I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who is both a keen Irish learner and also a homosexual. He asked me a question to which I could not answer nor could I find any similar discussions online.

In the Gaelic tradition, a woman does not take her husband's surname traditionally. Thus, Máire Ní Cheallaigh continues to be known as Máire Ní Cheallaigh after marriage her marriage to Dónal Ó Murchú. She may, however, opt to be known (or recorded officially) as Máire (bean) Uí Mhurchú.

Given that in Ireland today, most people entering marriage adopt the non-traditional 'norm' of changing surnames, how does modern society translate surnames in the case of 'non-traditional' marriage type.

For instance, assuming that Máire Ní Cheallaigh married Siobhán Ní Mhurchú (she ditched poor Dónal for his sister) and Máire opted to change her surname due to the 'non-traditional tradition of doing so', would she then have to assume Máire Uí Mhurchú as her name?

By the same coin, if Dónal (after Máire ran off with his sister, then had a go with Máire's brother Pádraig) and they married, would Pádraig Ó Ceallaigh then also have to use the Uí Mhurchú name if they wanted to use a joint family name, per the non-traditional tradition of changing names).

Has anyone seen this sort of usage before in media or through connections of your own?

My feeling is that the following scenario would be likely most normal:

1. In English, both spouses assume a common family name. (Murphy)
2. In Irish speaking world, the spouses would continue to use their original family names (Pádraig Ó Ceallaigh).
3. In officaldom (passports, PPSN cards etc.) - i'm not sure. I presume to use a common name, the only option for Pádraig (husband of Dónal) would be to assume 'Uí Mhurchú'.

I see a lot of issues with trying to manage the use of two different names in modern society.

Sorry.. I've rambled on a bit... I'm doubting whether my post even makes sense anymore!

My question is to do with how surnames would be translated into Irish in such scenarios. For instance, can a man use the Uí + Surname construct or not? Is it ever traditionally done, e.g. (fear) uí + surname?

Not traditionally I'm sure. sorry can't be of much help.

This is not entirely correct as a whole, though parts of it have elements of fact. I think it's necessary to be clear that what was used historically in Ireland were not "surnames" as we would understand them today. They were family names, usually patronymic, but they were not official names that stuck with a person their whole lives for official purposes, unless they chose otherwise, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

You're right in a sense, that women historically did not "take a husband's name", but only because the concept of taking a husband's name is more modern than the Gaelic patronymic tradition. To take your example, Máire ní Cheallaigh, was the daughter of Ceallach, hence ní (iníon) = "daughter" and Ceallaigh = "of Ceallach". After marriage she would also be known as bean uí Mhurchú = "wife of Murchú".

These would have been useful designations in a time when (and in a society in which) women, before marriage would live in their parent's household, and after marriage in their husband's. They would have been known among their community as a member of that household, namely the daughter of X, or after moving to the community of their husband, wife of X. It's also worth noting that, while the mac/ní X formula generally reflects the household name of the father, there are historical examples of children being referred to as the daughter/son of their mother's household name, either because the father wasn't in the picture for some reason, or because the mother would have been more widely known within the community than the husband, hence, the children would be better recognised as members of the community by reference to her than to the father.

In any case, it's not true to suggest that the woman could "opt to be known or recorded officially" as one or the other, her parents' name or her husbands. She was simply both. She was her father's daughter and her husband's wife. The same would have been true of the husband, he was his father's son, and his wife's husband. However, because wives typically moved from their father's community to their husband's after marriage, it would have been more useful to refer to her as the wife of X as a way to establish her position within the new community, hence, by the time of the earliest written records of Irish names, it's generally the man's "surname" that's recorded. There would also have been very few cases where it was necessary to record most peoples' names, especially in an official capacity, before the time that this tradition came to an end, so if a woman's name was to be recorded, it would likely be in reference to her father if unmarried or husband if married. This would be true even of women who were prominent figures in their communities, like Gráinne Ní Mháille, however exceptional women might get their own descriptor, like Brigid of Kildare.

