Pretentious Irish first names

Pkiernan

Leithras.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Permabear wrote: »

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Can you please provide figures that show the actual affect of having a supposed unpronounceable name?

Pkiernan

What's Irish for "boring off topic bickering nonsense"?

Murrisk

Permabear wrote: »

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Let's stop you right here - nobody has said this as far as I can see. People have said that one just needs to take a moment to learn the correct pronunciation. And that's true of names from numerous countries worldwide. I don't think anyone is saying that people should automatically know how to pronounce Irish names.

And that study, as people have pointed, is flimsy. Stop clinging to it. There is a paucity of studies to fully and convincingly back up your point and I think you know it!

Chuchote

I've known some people with pretentious and unpronounceable traditionally English names from English (or just pretentious Irish) parents: Phaedra and Phoebe (Greek really but English people like them), and Menzies (pronounced Mingus) and so on… They didn't find jobs with any greater difficulty than others; but then neither did the Séadhna and Éibhear and Turlough and Lasairfhiona etc I've known.

Permabear

Permabear wrote: »

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I offered a commentary on your link. Care to respond?

Annasopra

optogirl wrote: »

but Odhran isn't made up - it is a name. (Granted the only one I ever knew was a nun but it's a name nevertheless)

Odhran is a male name

Annasopra

Permabear wrote: »

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What a bizarre reason to choose childrens names. Because American multinationals invest here.

Zubeneschamali

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

What a bizarre reason to choose childrens names. Because American multinationals invest here.

Before looking, I expected to see an American influence on names here, but eyeballing the top 100 list from the CSO, there are very few obviously Americanised names. It is a mix of Irish and English names, with some Bible names which have been popular both sides of the Irish sea (or the Atlantic) for a long time.

I'd count Jayden, Tyler and Kyle for boys, Logan and Mason are borderline, and on the girls side Amber, Madison and Erin.

The_Captain

So basically this thread is just people ashamed of their heritage to the point where they feel superior to anyone who would give their children an Irish name.

Go tell Pavel that you look down on him for calling his sons Kacper and Grzegorz then

Arcade_Tryer

The_Captain wrote: »

So basically this thread is just people ashamed of their heritage to the point where they feel superior to anyone who would give their children an Irish name.

No. The thread is about pretentious Irish first names, and people who project their own insecurity about their heritage on to others at the first hint of any criticism.

Go tell Pavel that you look down on him for calling his sons Kacper and Grzegorz then

Kind of different considering Polish is still the native language of most Polish people.

optogirl

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Odhran is a male name

Lots of nuns take male names. In our school we had Sr Claude, Sr Odhran, Sr Consalvo, Sr Bernard etc

optogirl

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

No. The thread is about pretentious Irish first names, and people who project their own insecurity about their heritage on to others at the first hint of any criticism.


Kind of different considering Polish is still the native language of most Polish people.

So a Welshman named Daffyd is pretentious or a Scottish person called Hamish?

team_actimel

Ah. The typical naysayers who criticise proud parents who haven't given their child a generic name. Not everyone wants to call their child 'Jack' and 'Emily' (lovely names though).

I have an Irish name and haven't encountered many 'problems' in my lifetime particularly when I have met non-Irish. If anything I have gotten compliments for my name and people are intrigued with the meaning of it and usually take a moment or 2 to learn how to pronounce it properly and spell it.

Arcade_Tryer

optogirl wrote: »

So a Welshman named Daffyd is pretentious or a Scottish person called Hamish?

The pretentious aspect is more to do with people in Ireland who don't speak the language regularly or have any great affinity for it giving their children certain Gaelic names as a way to signal their social class. We all know this happens. Nobody is saying it's the case for the majority of people with Gaelic names. But it certainly exists. Which is why the thread was started. To discuss it. But people get very defensive when it comes to anything related to heritage and tradition.

tea and coffee

Lady is a tramp wrote: »

Worst example I know of this is an English girl (Irish parents) who called her son Ailbhe. It's pronounced Ell-Bee.

I know. First of all, it's an Irish girl's name, and secondly, you can't just take a collection of letters and arbitrarily assign them a pronunciation of your choosing, and declare it Irish.

Is it definitely not Ailbe? Which would be Ell Bee or Al-bee? Which is a boy's name.

Zubeneschamali

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

We all know this happens. Nobody is saying it's the case for the majority of people with Gaelic names. But it certainly exists.

Kylo, the name of a bad guy in Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens, is the fastest growing baby name in the US. Meanwhile Caitlyn and all its variants dropped like a rock after Caitlyn Jenner made the news.

By comparison, people choosing a somewhat obscure Gaelic name is sound enough.

Arcade_Tryer

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Kylo, the name of a bad guy in Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens, is the fastest growing baby name in the US. Meanwhile Caitlyn and all its variants dropped like a rock after Caitlyn Jenner made the news.

By comparison, people choosing a somewhat obscure Gaelic name is sound enough.

Absolutely. It's still a fair criticism to call some names pretentious depending on the context however.

Permabear

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Permabear

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Permabear

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Zubeneschamali

Permabear wrote: »

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Agreed, agreed. Similarly, here in this thread, we are debating unpronounceable, unspellable Irish names given to children by middle class Dubs with no Irish as a pretentious social class marker.

How many of these are there? No-one has produced a number. They are not in the top 100 names, which go down to 62 kids a year, a third of one percent, so these pretentious names are pretty rare (if maybe not as rare as Kylo!).

Zubeneschamali

Permabear wrote: »

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Names which do make it into the top 100 include William, Kate, George and Charlotte, I can't imagine any snobbish folks would use names like those.

Permabear

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Balmed Out

Arcade_Tryer wrote: »

The pretentious aspect is more to do with people in Ireland who don't speak the language regularly or have any great affinity for it giving their children certain Gaelic names as a way to signal their social class. We all know this happens. Nobody is saying it's the case for the majority of people with Gaelic names. But it certainly exists. Which is why the thread was started. To discuss it. But people get very defensive when it comes to anything related to heritage and tradition.

I don't think that does happen. I'm sure its different throughout the country but at least where I live the very wealthy don't choose Irish names. For some reason the horsey class at either end of the spectrum that I come across would both go for what i'd consider stereotypical English names.

Permabear

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Balmed Out

Permabear wrote: »

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I don't know why you continuously use the fada other than to try to make the name more complicated to back up your point.

I know a couple of older Odhran's from Waterford and East Cork and a couple of babies called Odhran. One of the older pronounces it odd-ran the others all o-ran, seems pretty easy to pronounce to me and never a fada in sight.

Permabear

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The_Captain

Permabear wrote: »

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So that'd be unpronounceable Irish names like Siobhan and Niamh then? :rolleyes:

I take it you've never heard an Englishman calling someone Eh-oh-iffy for Aoife, or yanks asking for Sierran instead of Ciaran. I know a guy from New York who struggled with the name Liam and thought it was Hebrew.

Look, the OP is clearly a lie. The guy somehow managed to hear a name but not know how to pronounce it, and can somehow also spell it correctly. The thread is just a thinly veiled attack on people giving their children Irish names which are considered to be posh. Put in whatever ****ty justification you want for it but ultimately that's all it boils down to.

At the end of the day, I like my children's names. They're Irish, they're unique. If some silly anonymous prick wants to look down on me for giving them those names, they can go right ahead.

Viscount Aggro

As the OP, I seem to have opened a big topic on here.
Reminds me, there was a chap in school with me named "Gaylord". Yes, I am serious. Ask anyone who went to St Benildus College back in the eighties. I think I would use my middle name.