Irish names for a girl

[HarrietM87]

I’m Irish, DH is English, baby will have DH’s English surname and live in London. Our DS has a standard (though uncommon) Irish boy’s name (similar to Sean - ie Irish spelling but generally recognised in England so not many issues with pronunciation or spelling so far).

I’m pregnant and if it’s a boy we’ll probably go for Patrick (just saw another thread on this - love the name!).

If it’s a girl we’d like to give her an Irish name but ideally nothing that will cause her too many problems, and also don’t want to use an anglicised spelling. Can’t use Aoife, Niamh, Meabh, Eimear, Orla or Derbhla due to close friends/family.

Any suggestions of names that fit these criteria (ie recognisably Irish but straightforward-ish spellings)? My absolute favourite is Ailbhe but I think that might be difficult for English speakers and if it’s spelled Alva it loses the Irish connection completely. Also love Nora but DH hates because of “bloody Nora”. Also considering names which aren’t Irish as such but commonly used in Ireland like Mary and Anne. All suggestions welcome!

In the US it was fashionable about 10-20 years ago, and it might still be, to insert a GH or two and a few extraneous vowels to names that already had a G, like Keegan or Logan or Teegan, to create visually arresting monikers like Keaghan(n), Loghan(n), or Teaghan(n), which were not only proposed as names, but 'Irish names'. Because GH.

The Welsh name Megan got this treatment too. Hence Meghan/Meaghan/Meghann and various other 'Irish' elements.

The same principle is apparently in evidence with Croiadh or Crioadh, whichever spelling Miss McGregor rejoices in. Here we have a few extra vowels, and DH taking the place of GH.

Math sorry but all names are made up in fact all words are made up at some point unless you speak nathandal you are speaking a mishmash of contantants and vowels yourself math is not a word it's mathematics or at a push maths as in there's many many different disaplines of mathmathics it's plural but there was a stage in American history they decided it was only math.

Sorry but your being a pedantic, b annoying and c really judgemental

It's a little silly to conflate a nickname randomly chosen for an internet forum with naming a child forever. My BC name is a form of a Greek name whose root is found in Persian and Sanskrit, and goes from there way back to earliest Indo European roots.
'Mathematics' and 'anxiety' both have similar roots, fwiw.

Croiadh isn't a word that means what the pp says it means (or what untrustworthy baby name sites say it means). It isn't a word, full stop, so it has no meaning.
'From the heart' in Irish is 'ón gcroí'.

Jamming words, word fragments, and vaguely remembered suffixes together and spelling it out to the registrar may well be legal, but it's not a name.

It's not pedantic to state the facts about mishmashed letters masquerading as names.
I freely admit to judging people who think this is ok and saddle children with their 'creative orthography' for the rest of their lives. However, I am sure Conor McGregor doesn't give a shiny shite about my thoughts on that score.
Annoying is something in the eye of the beholder - you will have to figure out what to do about that yourself.

it's Connor McGregor's daughters name.

Ahh, Irish language historian, Connor McGregor. he’s basically done the equivalent of calling a child Nevaeh, but spelled it Neahveh or some shit.

joxer I appreciate it's a chavvy name I didn't say it wasn't it is however a name.

And math you've totally missed my point that your judgemental it's not a word is flawed because all words and names are made up - even your own. I would have done it with your real name but for understandable reasons I don't know that so I used your nickname

Máire
Sinead
I love Aoife but seeing can't use it
Saoirse
Ciara
Una

I appreciate it's a chavvy name I didn't say it wasn't it is however a name.

It’s not an Irish name, which this thread is about. Someone has lazily thrown together some letters that vaguely resemble an Irish word and labelled their child with it.

It’s not an Irish name, which this thread is about. Someone has lazily thrown together some letters that vaguely resemble an Irish word and labelled their child with it*

Literally my first post on this thread was I pretty sure half these names aren't Irish their either names Irish people have which it would for in to given Connor McGregor little girl was born in Holles Street she's very much Irish or names people thought were Irish sounding.

My objection to math was exactly as I said out it was a name it's Connors daughters name, chavvy and not Irish no but a name and a word none the less

I’m looking at Orla and wondering how to pronounce it apart from Awla.

Marcipex to make Orla sound correctly Irish the 'r' needs to be rolled slightly, so it's Orr-la, rather than Aw-la. Also, the ending is -ah, rather than -uh as English people tend to say it. Orla is a beautiful name but it only sounds nice to me when someone Irish says it.

And it looks as if you have totally missed my point about names and words being made up several thousand years ago. 'Mathematics' and 'anxiety' both have roots that stretch back thousands of years.

You can't just compose a spelling and call it an Irish name because you have bestowed it on your Irish child. Technically it is the name this child is known by, but it's not a name in Irish, an Irish name, or however you wish to describe it.

And a jumble of letters thrown together isn't a word just because you have put them together and written them down either.

'names people thought were Irish sounding' are not Irish names, which is my point, and it doesn't matter if a child is Irish, born in Holles Street, whatever. If you claim a name is in the Irish language then it has to actually be in Irish, not a mishmash of Irish-like letter and vowel combinations.

And it's not 'chavvy' - a hateful term.
Calling her name 'Irish' is inaccurate.

Not true that all words and names were made up thousands of years ago maths that's the wonderful thing about language it evolves it always has, it's not a set thing.

You live in America, the word America certainly wasn't set thousands of years ago - it wasn't discovered, there was no need for the word. So at some point America wasn't a word or name, their are names that were unrecorded until the 70's that are perfectly acceptable 'traditional' names now.

Do you go round speaking as if you were in a Chaucer short story or Shakespeare play, or do you use words like internet, brexit, computer, phone, television, America. Because if your using these words you are using words that are just a mishmash of constants and vowels that someone made up at some point definitely not thousands of years ago. Many surnames are simply someone's father's name with son or s jammed on the end, an entirely made up word ...Evans, Jameson, Johnson, Robertson.

In some countries this is actually still how your surname is determined. Someone coming along and putting extra letters on to a pre-existing name/word.

I know a few Irish Ann-Maries.
Not sure if it's actually Irish though.

I adore Aisling, Alana or Aoibhe. Aoife is also pretty, not a much though.

Ailish

I wish so much I had called my daughter Ailish!

I have an Odharna! My OH is dyslexic too but manages just fine with it!

Love the name Fia or Fiadh !