Irish Names

WARNING: Do not cite this page as a reference. This page is on this wiki to make the content "searchable" and easier to find. If you find the information you seek here, go to the original sources (generally linked) to verify the information and use them for your documentation. Contact the editor-in-chief, Sofya la Rus, if there are copyright concerns or other issues.  sofya at calontiri dot info 

See also Gaelic Names.

Sources:

Academy of St. Gabriel "Medieval Names Archive" - https://s-gabriel.org/names/irish.shtml
Laurel Name Articles for Ireland - https://heraldry.sca.org/names.html#ireland

Database of medieval names (from the Medieval Names Archive) - http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/database/
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources (DMNES) - http://dmnes.org/names

Archive of St. Gabriel reports - http://www.panix.com/~gabriel/public-bin/archive.cgi

Other Names Sources:

Index of Names in Irish Annals: https://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/index.shtml

Woulfe, Rev. Patrick. Irish Names and Surnames (on-line) - http://www.libraryireland.com/names/contents.php

"Names Found in Anglicized Irish Documents" by Mari ingen Briain meic Donnchada (Kathleen M. O'Brien) - http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnglicizedIrish/ - includes names from the Annals of Ulster (Annala Uladh), etc.

"Old Norse Forms of Early Irish Names" by Brian Scott, also includes Norse names in Irish sources at the end of the article - (http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/drafts/irish-norse.html )

100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland by Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn (Heather Rose Jones) - http://heraldry.sca.org/laurel/names/irish100.html

Irish Language:

How to Pronounce Irish for Beginners - http://angaelmagazine.com/pronunciation/introduction.htm

Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language - http://edil.qub.ac.uk/ .
Irish Language on Omniglot - http://www.omniglot.com/writing/irish.htm
Irish Orthography (pronunciation) on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_orthography

Period Texts:

CELT (Corpus of Electronic Texts) - http://celt.ucc.ie/publishd.html#tfirish

SENA Appendix A: Patterns That Do Not Need Further Documentation...

https://heraldry.sca.org/sena.html#AppendixAGaelic (as of December 2024)

Gaelic

	Double Given Names	Locative	Patronymic	Other relationship	Descriptive/ Occupational	Dictus	Double Bynames	Order
Pictish			Marked; mac B or filius B "son of B"; filia B "daughter of B"	nephew, nepos B				given+byname
Oghamic (c.500-c.700)	No		Marked; maqqas B "son of b"; inigena B "daughter of B		Descriptive	No		given+byname
Old/Middle Gaelic (before c.1200)	No	Rare	Marked; mac B "son of B" ingen B "daughter of B"	Clan affiliation; two-generation patronymics; "wife of" for women	Descriptive; rarely occupational	No	Multi-generational, descriptive and patronymic; descriptive and locative	Varied; see articles below
Early Modern Gaelic (after c.1200)	No	Rare	Marked; mac B "son of B," inghean B "daughter of B"	Clan affiliation; two-generation patronymics; "wife of" for women	Descriptive; rarely occupational	No	Multi-generational, descriptive and patronymic; descriptive and locative	Varied; see articles below

Notes:

Oghamic: Please refer to Mari Elspeth nic Bryan, Index of Names in Irish Annals (http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/).

Old/Middle Gaelic: For appropriate spellings, refer to Mari Elspeth nic Bryan , Index of Names in Irish Annals (http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnnalsIndex/). For structure, please refer to Effric Neyn Ken3ocht Mcherrald, "Quick and Easy Gaelic Names" (http://medievalscotland.org/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/). See the May 2022 CL for information on compound Irish Gaelic names using descriptives and locatives.

Early Modern Gaelic: Please refer to Effric Neyn Ken3ocht Mcherrald, "Quick and Easy Gaelic Names" (http://medievalscotland.org/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/) for more details on Gaelic names. See the May 2022 CL for information on compound Irish Gaelic names using descriptives and locatives.

All patronymics are created using the genitive form of the father's name. Byname elements may need to have their spelling modified to soften the pronunciation (lenited) or change the grammar. For guidance on when lenition is required, please refer to Effric Neyn Ken3ocht Mcherrald, "The Spelling of Lenited Consonants in Gaelic" (http://medievalscotland.org/scotlang/lenition.shtml).

Accents may be used or omitted as long as it is done consistently. Capitalization is inconsistent in period records, but must match a period pattern.

Also English/Welsh

	Double Given Names	Locative	Patronymic	Other relationship	Descriptive/ Occupational	Dictus	Double Bynames	Order
Anglicized Irish	No		Marked, multi-generation	Clan names	Rare		Yes	given+byname given+pat+pat given+pat+clan

Notes:

Anglicized Irish: See Mari ingen Briain meic Donnchada, "Names Found in Anglicized Irish Documents"(http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnglicizedIrish/) for details of how patronymic bynames are marked.

