Irish names

Baby name consultant: Baby Girl Johnson

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Natalie and Christopher Johnson are expecting their third baby and second girl. Their other children are:

Fiona Emma

Arthur Christopher

*Swoon!*

Natalie writes,

“I’m due with a girl in [early May] and we cannot think of a good name! … Our last name is Johnson, so we like names that are not too popular, but also classic and not ‘made up’. We’ve been seriously considering Alice and Eleanor, but I feel like it’s weird to use two ‘A’ names (Arthur then Alice) and I think Eleanor is nice, but I’m not a huge fan of nicknames and I’m worried too many nicknames would come out … I would like to use a family name for her middle … either Olivia or Eugenie [Natalie’s middle name is Eugenie]. I would love some help!“

I love Natalie and Christopher’s taste! Regarding Alice and Eleanor, I can see why another ‘A’ name might seem less than ideal, especially being directly after an A-named sibling, and Eleanor certainly does have a bunch of nicknames, but they’re both really beautiful names — I don’t think they could go wrong with either one. However, I can always come up with suggestions! And though I always shoot to offer three, I came up with four for the Johnsons:

(1) Nora

Thought it can be a nickname for Eleanor, my top suggestion is to consider just Nora. It’s a full name in and of itself. It totally seems well matched to Fiona and Arthur in my opinion. I also love the idea of Nora Eugenie — not only does it flow nicely, and Eugenie’s Natalie’s middle name, but she’d also have Natalie’s initials, which is a sweet connection between Mom and daughter.

(2) Beatrice

You all know by now that I love looking for patterns and connections between already-born kids’ names and the names in consideration in the Baby Name Wizard book, and Beatrice emerged as similar to both Alice and Eleanor. I thought it was a great suggestion for the Johnsons, not only because of its similarity in style to the names they’re considering, but also because, as I recently found out from another of my trusty sources (Behind the Name), its origin/early usage is fairly religious (as Beatrix, which of course Beatrice is a form of): “Probably from Viatrix, a feminine form of the Late Latin name Viator whic meant ‘voyager, traveller’. It was common amongst early Christians, and the spelling was altered by association with Latin beatus ‘blessed.'” I thought that was pretty cool! But I would definitely recommend Olivia over Eugenie as the middle name — Beatrice Eugenie is too Royal Family (Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s girls). (Unless of course Natalie and Christopher like the royal connection — Beatrice Eugenie is quite beautiful together!)

(3) Molly

I know of a little Arthur who has a sister Molly, and I love it with Fiona as well. Molly is Marian too, being originally a nickname for Mary, and its Irish/Celtic feel is so spot on as a sister to Arthur and Fiona in my opinion. I’m loving Molly Olivia!

(4) Other awesome names that seem similar to the Johnson’s style and don’t nickname easily

I came across a bunch of other names, both in my head and my research, that I thought would work well for the Johnsons, so I thought I’d mention them just in case: Iris, Juliet, Clara, Lucy, Aine or Anya, Carys or Charis.

So those are my ideas! What do you all think? Have I hit the right note, or am I totally off? What name(s) would you suggest for the sister of Fiona and Arthur?

I love to do name consultations! If you’d like me to give your name dilemma a go, check out my Baby name consultant tab.

Birth announcement: Olive Faustina Mark!

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I make it a point not to post on Sundays, but I have such wonderful wonderful news, it seems most fitting for our day of worship, celebration, and rest!

Last night I asked you to pray for one of our readers who was having a baby right at that time — the baby has been born! Hallelujah!!

Little Olive Faustina Mark was born last night, named for St. Oliver Plunkett, St. Faustina, and St. Mark the Evangelist, on whose feast she was born. What wonderful names! What powerful patrons!

Congratulations to Olive’s whole family!!!

Spotlight on: Joachim

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A reader asked me if I would do a spotlight on Joachim, and I’m very happy to do so, because it’s one of my very favorite names in the whole entire world. Yes, it is.

I’ve tried to convince my husband that Joachim is a perfect name for one of our baby boys for years. Years! I just love it — it’s oozing all that Catholic cachet that I love so much and that my other boys have; it’s offbeat and unusual; it’s Mother Mary’s dad for Pete’s sake! And Jesus’ grandfather! It’s also got a pretty pan-European feel, as every European country seems to have a version of it:

joachim - Copy

(From behindthename.com/name/joachim)

Currently there’s Joachim Löw, a “retired German footballer and current manager of the German national football team,” and “retired Irish sportsperson” Joachim Kelly, and Joaquin is probably the most recognizable thanks to actor Joaquin Phoenix …

Joachim is a GREAT name!

But you know why my husband doesn’t like it? Besides the fact that no one ever seems to know how to say it?*

Joakim Noah.

Ask me if I care that there’s an NBA player with the name Joakim? (Answer: not even the tiniest of tiny bits. MAYBE if I was considering “Dennis Rodman” as a first name-middle name combo, but otherwise — no.)

Because of the name’s unusualness in America, “Every guy who watches basketball will think we named our kid after him,” he says. (A decent argument I guess.) Also, given Noah’s African roots (his grandfather was a formal professional footballer from the Republic of Cameroon), he thinks it will seem strange to those who only know the name through Noah that we of northern European descent decided to use it.

