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Baby Names
Irish/Gaelic Names
It seems like there are a lot of Irish name discussions floating around the board today...I found this and thought it was both funny and helpful if anyone was wondering about pronounciations!
The name Siobh?n is a perfect illustration of many of the baffling rules of Irish pronunciation:
- S is pronounced SH before E or I: think of Sean (pronounced Shawn).
- SH, however, is pronounced H, as is TH. . . .
- BH and MH are pronounced like a V. Or, once in a while, W.
- DH, FH, and GH are usually silent. Completely. The name Laoghaire, for instance, is pronounced Leary. Except the GH in Donoghue is pronounced like a Y. Yikes!
- CH is the only combination that makes some sense in terms of English pronunciation: it sounds like a guttural K, as in Bach.
- C and G are always hard, as in came and game.
- A is pronounced like the short O in pot; E is short as in pet, except when it comes before A, when it's silent; I is usually pronounced with a long E sound as in feed; O like the short U in put.
Accent marks, however, completely change the pronunciation of vowels: ? is pronounced AW as in pawn (or Siobh?n), ? like the long A in pay, and ? and ?--hallelulah!--like the long O (potent) and OO (fooey).
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Re: Irish/Gaelic Names
Good call! I love Irish/Gaelic names but I know if I can't pronounce it right off the bat no one around me would either!
Funny story- when I was 11-12 my Aunt who was 21 (married to my 30-something uncle!) and I got into a discussion about the name Sean. (I had never heard his name said just saw it written) Because of some actor we both liked. I insisted his name was pronounce Steen and she said no, its Shawn- there's no T in his name. I retorted well, there's no H either! Later on, I asked my friends how to pronounce Sean and they of course, had it right as Shawn. D'oh!
This is great! I will point out, that depending on what part of the country a person is from (doesn't really apply to those in the US using Irish names, but if you run across someone from Ireland with a traditional name, like me!), things are pronounced differently from other parts of the country. Particularly if that person is from Ulster(the northernmost province), and even more particularly if that person is an Irish-speaker (like me!) The above rules are really really good though, and in general, will never steer you wrong. Even if you do end up using them and pronouncing someone's name incorrectly, you'll only be slightly off, and will probably be pronouncing it the way someone from a different part of Ireland would.
Excellent thinking, B-lineBride, for posting this!
That was really interesting! Thanks for posting that.
I wish I could use an Irish name, because I think they are really fun, but I am now the proud owner of a very German last name and I worry that an Irish first name and a German last name would sound like a Eurpean identity crisis.
ETA: I agree with PP. I wish I could use a traditional Irish name, especially since our kids will be more Irish than anything else. We have a very Danish surname, though, and it is just too clashy. Thanks a lot, 1/4 of H's ancestors.
This literally just made me laugh out loud at my desk!
Awww, good! I also have to stay away from traditional German names or my family will end up sounding like the cast Sound of Music.
Ahh, Irish pronunciations!
Somewhat funny story. My sister is named Heather. She married an Irish guy who could not pronounce the TH as anything but a D. Yes, he called my sister Header. So, so wrong.
They're divorced now but not because he called her Header.
Haha, I was lucky enough to be raised by an American mum, so I can pronounce th, but anytime my American friends meet my dad, they find it hilarious that he says dee for the and Tursday for Thursday.
This is quite an interesting post actually. My DH is from Newfoundland, Canada. They were a british colony until 1949, and there are a lot of irish decendants living there. That totally explains the newfie accent. DH says mudder and fodder instead of mother and father, and lots of other crazy sayings. The explaination of how things are pronounced in ireland explains a lot of weird pronounciations in newfoundland.
This is pretty good. My sisters and I know a bit of Gaelic, because our mother's full Irish (we're all dual-citizens)...the language is confusing when compared to Latinate languages (many of the "sounds" simply do not have an equal in English/Latinate languages); so, it's nice to have a "translator" for pronunciation!
My husband's name is Sean, and we have a very Irish last name (his fam's Irish too). So, most likely all of our kids will have Irish/Gaelic names.