The other day I saw Colm Meaney walking down Lower Baggot Street in Dublin. My friend and I looked at each other and said, “That’s Collum Meaney.” Had I seen the actor last year in Austin I would have called him Cohlm, with a long O and the L sliding directly into a short M. I think I would have been wrong. I work with a guy named Colm, pronounced Collum. Like the Irish pronunciation of film, fillum.
I would have thought that generations of trendy US parents had already poached all the Irish names, but turns out there are tons I’d never heard before, and frequently mispronounce when I see them in print. Many of them reflect Irish pronunciation, like “mh” and “bh” having a V sound. That’s probably why we don’t see these more. No one wants their daughter being taunted with “Grainy, Grainy, has no brainy.” I’ve listed some new names we’ve encountered below.
Girls
| Grainne | graw + nya | patron of the harvest in Irish Mythology |
| Caithriona | ka- + rin + a | Irish form of Catherine |
| Mairead | mawr + aid | Irish form of Margaret |
| Niamh | neev | Daughter of Sea God in Irish Mythology |
| Orlaith | or + la | Princess in Irish Mythology |
| Roisin | ro + sheen | little rose; represents Ireland in traditional Gaelic poetry |
| Aoife | ee + fa | Female warrior in Irish Mythology |
| Aisling | ash + ling | From aislinge which means vision or dream |
| Siobhan | shiv + awn | Irish form of Joan, meaning “God is gracious” |
| Sile | she + la | Sheila; Irish form of the Latin name Cecilia |
Boys
| Padraig | paw + drig | Irish form of Patrick |
| Eoin | oh + an | Irish form of John |
| Colm | col + lum | Signifies the dove, a symbol of peace |
| Diarmuid | deer + mid | Irish version of Jeremiah, Jeremy |
| Ciaran | kee + rawn | From Saint Kieran |
It took me a while to learn how to pronounce the surname of one of my co-workers, O’Cinneide. O Cah-nay’-dah. I want to call him O Canada, but I don’t think anyone gets it, so I’ve settled on O’Cyanide.
My apologies for not figuring out how to make the accents for many of these names. I spent all my blogging patience trying to make the tables display correctly. Remind me to hard code the table next time.
