Irish names

Irish, called Gaeilge in the language itself, is a Celtic language native to Ireland that has been spoken there for more than two thousand years. Under the 1937 Constitution it is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland, with English named as the second, and the Official Languages Act of 2003 gives that status practical force. Irish was the predominant language of the island until the nineteenth century, when English displaced it in daily use. A revival that began with the founding of Conradh na Gaeilge, the Gaelic League, in 1893 continues today through Irish-medium schools, the television channel TG4, and the Gaeltacht regions where Irish remains a community language. It is a living language, and its names carry its sounds and spellings into English.

Many Irish names reach English through anglicization, a respelling that approximates the original Irish pronunciation. Aodhán, a pet form of Aodh, from the Old Irish word for fire, becomes Aidan and carries the sense of little fire. Caoimhín, built from caomh, meaning dear or gentle, becomes Kevin, the name of the sixth-century saint who founded the monastery at Glendalough. Other names keep their Irish spelling even in English use. Niamh comes from an Old Irish word meaning brightness or radiance, and belongs to Irish myth as the daughter of the sea god Manannán. Saoirse is simply the Irish word for freedom, which came into use as a given name in the 1920s alongside the movement for Irish independence.

One common assumption deserves care. The large United States wave of names that rhyme with Aidan, among them Aiden, Brayden, Caden, Jayden, and Hayden, is largely a set of English-language coinages that share a fashionable -den sound rather than a shared Irish origin. Jayden and Caden are modern American inventions built from that suffix, Hayden comes from an English surname and place name, and Braden traces to the Irish surname Ó Bradáin but works here mostly as a sound-alike. Aidan itself is the genuine Irish name at the center of the group. The others echo its sound without descending from it, which is worth knowing plainly and without reading it as a fault.

The names in this collection draw on both of these currents. Older Irish given names appear here as Aidan and Aiden, Brian, Cillian, Rory, and Nora, with Brianna as a feminine form of Brian. Others arrive by way of Irish surnames and place names, including Callan, Casey, Nolan, and Quinn. Alongside them sit the rhyming -aiden names that grew from the sound of Aidan rather than from the older tradition. Together the set carries the saints, legends, and sounds of a language that Ireland still speaks.