This naming system, primarily a mechanism for recognising a member of the local community, ended during British rule in Ireland when it became a requirement to have an official designation. At this point the system in use came to model the British naming system, whereby the husband's name became official after marriage. Though the Irish forms could still be used, they were often anglicised during this transition. The community system did survive in an unofficial capacity for a long time, though. In gaeltacht areas you'll still get a form of it whereby a child might be known as Jimín Máire Thaigh = "Jimín the child of Máire and Taigh". This has no legal status, however, and is only used in an unofficial capacity.



Assumedly so, because she would still be the "wife of Murchú" in the sense that her spouse is still one of the Murchús.

What I will say in the case of non-traditional marriage such as this is that it will likely need to be tested in the court system at some stage to establish a precedent. In theory, the law of the land is that any person can opt to use their spouse's name in an official capacity after marriage. This means husbands can take wives' names, wives can take husbands' names, and at least theoretically this extends to non-traditional marriages with wives taking wives' names and husbands taking husbands' names too. It's important, however, to note that this legal precedent was set primarily with the English forms of names in mind, and clearly not much thought was given surnames in the Irish style.

When I got married recently my wife wanted to use the female form of my surname, but was told by several state bodies that she couldn't because the name she wanted to use "Uí X" was different to my name as it appears on our marriage certificate, "Ó X". The result was several months of back and forth with various government departments only to establish that she could, in fact, use the appropriate female form of the name officially if she wanted to. Irish government bodies are notoriously bad when it comes to supporting Irish language rights. My suspicion is that if they can't work out the appropriate form of an Irish name that a woman might take after a traditional marriage, they have no hope of working out the appropriate forms in the case of non-traditional marriages. So, while I can conjecture here what somebody in a non-traditional marriage might be named, this is purely based in linguistics, and I very much doubt any legal foundation currently exists for any of it.



He would not "have to", but either could theoretically choose to officially use his spouse's surname in accordance with current Irish law. In this case Pádraig would assumedly take the form Uí Mhurchú because he would still be the "husband of Murchú" in the same sense as the wives above. The only distinction here is that, if he wanted to use the long form, it would be Fear Uí Mhurchú instead of Bean Uí Mhurchú.

(Hello, been away a bit. GalaxyRocker reminded me of this place talking about it on a general language learners' forum.)

Personally, I think that the most-of-Europe tradition of taking on a husband's surname is very much on its way out anyway, and it's a bit of a strange thing to be trying to borrow it into languages now when it was never an established tradition.

It was first an issue as women got further and further in academia, because high-achieving women would have their professional name fixed from the publication of their first paper. For some, that meant the maiden name being fixed in place before marriage; for others, that meant the married name being fixed... even after a later divorce, and even a remarriage! So that latter case kind of convinced a fair few women to use their maiden name as a professional name, even if they were first published well after marrying. If they didn't use a consistent professional name, they would restart on every new name with an academic reputation score of zero, and their papers would be effectively treated as having different authors either side of the name change.

Why am I talking about academia?
Because internet.

The internet has identities linked by plain text. If you want to search for pictures of a husband and wife separately, you have one google search string for the husband (one lifelong name) and two for the wife (maiden name and married name). Sometimes you might have met them after they married and don't actually know the wife's maiden name.

So take a hypothetical woman who was adopted in late childhood and took on the adoptive family name as maiden name, then got married, then got divorced, then got remarried, divorced again and finally married again. Bits of her identity are floating around with five different surnames representing different times in her life, and when you're googling for photos to compile a "This is Your Life" book for her retiral do", that's a lot of searches!

Enough of a rant...

So I don't think that a family surname really has much of a purpose now.
That said, if there's a same-sex married couple that have a shared name in English, part of me thinks "well how are Polish couples spoken about in Irish?" I'm thinking immigrants are probably a fairly good model... Except that raises another issue if the married name originates in Irish, because treating an Irish name the same as a foreign name in Ireland.... well, I don't have a good word for how that messes things up! (Because one of the things it messes up is my brain!!)

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

My experience is that most women from the Gaeltacht are referred to with their birth name. The only lesbian native speakers I know retain their birth name, just like any other woman.

The "Bean Uí X" phrase is used when you only know the husband well. "Cáit Bean Uí X" is used to introduce oneself, sort of like the English "I'm Kate, John Smith's wife".

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal