Hello, all -

Quick background: I'm working on a YA fantasy novel based in Irish mythology. You may see me a lot on here trying to figure out how to word things properly. =)

In this case, I'm talking about a descendant of Cú Chulainn (never mind that as far as legends go, he killed his only son, Connla). I'd like for the denizens of Tír na nÓg to give this boy an appropriate nickname, such as "houndling" or "little hound" to reflect this. To the best of my ability, I've come up with "Cuán" as the diminutized form of Cú (hound). But some translations I'm finding say that Cuán means "harbor," which is... not at all what I'm going for.

Any thoughts on doing this right? And thank you in advance!

Conán.

Just checking... I don't want to give him a name, he has a name. I want to give him a title or a nickname that indicates his descendancy from CuChu. Isn't Conan a proper name? Would you call a guy who's name is "Fred" "Conan" as a nickname meaning "little hound?"

If so, I'll take it and thanks!

A guy whose name is Fred I’d call Freddy.
A guy whose name is Cú I’d call Conán (at least in Old Irish). It means "little hound".

Fantastic, thank you!

Just for future reference, what does Cuan mean, then?! LOL.

The word "cuan", meaning "harbor" (or "ocean" in Scottish Gaelic) is spelled without an accent (fada) over the "a", and would be pronounced differently from "cuán".

Conán does exist as a separate name, but it might have been derived from some form of "hound" as suggested above (the sources I have are vague on that). Apparently, in England the surname Conan is of Breton derivation.

There are several surnames in Ireland based on the word cuan, such as Ó Cuanáin and Ó Cuana, usually anglicized as [O']Coonan or [O']Cooney, but they are believed to derive originally (though there is some debate) from another meaning of the word cuan, that being "elegant".

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