"Irish" names on wikipedia

lewiscymru

Something I've never understand as a non-Irish person is why they put an Irish version of people's names on Wikipedia, when their birth names are English. Does anyone have any idea why they do this?

spurious

It's probably some looper with a cause going round editing each entry. Have all the edits been made by the same person?

lewiscymru

spurious wrote: »

It's probably some looper with a cause going round editing each entry. Have all the edits been made by the same person?

I'm not sure how to see who made the edits, but it's just something I noticed. I've seen it on quite a few articles and it always puzzled me, Welsh people's names aren't translated, for example. Was just wondering if it was common in Ireland or something

wazky

GRA (Gaelgoir Reunification Army) do it.

They also place Gaelgoirs from the "Whest" onto TV for propaganda purposes.

Jimminy Mc Fukhead

I don't know. Nil fhios agam.

goose2005

it's only usual if the person's Irish name is often used in connection with them

tolosenc

lewiscymru wrote: »

I'm not sure how to see who made the edits, but it's just something I noticed. I've seen it on quite a few articles and it always puzzled me, Welsh people's names aren't translated, for example. Was just wondering if it was common in Ireland or something

Yeah, Irish speakers (of which I am one) can be quite weird like that. Most will translate your name by default. Like when Queen Elizabeth was over she was referred to as Banríon Eilís by the army, rather than Banríon Elizabeth.

lewiscymru

tolosenc wrote: »

Yeah, Irish speakers (of which I am one) can be quite weird like that. Most will translate your name by default. Like when Queen Elizabeth was over she was referred to as Banríon Eilís by the army, rather than Banríon Elizabeth.

Yeah I can understand that, I'm a Spanish-speaker and would always translate "Queen Elizabeth" to "reina Isabel" when speaking Spanish, but it just seemed weird to me to do it on the English-language wikipedia, especially with certain people. The one that I found weird was that Mary Byrnes name was translated :P

TheChizler

tolosenc wrote: »

Yeah, Irish speakers (of which I am one) can be quite weird like that. Most will translate your name by default. Like when Queen Elizabeth was over she was referred to as Banríon Eilís by the army, rather than Banríon Elizabeth.

I remember when a guy moived to out school a primary school teacher blatantly making up the Irish version of the very English Dooner. Settled on something like O'Dúneoir after trying out a few variations to see how they sounded.

Never agreed with translating names for the sake of it, nothing against our language but my name's my name.

Iwasfrozen

tolosenc wrote: »

Yeah, Irish speakers (of which I am one) can be quite weird like that. Most will translate your name by default. Like when Queen Elizabeth was over she was referred to as Banríon Eilís by the army, rather than Banríon Elizabeth.

I hate when people translate personal names. Call her what she is, Elizabeth. I wouldn't call Sean John while speaking English.

who_me

TheChizler wrote: »

I remember when a guy moived to out school a primary school teacher blatantly making up the Irish version of the very English Dooner. Settled on something like O'Dúneoir after trying out a few variations to see how they sounded.

Never agreed with translating names for the sake of it, nothing against our language but my name's my name.

Heh, can imagine some serious head-scratchers with increasing numbers of central/eastern European, African and Asian immigrants! :P

Personally I consider both the English and Irish variants to be my name; but for someone whose name obviously isn't an anglicised gaelic name, it makes little sense to me to try to hibernise? (gaelicise?) it.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I wouldn't call Sean John while speaking English.

Does Sean John not speak English?

Skid X

And the same extremists would go nuts if people in the UK attempted to translate their unpronouncable Irish names into an English language version.

Dr Turk Turkelton

Arjun Creamy Thermos wrote: »

Does Sean John not speak English?

Hey bro he speaks hood a'ight.

Iwasfrozen

Arjun Creamy Thermos wrote: »

Does Sean John not speak English?

Don't know but his parents certainly didn't!!

Balmed Out

I randomly checked a few and none of them had Irish versions of their names. Can you give us some examples?

Tombo2001

Ok....this will sound like gobbledegook....

Most Irish names are actually English translations of Gaelic names.....

O'Sullivan is a translation of O'Suilleabhan; Murphy is a translation of O'Murchu; MacNamara is a translation of Mac Con Iomaire and so on....

So if I an Irish person, or of Irish descent, and my name is Rory Kennedy for example, then I can say my name derives from the Irish name Ruairi O'Cinneide.....

The English is the translation, the Irish is the original.

If I was Irish and my name was Helmut Kohl, then obviously I wouldn't translate my name into Irish because there is no Irish translation (or original version) of my name.

chughes

Tombo2001 wrote: »

If I was Irish and my name was Helmut Kohl, then obviously I wouldn't translate my name into Irish because there is no Irish translation (or original version) of my name.

