Irish names for a child outside of Gaelic countries

[plebsticle]

DH is Irish and I'm British but we live in Asia. Hope you're keeping up!

DH would love to give our pfb an Irish name, but we dont expect that we would ever really move to Ireland and we will realistically stay in either Asia or England for the majority of their childhood. On this basis, neither of us wants to saddle a child with a name that they have to spend their life spelling out or explaining.

For a girl I love Erin and for a boy I love Finn. But DH isn't keen on either of them. Does anyone have any similar ideas?

I do love Fiadh and Ruairi, but these fall into the "will need to be spelt out and explained constantly" and I just can't bring myself to do this. I have a name that requires spelling out constantly and it's been the bane of my life.

Any help greatly appreciated!

I think your definition of an Irish name will probably be easier if you stay in Asia. I suppose if you really love Fiadh and Ruairi, you could just Anglicise those names to Fia and Rory.

@CremeEggThief I'd be happy with that but DH is considers that total sacrilege to his heritage and culture...

Lorcan
Oscar
Ronan

Cara
Tara
Maev
Orla

'these fall into the "will need to be spelt out and explained constantly" and I just can't bring myself to do this'

I have an Irish name that falls into this category and I live in the UK. It's a total pain in the bum, as you already know! Totally with you on not wanting to saddle your child with the same issue

Cillian. Easy to pronounce once you know it's a hard C. Lots of Cillian/Killian/Kylian in other countries so not only used in Ireland.
Other options Liam, Ciaran, Ronan.

Orla or Ciara would work well for girls.

Orla! I love this - it's going on the list. Thinking about cillian but I just think of peaky blinders...

Fiadh and Sadhbh is on our list and baby will be born in England To be fair we will more than likely move back to Ireland but staying in England wouldn't make me change our name options.

People can learn to spell names pretty easily. I always think it comes across a bit colonial when people suggest cultural names need to be anglicised because some people are too lazy to learn to pronounce or spell a name.

Sean works in a few countries I think? (I know an Asian Sean). Obviously classic "English" names well used in Ireland are heard in most countries - Michael, Patrick, Liam, Mary, Margaret, etc. Or you could stick to easy say Anglicized Irish names like Conor, Declan, Aidan, Conan, Eamon, Cormac, Brendan, Maeve, Una, Kiera, Fiona, Bridget, Alana, Caitlin etc

Dara, Cormac, Fionn for a boy.

Eileen, Sheila, Brigid, Emer, Orla for a girl

Can I just jump on here to suggest Fergal? It's one of my favourite boys names but with absolutely no claim to Irish heritage, I can't ever use it.

What names does your husband like? Is it an English speaking part of Asia? Will your DH accept any anglicised spellings at all?

Even well known names like Ronan, Ciaran and Orla aren't spelled or pronounced like that in Irish, though they're commonly pronounced the Anglicised way in Ireland, along with many other botched spellings and pronunciations.

I think of peaky blinders too... Swoon

Tiernan
Patrick
Donal
Ronan
Seamus
Conor
Ciaran
Fintan / Finbar
Lorcan
Cormac

Emer / Eimhear
Meabh / Maeve
Niamh
Fionnuala / Nuala
Bronagh
Cara
Clodagh
Ciara
Una / Oonagh

@resm

Tiernan Patrick Donal Ronan Seamus Conor Ciaran Fintan / Finbar Lorcan Cormac

Emer / Eimhear
Meabh / Maeve
Niamh
Fionnuala / Nuala
Bronagh
Cara
Clodagh
Ciara
Una / Oonagh

As a fionnuala I can’t tell you how much people butcher my name haha

Thanks all.

To answer a key question, I did ask DH about just anglicising a name and he did give quite an articulate answer which deviated from the cultural - he said that he thought if you were going to do that to a name then it wasn't really Irish any more and it defeated the point, so we may as well just go with an English name instead and save all this hassle. To be honest I actually agree and think this makes sense.

Girls names are going to be harder. DH was somewhat erm.. promiscuous... in his youth and has vetoed a number of names including Nuala, Eimer, Una and Cara because these are "exes"... We also need to avoid Michael, Sean, Jack and Patrick as pretty much all of his cousins have these names and it's already extremely confusing when trying to work out who on earth anyone is referring to!

We'll add some English names to the list too to get some variety but I am very keen on Orla and Cormac!

I like ronan

Following as in same position

We know a Fintan, I love it and gives the option for shortening to Finn? Not too much room for errror on the spelling/pronounciation!

@Effkay26 that’s a shame as it’s a beautiful name!

I came to say Cormac too. Easy to spell and it is what it looks like and gorgeous as well .

Orla a good choice for same reasons.

Girls names are going to be harder. DH was somewhat erm.. promiscuous... in his youth and has vetoed a number of names including Nuala, Eimer, Una and Cara because these are "exes"

Tell your Dh to sod off with his ex issues, these are all great names - use them if you like them. Cara works in Irish and English and is easy for non native English speakers.

Your husband will not be pushing a large baby out a very small orifice, he needs to get over himself. You know what they say - no uterus, no opinion.

Are you using his surname or yours ? If its his, then he has already has his choice of name.

He’s coming across as a big precious TBH.

As a Brit with Irish parents who gave her child 2 very Irish names that need spelling I say go for it. My DD loves her name and that’s it’s unique. She’s 6 and loves telling people it’s Irish how it’s spelt and what it means. We were living over seas when she was born and I actually had people ask me if it was a real name haha.

Easy names I absolutely love Orla and Oona (if I had another girl I would use one of these, not sure why I didn’t last time now I’m thinking about it). I always liked Grainne too.

For a boy we would have gone Gerard (Gerry) for short. I like family names so Joseph, Noel, Christopher (Christy), I also like Seamus and Niall.