Irish Baby Names: Hot Off The Press
Our latest book, Cool Irish Names for Babies, will be hitting the bookstores in a few weeks and we’ll be offering you a few hors d’oeuvres (that doesn’t sound very Irish) before then. The book contains lots of undiscovered Irish baby names drawn from myth, legend and history, cool celebrity and popularity stuff, and a history of Irish names in America. And for Celtic-pronunciation-phobic American parents, we give the pronunciation of every problematic name–every time it’s mentioned.
To bring it up-to-the-moment and not just rely on national popularity lists, we scoured the birth announcements in newspapers to find out what Irish baby names real parents in Dublin and elsewhere are actually using today. Here are some that are in the book, and others added just this week. With pronunciations, but, unfortunately, not the accents.
GIRLS
AILBHE (ALL-bay)AISLING (ASH-ling)AISLINN (ASH-len)AOIBHINN (EE-veen)AOIFE (EE-fa)ARABELLA
BAY HERMIONE
BERNADETTE
BLATHNAID (blaw-nid)CAOIMHE (KEE-va)CARAGH (KAR-a)CAROLENA
CLARA
CLODAGH (KLO-da)–very popularEABHA (AY-wa)EITHNE (EN-ya)FAY
FIA
GRAINNE (GRAWN-ya)HAZEL
IONA
LARAGH (la-ra)LULU
MAEVEMUIREANN (MWIRR-an)NESSA
NIAMH (neev)–very popularNORA
OLIVE
ORLA
ORLAITH (OR-lee)ROISIN (ro-SHEEN)SADHBH (sive–rhymes with five)SIOBHAN (shi-VAUN)SIUN (shoon)SORCHA (SOR-ka or SOR-ra)TAMSIN (TAM-zin)
BOYS
AILBHE (ALL-bay) unisexALFIE
ARAN
CALLUM
CIAN (KEE-an)CILLIAN (KILL–ee-an)CONN
CORMACCUAN (koo-AWN)DAIRE (Da-ra)DECLAN
DIARMAID (DEER-mid)EAMON (ay-mon)ENAN (EE-nane)EOIN (OH-in)FIONN (fin)GARVAN
HARVEY
JARLATH
LOCHLAN (LOK-lun)MURROUGH (mur-ah)NIALL (NEE-all)ODHRAN (OH-ran)OISIN (OH-sheen)OSCAR
PADDY
RIAN (REE-an)RONAN
RUADHAN (ROO-an)SENAN (SENN-an)TADHG (TYEg)TIARNAN (TEER-nan)