Irish people: Encyclopedia II - Irish people - Personal Names forenames

Irish people - Personal Names forenames

Personal names in modern Ireland are derived from traditional Gaelic names, anglicised Gaelic names and, more recently, popular American names.

The recent years have seen a major decline in most Irish names for babies being born in the Republic. While in the past names such as Patrick, John, Michael, Seamus and others were almost ubiquitous in any family, today they are among the rarer names for children and the same goes for most other Irish names, although there are a few notable exceptions. Jack and Sean, both Irish derivatives of the English name John, have grown in popularity while the name Conor remains very popular, having topped the Most Popular new names for babies list many years running.

Male names from across the Atlantic Ocean have seen a surge in popularity from the mid '90s, names such as Dylan and Taylor being good examples of this. There are many other Anglicised Gaelic names which remain popular, such as Ryan, Neil and others remaining on the Names List. Biblical names also form a large composition, such as Matthew, Philip and Paul.

For females, the traditional Irish names are far more popular, although their spellings are not always uniform. Names such as Mary, Ann, and Eileen which were hugely common in the past have now declined, although there was always much more variety in female names than in male.

Today Aoife, Aisling, Ciara, Sinead, and Orlagh are more popular as traditional Gaelic names, while foreign names such as Ella, Emma, Lisa, Rachel and Isabelle have seen a massive rise in popularity. Some older names have maintained their popularity, such as Sarah, Kate, Catherine and Louise. English names such as Victoria, Elizabeth, and Rebecca, while never hugely popular have also seen a decline in popularity, while some Irish names such as Bridget, Una and Maureen have dropped off the list altogether.

There are no major regional differentiations between regions, although the name Rachel is noted to be much more popular in the province of Connacht than anywhere else.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Personal Names forenames", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki