I'm helping someone in Australia with genealogical research, and in a ship's register listing their ancestors who were arriving from Cork in the early- to mid-1800's, one son is listed as "Teetely". The handwriting in the register is exceptionally clear, so it's not a misreading, but I can't imagine where the name comes from. It may be a nickname (the child was only a year old), but I can't think of any name (Irish or English) from which it might be derived. The family was Catholic, so it's not likely to be a surname being used as a given name. Does anyone have any ideas?

Edited to correct the gender of the child.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Maybe a variation of Tetley. Like in the tea company.

Thanks, a Bhríd. I (and the folks in Australia) had thought of that, but using a surname like Tetley as a given name doesn't seem like something which a Catholic family from Cork was likely to do, and the rest of the family had "normal" Irish names.

I corrected my post, by the way. The child was a boy, not a girl as I first said. One new piece of info is that the child may later have been called Edward in Australia, so that makes one think of something like Teddy. Deriving the name from that, or from a name like Tadhg, seems quite a stretch, although perhaps the person who made the entry heard Teddy or Thady incorrectly. For Teddy or Thady, though, it's hard to see where the "L" would have come from.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

A Bhríd, I just discovered a name I hadn't heard before, Tomaltach, which is apparently an old Irish name unrelated to the name Thomas. It was apparently Anglicized sometimes as Tumulty (then later mostly confused with Thomas and Timothy). Is there any likelihood that in native rapid speech the internal "m" might have ended up with séimhiú, leaving something like "Tuwalty"? That would still leave the "L" and the "T" needing to be reversed, but that sort of reverse happened (and happens) all the time.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

That is a strong possibility alright.
English speakers would have trouble getting Tomaltach right. They wouldn't be able to process it in their heads so would try to anglicise it.

I was waiting for the bus a few days ago, and a man from New Jersey started chatting with me. He told me his life story lol, apparently he's been living in this village for a while now. Anyhow he asked me my name, and I said "Bríd". He had no idea what I was saying even after repeating it a few times and saying it extra slow.