Gaelic names spelling and grammar

[ShanKayak]

This thread is for talking about grammar and spelling of Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic names, in the hope that posters looking for baby name inspiration won't find their threads running off topic.

My dc have Irish middle names. Their father is Irish, so it’s not an affectation.

I horrified a Gaelic speaking friend by saying, “her middle name’s Roisin - but we don’t have any of the squiggles.” . I do understand the ‘squiggles’ are important, honest.

Mind you, I did say to one midwife, when spelling out a different middle name, that we’d deliberately chosen names our children would never be able to spell. She looked at me very seriously, and said, “why would you do that?”

Gaelic nouns change like this:

Séamas is ainm dó. Shamus is his name.
Maith thú, a Shéamais! Well done Hamish!
Tá an craic tigh Séamais. The party is at Shamish' house.
Tá áthas ar Shéamais. Happiness is on Hamish (that's how you say Shamus is happy.)

If you learn Gaelic from birth, without book-learning, what would you say the name was. Is it Shamus, that changes to Hamish? Or is it Hamish, that changes to Shamus?

If the name was Hamish I'd assume they were Scottish and if their name was Seamus I'd assume they were Irish.

If the people speaking and using that name were speaking Irish rather than Gaelic I'd assume the name was was Seamus, if I didn't fully understand the language or if they had a clear Scottish accent I'd assume their were speaking Gaelic and that the name was Hamish.

I'm considering the name Alasdair. It's the most popular spelling used for babies in Scotland at least from the sources I've seen it seems to be the Scottish Gaelic spelling - is that correct? I've only every studied basic gaelic. Anything I would need to know about it?

If you learn Gaelic from birth, without book-learning, what would you say the name was. Is it Shamus, that changes to Hamish? Or is it Hamish, that changes to Shamus?

Not a native, but enthusiastic learner and amateur linguist.

The name is Séamus, the lenition to Shéamais is a grammatical feature, and it just happens to change the pronunciation quite significantly.

Hamish is now a standalone, borrowed name in English though.

OP On this spread, Claudia has told you, and on a previous spread, just a couple of days ago, at least three people have already told you, all perfectly correctly, that:

• Seumas is a Scottish Gaelic name. The nominative is Seumas.

*Hamish is an English language version of the vocative of Seumas, now used as a stand-alone name

*Seamus is an Irish Gaelic name (it has a fada over the e)

Grammar has nothing to do with accent.

You have also been sent links to the MOST authoritative 'learn Gaelic' Scottish website (run, by among others, the Scottish Government's Bord na Gaidhlig), and that says that the Scottish name is Seumas.
Here is the link again:
learngaelic.scot/fichead-facal/ff-names-boys.jsp

and a link to Bord na Gaidhlig's website:
www.gaidhlig.scot/bord/about-us/

What further proof do you need?

Why are you going on about this? What are you trying to say?

Mimi

Alasdair is the spelling used on the very authoritative Learn Gaelic website that I've just referred to in my previous post.
It's spelled that way literally thousands of times there:
learngaelic.scot/search/search.jsp?order=relevance_desc&main=index&query=Alasdair

I've just seen OPs posts on previous thread. Bonkers.

Are you mother of Mhairi Black MP? Upset that you spelt your daughter's name wrong and now she's stuck with it?

@florascotia2 Thanks, I had forgotten about that site. I've been reading up and see that due to it starting with a vowel and not ending in certain other letters it seems to be the same in different cases. Not that it matters too much but good to know as I live near a Gaelic school that might be the baby's future school.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies Roisin is a lovely name and needs no squiggles. I'd read that as "Roshin".

In Italian, the name for Séamas is Giacomo. The nominative would be Giacomus. Giacomo is the dative case. It's not wrong. In fact, by having us ask the question why Giacomo, why Hamish, why Mhàirí, this leads us to remember that these languages used to have declensions, and it enriches our current knowledge.

Not quite @ShanKayak - Italian doesn't inflect for any cases. I think you're confused with Latin?

Ignore Giacomo (as it's not a Latin name and in any case, the nominative would still be Giacomo for this reason), and think of Brutus.

Nom: Brutus
Vocative: Brute (Et tu, Brute...)
Accusative: Brutum
Dative: Bruto
Genitive: Bruti
Ablative: Bruto

Claudia I was just about to send this (below)when I read your post. So very sorry for overlap/duplication:

Sorry, OP - Giacomo or Jacopo/Iacopo is the name in modern Italian, not 'Giacomus'. Dozens of Italian men, past and present, really can't be wrong. Look at this list of famous Italians with the name Giacomo:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_(name)
Are you really saying they can't spell or speak their own language?