Clogad Gual ??

crockholm

chughes wrote: »

Clogad Gual ??

clogad cabaiste:D

An Coilean

lewiscymru wrote: »

Something I've never understand as a non-Irish person is why they put an Irish version of people's names on Wikipedia, when their birth names are English. Does anyone have any idea why they do this?

There are many Historical Irish figures who are referenced in books, source material etc by their Irish name, even though the English version of their name might be more commonly used when discussing them today.

Michael Collins for example was commonly refered to and indeed signed stuff using the Irish version of his name though today it is quite uncommon to hear him refered to as anything other than Michael Collins today.

It may be the case that someone will come accross a historical figure who is referenced using the Irish version of their name and would then go looking up further information on them using that version, this being reflected in a wikipedia article about them is just common sense.

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I hate when people translate personal names. Call her what she is, Elizabeth. I wouldn't call Sean John while speaking English.

Well I would hope not as Seán is not the Irish version of John.

purplepanda

Maybe the Gaelgoiors (Sp) want to wind people up so they have to work out the name in English

I often spend time thinking what bloody forename / surname is that? :rolleyes:

How do you translate names like Wickham, Pettitt, Sunderland, Devereux, Sutton Codd, Neville / Reville Flood, Stamp or Chin into Irish?

Even better try Cromwell, Ireton or Tottenham? :pac:

Míshásta

I also put in a few names of famous Irish people at random and none of them gave the Irish version of their names.

However this thread gives more opportunity to Irish people with an inferiority complex to display their ignorance of the relationship between language and personal names.

There is nothing whatsoever unique or 'extremist' in giving Irish versions of non-Irish names. This is a process that has been going on between languages since the tower of Babel. Many personal names in the various modern European languages are derived from ancient languages having passed through various forms in different tongues. Hebrew - Ancient Greek - Latin - medieval French - etc.

who-me has made the following contribution to the thread:

"Heh, can imagine some serious head-scratchers with increasing numbers of central/eastern European, African and Asian immigrants!"

No serious head scratching necessary. Haven't the names already been anglicised to suit English orthography and pronunciation. Are you suggesting that names written in Cyrillic, Chinese or Arabic should be left in their original form?, or that African names with sounds unpronounceable to English speakers should be left unchanged?

There is a modern convention to leave foreign names in their original form in so far as it's possible. e.g. A German man named Willhelm would not nowadays be spelt William in English media. Similarly in modern Irish it is now the custom leave foreign names unchanged or to use the English version of non-European names - Vladimir Putin e.g.

However Queen Elizabeth would not be unchanged as their is a long established version of her name going back to the first Banríon Éilís.

However people who think the Bible was originally written in English probably wont understand my arguments.

And for those who maintain that a name is a name and should forever remain unchanged - I don't think that argument would have held much water with the American immigration welcoming Eastern Europeans and Greeks to the New World. I'd say they'd have been sent back on the same ship.

Míshásta

An Coilean wrote: »

Well I would hope not as Seán is not the Irish version of John.

Huh! Are you joking?

Seán derived from Norman French: Jean, which is the equivalent of the English John.

Eoin is a much earlier version which came to us from Latin, but is nowadays not used as the Irish version of John except when referring to the saint.

awec

I find this pretty weird / outright nuts tbh.

I don't think you can just translate your name to Irish and then pretend that's your name. The opposite doesn't work either.

A name is a name, it is exactly the same in every language. If you're called John then you're called John in English, Irish, French, German, Russian etc. It doesn't magically change to Sean at any point.

P. Breathnach

purplepanda wrote: »

...
Even better try Cromwell, Ireton or Tottenham? :pac:

Whatever about the others, Cromwell has a long-established gaelicisation, as in Mallacht Chromaill ort ["The curse of Cromwell be on you."].

Iwasfrozen

Míshásta wrote: »

I also put in a few names of famous Irish people at random and none of them gave the Irish version of their names.

However this thread gives more opportunity to Irish people with an inferiority complex to display their ignorance of the relationship between language and personal names.

There is nothing whatsoever unique or 'extremist' in giving Irish versions of non-Irish names. This is a process that has been going on between languages since the tower of Babel. Many personal names in the various modern European languages are derived from ancient languages having passed through various forms in different tongues. Hebrew - Ancient Greek - Latin - medieval French - etc.

who-me has made the following contribution to the thread:

"Heh, can imagine some serious head-scratchers with increasing numbers of central/eastern European, African and Asian immigrants!"

