time is ticking on!

I love Fionn, Oran, and Oisín

Barra is a great name and goes with Keating.

Ruan
Lachlan
Cormac
Oisin
Daragh
Cian
Naoise
Fionn
Fiach

I don’t think Cormac goes well with Keating - it will end up sounding like his name is Korma Keating!

Love donnchadh and ferdia from your list, and Oisin, Cillian and Ciaran are nice too (though maybe you want to avoid C so your sons don’t have the same initials?)

Finbar? Niall? Pretty easy for English spelling and pronounciation.

I agree with HarrietM87, Cormac is lovely but doesn't really go with Keating. Since you can't have Cillian, would Ciaran or Cian possibly work?

From your list, I love Donnacha and adore Lorcan.

Love the Irish version of Rory but prefer the shorter version of Ruairí, always pronounced so nicely by Irish people too

Also some others I like that are Irish or Irish roots, Leonard
Hurley (means sea tide in Irish)
Coleman (could get cole for short)
Rafferty
Buckley
Mulloy

God you can’t call a child Hurley! That’s the stick you play hurling with. May as well call him golf club.

The other names suggested by the pp are all surnames, not first names.

My name has two fadas, as does my son’s, we live in England and have never had problems, in person or on forms.

Ferdia would get my vote. DS was nearly a Ferdia.

And definitely no to Hurley or those surname-y namesAmerican websites claim are echt-Irish.

Mactíre
Macdara
Diarmuid
Olan
Conal
Finn
Daithí
Lachlainn
Éanna
Feilim
Finian

Iarla
Séadna

A few people have already mentioned it but I love tadhg :)

Shea/shay Oisin and cathal are my top 3 Irish boys names. My ds already has one of those names so I'm biased on it!

Another vote for Tadhg here. Such a beautiful name

A lot of so called Irish names are surnames like Reagan and Flynn. Americans tend to use them as first names. Drives me batty.

What about Emmet? One of my nephews is called this. It goes with his surname which starts with a K too. Should be no problem pronuncing it. Although it is also a surname here in Ireland it is becoming more common as a first name now. Oscar? Cillian and Cathall are my favourites and were on boys names list. What about Donagh? Daithi is nice too. Irish for David. Caelan which means warrior or Torin which means chief?

Cathal with only one L. Stupid autocorrect! Love Conor which should have only one n and Cormac.

I love Cormac too but it doesn't work with Keating imo.

Finbarr
Eoin (or does that sound too much like Ronan?)
Lorcan
Odhran
Rory
Conor
Ryan
Sean
Liam
Declan
Daithi
Cahir
Padraig
Aiden/Aidan/Aodhan
Seamus
Cian
Conall
Fionn
Brendan (means smelly hair though, according to some name meaning things, also means king I think)
Niall
Tiarnan