Jacob (but in Hebrew spelling) is a Hebrew name. Jacobus (or Iacobus, with a capital I, since the Romans did not use J) is the late Latin version, and theorigin of Giacomo via an even later Latin variation : Iacomus.
www.behindthename.com/name/jacob

Yes, the dative of the Latin 'Jacobus'/Iacomus etc would have been Jacobo/Iacomo. The vocative of Jacobus/Iacobus would have been Jacobe/Iacome.
But that doesn't mean that modern 'Giacomo' is dative, because today, while the endings of Italian nouns still show grammatical gender and number www.cyberitalian.com/en/html/gra_na.html, unlike Latin, they no longer change spelling because of their grammatical function or 'case'. INSTEAD prepositions and pronouns change to reflect the function of Italian nouns in a sentence:
omniglot.com/language/articles/italiangermanenglishcases.htm
pollylingu.al/it/en/cases

Hamish is not a Gaelic word. It's a name in the English language. It does not obey Gaelic (or Latin) grammar rules. English words only change their spelling in the posessive case (apostrophe plus 's' - 'that's Hamish's dog' ), or to show singular or plural, (we have two Hamishes in the class!) or occasionally to show gender (actor/actress - not relevant here.).
Yes, Hamish originally came from an approximation of the sound of the Gaelic vocative case of Seumas. But that's all. It's English.

Seumas is a Scottish Gaelic word, and does obey Gaelic grammar rules.

Seamas with a fada (as in your most recent post) is the Irish Gaelic, not the Scottish Gaelic, spelling.

@MimiDaisy11

I'm considering the name Alasdair. It's the most popular spelling used for babies in Scotland at least from the sources I've seen it seems to be the Scottish Gaelic spelling - is that correct? I've only every studied basic gaelic. Anything I would need to know about it?

IME you’re much more likely to find Alastairs (or Alistair...) than Alasdairs.... though all spellings are used fairly frequently.

In Scotland in 2019:

Alasdair 23
Allistair 17
Alastair 6
Alisdair 2
Allister 1

From Scottish government website 2019:
www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/names/babies-first-names/babies-first-names-2019/list-of-data-tables

I said for babies not the general population which may be the case. At least that was according to a search I did where for 2019 in Scotland there were:
23 babies called Alasdair, 17 called Alistair and 6 called Alastair.

Granted it's not a popular name and not a massive difference, so really any of the spellings would be fine, but I like the Gaelic version.

scotland.shinyapps.io/nrs-baby-names/

[quote florascotia2]In Scotland in 2019:

Alasdair 23
Allistair 17
Alastair 6
Alisdair 2
Allister 1

From Scottish government website 2019:
www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/names/babies-first-names/babies-first-names-2019/list-of-data-tables[/quote]
Beat me to it LOL

Mimi nothing like a bit of factual data, especially when it comes to Scottish names!

Italian doesn’t have a dative case. The name Giacomo never changes. It doesn’t matter if you say Giacomo wins / he beats Giacomo / he gives the cup to Giacomo / he is above Giacomo etc etc.

Yes, Giacomo is not dative. Latin -us became Italian -o, it's not the same as the Latin dative. Sorry, you're getting a bit mixed up here.

Gaelic nouns change like this:

Séamas is ainm dó. Shamus is his name.
Maith thú, a Shéamais! Well done Hamish!
Tá an craic tigh Séamais. The party is at Shamish' house.

That should be tigh Shéamais, not tigh Séamais afaik.

I've never heard of Shamish.

In Irish at least.

What about Ruairidh, Ruairi and Ruaidhri?

DH and I are seriously considering this and I was the one that initiated the previous thread about Scottish names. It seems however that Ruairi and Ruaidhri are Irish spellings?

I came across Ruaridh on the Scottish statistics website for names and fell in love with it. Thankfully someone was nice enough to correct me and explain why that spelling was wrong. We have discussed this name with family and friends and they all say 'just go for Rory' but that's essentially how a lot of Gaelic names continue to disappear...

We know nothing about Gaelic grammar and spelling so we are basically relying on the internet to get this right 😂

If you learn Gaelic from birth, without book-learning, what would you say the name was. Is it Shamus, that changes to Hamish? Or is it Hamish, that changes to Shamus?

Irish 'still' has declensions.
Not sure if you are implying that languages 'progress' their way out of declensions and the like, but heyho...

In Irish, the name (the nominative case) is Séamus.
In the vocative case, Séamus becomes 'a Shéamais' in Irish.
That 'a' is the vocative particle.