No serious head scratching necessary. Haven't the names already been anglicised to suit English orthography and pronunciation. Are you suggesting that names written in Cyrillic, Chinese or Arabic should be left in their original form?, or that African names with sounds unpronounceable to English speakers should be left unchanged?

There is a modern convention to leave foreign names in their original form in so far as it's possible. e.g. A German man named Willhelm would not nowadays be spelt William in English media. Similarly in modern Irish it is now the custom leave foreign names unchanged or to use the English version of non-European names - Vladimir Putin e.g.

However Queen Elizabeth would not be unchanged as their is a long established version of her name going back to the first Banríon Éilís.

However people who think the Bible was originally written in English probably wont understand my arguments.

And for those who maintain that a name is a name and should forever remain unchanged - I don't think that argument would have held much water with the American immigration welcoming Eastern Europeans and Greeks to the New World. I'd say they'd have been sent back on the same ship.

What you're describing happened in olden times either through a lack of knowledge of foreign languages by the average person or through a sense of cultural imperialism. Thankfully we've moved on from that era to a time where "Willhelm" is still "Willhelm" wherever he goes.

My name is URL

awec wrote: »

I don't think you can just translate your name to Irish and then pretend that's your name. The opposite doesn't work either.

If people can their flipping gender halfway through life then they can change the name in which others refer to them!

Iwasfrozen

My name is URL wrote: »

If people can their flipping gender halfway through life then they can change the name in which others refer to them!

What about others taking it upon themselves to change how to refer to someone?

feargale

Hands up all of you who refer to Peter the Great as Pyotr Velikiy

feargale

awec wrote: »

A name is a name, it is exactly the same in every language. If you're called John then you're called John in English, Irish, French, German, Russian etc. It doesn't magically change to Sean at any point.

Ask your solicitor to tell you about Deed Poll. Even that isn't necessary. How many people do you know who were christened say Patrick James and are known to all and sundry as James or Jim?

Iwasfrozen

feargale wrote: »

Hands up all of you who refer to Peter the Great as Pyotr Velikiy

Very few but if Pyotr introduced himself to me I would not call him Peter!

Míshásta

purplepanda wrote: »

How do you translate names like Wickham, Pettitt, Sunderland, Devereux, Sutton Codd, Neville / Reville Flood, Stamp or Chin into Irish?

Even better try Cromwell, Ireton or Tottenham? :pac:

Well you may be confused.

Do you know anything of your history? Names have been hopping from Irish to English, and English to Irish on this island for 800 years.

I don't know if you're really looking for an answer to your questions - but here goes. There are various ways names are changed from one language to another: a translation of the meaning, a simple change of orthography, or a change of pronunciation to suit the second language and a suitable spelling.

As I pointed out in another post it is not nowadays the convention to change names from another language, but it could be done. Of the list you gave there are already long established Irish forms of some.

Neville for instance could have come from the original Irish "Ó Nía" or it could be the English surname "Neville" which actually comes from the French Neue Ville.

Devereux derives from Norman French as well "De Evreux " - Irish form "Déarbhrús"

Cromwell has been "Cromaill" to Irish speakers since his famous visit to our fair isle some time ago.

"Chin" - I assume you're talking about our friend down in the Chinese. I wonder how they anglicised that? But if you wanted an authentic Irish version I suppose you could go with "Ór" as the name means "gold"

sasta le

Noticed this trend on Facebook people using there irish names.Why???

ceegee

sasta le wrote: »

Noticed this trend on Facebook people using there irish names.Why???

Potential employers googling them wont find photos of them smashed/misbehaving

feargale

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Very few but if Pyotr introduced himself to me I would not call him Peter!

So would I. A thread ran recently on this issue of teachers imposing Irish names on kids. Someone made the point that e.g. if your name were Michael you would probably be called Michel in a French class and someone countered that that's ok, but you would be entitled to your chosen name outside of class. I think both points taken together adequately address that particular issue. It'a about respect for one's wishes, something we haven't been very good at in the past.
There is in this thread a second issue, the fact that some people seem to be upset at Irish translations of Irish peopke's names in Wiki. If I got upset at the dissemination in Wikipedia of information that does not interest me, a great deal of Wikipedia would have to be deleted to pacify me. Respect is a right, and also an obligation, and not just to those we agree with.

Míshásta

feargale wrote: »

Hands up all of you who refer to Peter the Great as Pyotr Velikiy

And who calls Charlemagne "Karl der Große"?

sasta le

ceegee wrote: »

Potential employers googling them wont find photos of them smashed/misbehaving

Could find them with email search?
I think it a snob thing too for some

xrob

wazky wrote: »

GRA (Gaelgoir Reunification Army) do it.

