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Irish Names: Guide to 10 Baby Names and Meanings
What's so hard about the name Padraig?
Irish baby names are verrrrrry popular. And for good reason! Who doesn’t love a baby Finn, a Quinn, a Liam, or Nola? Or Kevin, Ryan, Fiona, or Neal?
But Irish names can get hard for those of us not so connected to the Motherland. Pronunciation is fine — but only if we don’t have to read the names first!
Like how do you say Diarmuid, Dubhlainn, Eoghan, Proinsias, and Tadhg?
Those are just the boys. Over on the girl charts, we’ve got Saoirse, Sile, Siobhan, Caoimhe and Ruari. Are you sure you’re saying them right?
Here is a guide to these 10 Irish baby names and their English equivalents (if they exist). Consider this is also a plea for patience with the world who will not only misspell but misread those names until the end of time. Which should not stop you from picking them for your child.
Because Irish names? They’re pretty great.
Irish boy names
Diarmuid (Dermot): deer-mid
Dubhlainn (Doolin): dove-lin
Eoghan (Owen, Eugene): o-in
Proinsias (Francis, Frank): pron-she-is
Tadhg (Timothy): ti-gue
Irish girl names
Saoirse (Liberty): sear-sha
Sile (Sheila): she-la
Siobhan (Chevonne): shiv-awn
Caoimhe (Keeva): kee-va
Ruari (Rori): ro-ri
Here’s a huge list of Irish baby boy and baby girl names, along with pronunciation guides, English equivalents, meaning AND audio in case you just can’t get it down.
Do your babies have Irish names? Did you go for the full-on Irish spellings?
Photo: Irish Philadelphia Photo Essays via flickr
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7 Comments
LogicalMama commented on Mar 17 11 at 11:53 pmMy son has an Irish middle name.
TJDestry commented on Mar 18 11 at 8:19 amI can’t understand people giving ethnic names to babies who don’t share that ethnicity. If you want to call your baby “Frank” you can name him Francis or just Frank itself, but there’s no reason to name a baby “Proinsias” if he’s not Irish, and precious little if you can’t speak the language yourself.
cheri commented on Mar 18 11 at 10:22 amYeah. I think I will name my kid Diarmuid so that his friends and teachers can call him Deer Mud for the rest of his blessed life.
ugh.
goddess commented on Mar 18 11 at 10:34 amNo- and I passed on the Slavka and Stanka form my hubster’s heritage as well.
LogicalMama commented on Mar 18 11 at 12:12 pmHis middle name is Finnian. We are Irish and that isn’t hard to pronounce! And I love it!
andrea commented on Mar 18 11 at 1:45 pmHey, at least they’re names. Not brands designed to make the parents look cool or edgy. Ugh. Names should connect children to their past and their future. They should have some meaning beyond Gee I thought it sounded cool. That’s how you end with Uncle Earl and Aunt Bertha. Cause someone thought that was cool.
Yuck. I’m a traditionalist, all the way.
Katy E commented on Mar 18 11 at 2:45 pmI’m with Andrea. Both sides of our family are predominantly Irish. We named our first son Declan and our second son, due in May, will be named “Aengus”. They are traditional, and much more common, names in the British Isles and Australia. We love their names and it’s not likely that they’ll have seven other kids in their kindergarten class with the same name. Not everyone buys into the “Last name, first” trend or the completely made-up name trend.
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