SENA Appendix C: Regional Naming Groups and Their Mixes

https://heraldry.sca.org/sena.html#AppendixCGaelic (as of December 2024)

Regional Groups:	By Time Period:	Languages Included In This Group:	Can Be Combined With Groups:
Gaelic	550-1100	Old Irish Gaelic, Middle Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, Oghamic Irish, Pictish, etc.	English/Welsh Scandinavian
	1100-1600	Middle Irish Gaelic, Early Modern Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, etc.	English/Welsh Scandinavian

Special Questions

Masculine vs. Feminine Name Endings:

From the introduction to Irish Names by Ó Corrain, Donnchadh & Maguire (OCM):

• The Irish, as most peoples, distinguish sharply between male and female names... With few exceptions, all names ending in -án, -éne, and -ine are masculine. [-ine should have an accent on the i]. These may be frequently turned into female names by substituting -nat or -sech. Quite a number of female names are compounds containing the (element) word flaith as a second element.

Women's "relationship" Names:

Saying <name> wife of <name> in Irish: Academy of S. Gabriel Report #2817 (http://www.s-gabriel.org/2817) has a number of examples - primarily 16th C. Some earlier examples (14th and 15th C) are found in Report #2501 (http://www.s-gabriel.org/2501).

Women with Mac- and O- style bynames in "Names Found in Anglicized Irish Documents" by Mari ingen Briain (http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/AnglicizedIrish/Feminine.shtml )

Placenames:

Irish Placenames

Ireland's History in Maps - [[1]]

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Precedents:

Precedents of the SCA College of Arms - [[2]] Morsulus Heralds Website - [[3]] (to search the LoARs and Precedents) Restatement Wiki - [[4]] (restatements of Precedents) Use the above links to be sure any precedents listed below haven't been superseded by newer precedents.

Collected Precedents of the SCA: Irish (non-Gaelic) - [[6]]

December 2013 - undated headers in Woulfe:

Domhnall Ó Loirgeneáin. The Gaelic byname Ó Loirgneáin is an undated header form in Woulfe. An Anglicized Irish form of the byname, O'Largan, is dated to 1587 in Mari ingen Briain meic Donnchada's "16th & 17th Century Anglicized Irish Surnames from Woulfe" (@http://medievalscotland.org/kmo/Woulfe/SortedByAnglicizedRoot.shtml). Thus, this name is reasonable for 16th century Irish Gaelic, and can be registered.

http://heraldry.sca.org/loar/2013/12/13-12lar.html#84

September 2013 CL - Mac and scribal abbreviations: From Pelican: Reconsidering Mac and Mc (and ending up at the same place) In September 2007, Pelican ruled that Mc and M' were scribal abbreviations for Mac and hence unregisterable. Since then, we have found considerable quantities of new Scots language and Anglicized Irish data. Thus, we revisited the question of whether Mc was only an abbreviation through 1600, or if it had begun to take on life as an independent element. Alys Mackyntoich did considerable research in the Records of the Parliaments of Scotland, all of which suggested that Mc remained a variant of (and presumably abbreviation of) Mac until after the end of our period. Thus, we will not change precedent: both Mc and M' will be expanded to Mac for registration purposes. Individuals with names expanded to Mac should of course feel free to use abbreviated forms like Mc and M' as documentary forms of their name. [[7]]

April 2012 CL - Mac and O, interchangeable or not:

From Pelican: Mac and O bynames

In Gaelic and Anglicized Irish, one question that often arises is when bynames constructed using mac// can be used to create bynames using //O// and vice versa (recalling that in Gaelic, //mac// and //O are only used in men's bynames). The reason one cannot simply treat the two as interchangeable is that each type of byname has different limitations. Bynames using mac// "son of" were formed throughout our period. They were formed from given names and from a few types of bynames, most notably occupational bynames. Bynames using //O "male descendant (usually grandson)" were formed from the 7th to the 11th century; then they became frozen as inherited family names. These names were formed from a variety of kinds of bynames as well as given names. So, what does this mean in terms of construction and documentation? Most of our documentation for bynames is from the 16th century. If you have a byname documented using mac// and want to use it to justify a byname using //O//, you need to find evidence that the name was in use by the 11th century. Otherwise, the name came into use too late in period to justify its use in a byname using //O//. If you have a byname using //O// and want to use it to justify a byname using //mac//, you need to know what kind of element it is. If it's a given name, you can make a byname using //mac// from it. Some occupational bynames can be used to create a byname using //mac//. Other kinds of bynames using //O//, including elements that we cannot identify as either a given name or an occupational byname, cannot be used to create a byname using //mac. [[8]]

WARNING: Do not cite this page as a reference. This page is on this wiki to make the content "searchable" and easier to find. If you find the information you seek here, go to the original sources (generally linked) to verify the information and use them for your documentation. Contact the editor-in-chief, Sofya la Rus, if there are copyright concerns or other issues.  sofya at calontiri dot info