They also place Gaelgoirs from the "Whest" onto TV for propaganda purposes.

ARE THEY FROM CASHELBAR

Iwasfrozen

feargale wrote: »

So would I. A thread ran recently on this issue of teachers imposing Irish names on kids. Someone made the point that e.g. if your name were Michael you would probably be called Michel in a French class and someone countered that that's ok, but you would be entitled to your chosen name outside of class. I think both points taken together adequately address that particular issue. It'a about respect for one's wishes, something we haven't been very good at in the past.
There is in this thread a second issue, the fact that some people seem to be upset at Irish translations of Irish peopke's names in Wiki. If I got upset at the dissemination in Wikipedia of information that does not interest me, a great deal of Wikipedia would have to be deleted to pacify me. Respect is a right, and also an obligation, and not just to those we agree with.

But what about in class when the student doesn't like their name to be translated? Surely then it's wrong for the teacher to insist?

COYVB

Your name is what's on your birth cert. If it says David on there, your name in Irish is David, not Daithi

Maximus Alexander

This reminds me of one of my pet hates. Irish people, who don't speak a word of Irish, using their "Irish name" on Facebook.

That's not your name pal.

awec

feargale wrote: »

Ask your solicitor to tell you about Deed Poll. Even that isn't necessary. How many people do you know who were christened say Patrick James and are known to all and sundry as James or Jim?

I am not talking about people who change their name through deed poll, I thought that was obvious?

P. Breathnach

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

This reminds me of one of my pet hates. Irish people, who don't speak a word of Irish, using their "Irish name" on Facebook.

That's not your name pal.

It is, if you want it to be. Just as you are entitled to call yourself Maximus Alexander here, whatever your birth certificate says.

I suggest that you find a more worthwhile pet hate.

Maximus Alexander

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I suggest that you find a more worthwhile pet hate.

Not to worry, I have tons of them. I don't think pet hates are ever worthwhile though.

Victor

feargale wrote: »

Hands up all of you who refer to Peter the Great as Pyotr Velikiy

Only the ship.

Míshásta

awec wrote: »

I find this pretty weird / outright nuts tbh.

I don't think you can just translate your name to Irish and then pretend that's your name. The opposite doesn't work either.

A name is a name, it is exactly the same in every language. If you're called John then you're called John in English, Irish, French, German, Russian etc. It doesn't magically change to Sean at any point.

Why do you find a common custom 'nuts'?

How many Edwards are called Ted. Jack used to be a nickname for people called John. James can be Jim etc.

There's a certain irony in the example of the name 'John' you used. In many European languages they have difficulty pronouncing 'J' as in English. If they tried to say 'John' it would sound more like our 'Seán'

awec

Míshásta wrote: »

Why do you find a common custom 'nuts'?

How many Edwards are called Ted. Jack used to be a nickname for people called John. James can be Jim etc.

There's a certain irony in the example of the name 'John' you used. In many European languages they have difficulty pronouncing 'J' as in English. If they tried to say 'John' it would sound more like our 'Seán'

I think you're mixing up nicknames and this notion of a name having an irish "version".

Names don't have "versions". A name is a name - it doesn't translate.

John and Sean are two completely distinct names.

If you are born Sean, and that is the name you were given then your name is Sean. If you move to England your name doesn't magically morph to John. If instead of Sean, you decide to call yourself Horatio that doesn't magically mean your name is Horatio.

Míshásta

COYVB wrote: »

Your name is what's on your birth cert. If it says David on there, your name in Irish is David, not Daithi

It may be the name on your birth cert. but it's not your name in Irish anymore than it's your name in Russian or Greek.

It was the custom not too long ago to record names on birth certs in English in Irish speaking parts of the country even if the English name was never used in the community. Was the name on the birth cert. their real name?

awec

Míshásta wrote: »

It may be the name on your birth cert. but it's not your name in Irish anymore than it's your name in Russian or Greek.

Yes it is. It's David in Irish, Russian and Greek. And every other language.

That is exactly the point.

feargale

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

But what about in class when the student doesn't like their name to be translated? Surely then it's wrong for the teacher to insist?

Firstly I think that's extremely precious and nit picking. If Johnny doesn't want to be called Juan in a Spanish class what on earth is he studying Spanish for? I sstudied a language in schoo,. The teacher always called me by that language's version of my name. Every day we started by writing the day, date, month and year on our notebooks. I have forgotten alot but I'll never forget how to date something, or how to say my name in that language.
Secondly, I thought the teacher was the boss in class, but admittedly it's a while since I was in school and from what I hear and read that may now be modified in some places, or even bloody well turned upside down.