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PostPosted: Tue 25 Aug 2015 1:40 pm 
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As an aside, many of the names were 'wrong' from the start, 'Aiden' and 'Emer', springing to mind.

Aodhán, AFIK, had changed to Aoghán to Ao(j)án to Ián or Éán, so Íánn in Donegal, for example.

'Emer' would be Éimhir...

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PostPosted: Wed 26 Aug 2015 6:33 pm 
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In another thread, I mentioned that the National Library of Ireland has put online a huge number of parish registers of baptisms and marriages from the 19th century, and by now I've gone through hundreds of pages of them doing my genealogical research. In doing that, I've has a Eureka moment about names in Ireland, and it may help to explain why so many "wrong" versions of names have arisen in modern times.

I've been searching in registers in Mayo, Offaly, Kilkenny, and Cork, so there's a fair sampling from different parts of Ireland, and after the obvious things I noticed about how surnames and townland names changed form over time, and how some priests struggled to deal with some names, it suddenly dawned on me (far later than it should have), that in those hundreds of pages (actually, nearly a thousand pages by now, since I'm still at it), traditional Irish names were almost completely missing.

There was not one single child, parent, spouse, sponsor, or witness to a baptism or marriage who bore any of a whole host of "traditional" Irish names, such as Aidan, Brian, Ciaran, Declan, or my own name, Kevin, whether in an Irish form or Anglicized, and the same was true for the female side, where there was not a single Aoife, Gobnait, Maeve, or Una, and in fact 95% or more of them had one of only about a dozen or so female names, with Brigid/Bridget being the only one that was traditionally Irish (but by then also common in many other places).

In the areas where I was searching, nearly everyone would have been Irish-speaking at the time (except in Kilkenny towards the end of the century), so of course a number of the James's, Johns, Michaels, Patricks, Annes, Marys, and Margarets who were there were probably called by the Irish versions of their names at home, but nearly every single name was one which could easily have been borne by someone in England at the time.

There must have come a point, perhaps near to or after the founding of the Free State, when awareness of older names revived and people started using them again, and the lack of familiarity with some of them may have led to altered versions being adopted at times, especially in the Anglicized forms. What really astounded me, though, was that the choices in naming of children in the 19th century seem to reflect the way people were in the process of being shamed into rejecting their own culture and language.

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PostPosted: Wed 26 Aug 2015 8:23 pm 
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My parents generation and before would almost always have a Máire in the family, then mostly likely a Páraic and a Bríd too. Children were named after the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, mostly saints names. If I was the third daughter I’d more than likely be called Baba after my mother. Barbara (Bairbre/Baibín/Baba) used to be a very common name in Conamara, not anymore. Nora was also common, hardly any child called that now.
A few more common ones from my generation-
Coilín/Colm
Ainní
Mairéad/Maigí
Treasa
Micheál
Máirtín
Joe-very common/Seosamh- less so
Seán/John
Sailí/Sara
Kateen/ Caitlín

A lot of families had mixed Irish and English names. Like some families would have a Micheál or a Micil and another family would have Michael. But almost certainly the name on the birth cert was in English.

There were no Aoifes, Aislings, or Ciaras etc among any of my cousins.


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PostPosted: Wed 26 Aug 2015 9:20 pm 
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That's why you would see the pronunciation of English (Éimhir as 'ee-mer') or errors (Aodhán as 'ay-den'), so the knowledge was lost

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PostPosted: Thu 27 Aug 2015 12:14 am 
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CaoimhínSF wrote:
There must have come a point, perhaps near to or after the founding of the Free State, when awareness of older names revived and people started using them again, and the lack of familiarity with some of them may have led to altered versions being adopted at times, especially in the Anglicized forms. What really astounded me, though, was that the choices in naming of children in the 19th century seem to reflect the way people were in the process of being shamed into rejecting their own culture and language.

That's exactly what happened, Aoife, Emer, e.t.c. are old Irish mythological names, however they had been lost long before any cultural oppression. They had fallen out of use since the 14th century, when the Irish started to use Gaelicised versions of French/Norman names.

If you look at common names for 18th century Irish speakers you'll see several names not used today, even in the Gaeltacht, like Bonabhantúra.

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PostPosted: Thu 27 Aug 2015 12:17 am 
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Jay Bee wrote:
That's why you would see the pronunciation of English (Éimhir as 'ee-mer') or errors (Aodhán as 'ay-den'), so the knowledge was lost

It's a typical example where English uses a phonetic pronunciation of the Old Irish form "Emer" rather than the modern Irish form.

Out of interest the Old Irish form is quite difficult to pronounce, even for a modern Irish speaker.

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PostPosted: Fri 28 Aug 2015 10:30 am 
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I would guess so; syllable-wise, I'd imagine it was much harder

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