"Irish" names on wikipedia

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.

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.

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.

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

Arjun Creamy Thermos wrote: »

Does Sean John not speak English?

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

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 wrote: »

Clogad Gual ??

clogad cabaiste:D

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 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 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?

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?