Which drives me bananas, because, first of all, I’m pretty sure the reason Noah got his name is because his mom is Swedish! Northern European! She was, in fact, Miss Sweden 1978! Joakim’s even the Scandinavian spelling — and my husband and children are Scandinavian!

As far as I can tell, the only reason the name is unusual in America is because it’s never been common in England. According to behindthename, through St. Joachim’s “popularity in the Middle Ages, the name came into general use in Christian Europe … [but] it was never common in England.” Withycombe concurs: “Joachim is recorded in England from the 13th C, but has never been in general use.” Do you agree that this is likely why it was never common here? Because it was never common in our “parent country”? Every other country — yes. But not here. I think these are great arguments in favor of us using this name — America needs to have more Joachims!

Still he says no — no no no — but when I remind him of the nickname I came up with for it (not Joe, though this would be an amazing way to get to the nickname Joe without using Joseph, if for some reason you couldn’t use Joseph), his face always softens, his mouth invountarily turns up, and he says, “That is a great nickname.”

Aren’t you dying to know?! For a boy named Joachim, I would totally use the nickname … Jake.

Jake! I love love love Jake! My husband does too! We actually considered Jacob for our firstborn, but have since moved into heavy Catholicky Catholic saint territory and Joachim seems a better fit than Jacob. AND if we had a little boy named Joachim and he hated it — he wouldn’t have to ever tell anyone! He could be Jake always!

This is a perfect name for us. I think I’ll be trying to convince my husband of it til the day I die.

Abby at Appellation Mountain has actually mentioned it a bit, including this delicious tidbit:

“Speaking of greatness, the new Danish prince is set to be baptized later today. Dad is Prince Joachim. He has two sons from his first marriage – Nikolai and Felix. The new prince is Joachim’s first with second wife Marie. Royal watchers are betting on Albert for the baby’s name. Tradition dictates that the baby’s name is not revealed ’til the baptism, so we’ll have to wait and see.” (from July 2009) (It seems the baby was named Henrik, and was later joined by sister Athena.)

And she profiled its Spanish form Joaquin (in which she mentioned St. Joachim), and referred to a Swedish hockey player named Joachim (which caused me to jump right over to Google to find out who this was and found that “Swedish hockey player Joachim” yielded Wiki pages for Joachim Nermark, Joachim Rohdin, Joakim Lindström, and Joacim (sic) Eriksson, as well as “NHL players born in Sweden” which included two more, all on the first page of results).

Abby also linked to Roses and Cellar Doors “It’s Big Overseas” post which notes that “there are some name families that aren’t really used in the US at all. Their variants can be found in many other languages, but are practically unheard of in English (sometimes just American English). Weird,” and includes Joachim as one of them.

It causes me pain that this name is not known more here, and used. We know and love St. Anne — whyyy is St. Joachim neglected??

What do you all think of Joachim? Do you like it? Hate it? Find that the ah-MAZing nickname Jake (or the equally friendly and accessible Joe/Joey) makes it seem that much more attractive? Do you know anyone (especially any little ones) with this name? Does he go by the full Joachim or a nickname? What are his siblings named?

______________________________

*We would use the English pronunciation JO-ah-kim, but there are these other possibilities:

joachim - Copy (2)

(From behindthename.com/name/joachim)

(In case you can’t tell, I only recently learned how to do screen grabs, something I’ve wanted to know how to do for ages. I don’t know … are they cool? Are they not? Helpful? Annoying?)

A couple Irishy things

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I watched this video the other day and just died: Americans Try to Pronounce Traditional Irish Names. So true, so funny.

And I meant to post this on St. Paddy’s Day and forgot: Selected entries from “Some Common Words Derived From Christian Names” (in Withycombe):

Biddy: nickname for an Irish-woman, from the prevalence of the name Brigid in Ireland; hence old biddy, an old woman. Also used for calling chickens.

mick(e)y: temper, possibly, like Paddy, from the supposed short temper of the Irish, with whom this is a common name.

Paddy: nickname for Irishman (cf. Biddy).

paddy(whack): a rage, fit of temper. (From the supposed irascibility of the Irish.)

Wee lassie’s debut!

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Theresa’s name dilemma kicked off Irish month as she was scheduled to have her eighth baby, a little girl, on St. Patrick’s Day. She emailed me an update and a photo of the new little lady!

“Everything went well, we’re back home with ::drumroll:: Rosary Brigid Elise! She was 6lbs. 14oz, 18.75 in, and has been a wonderfully happy baby with siblings who fight over getting to hold her. 

About her name, there’s always that moment when you’re faced with filling out the Birth Certificate paper and you wonder if you chose the right name. But I’m confident we did. The consultation helped us to look deeper into other forms of Elizabeth, my sister’s middle name, since I liked Eilis, but my husband didn’t care for it. We came across Elise, which seems to still flow nicely.
 
So, thank you for the inspiration and input!! We have a beautiful name to go with a bonnie wee lass! 😉 “
 
So wonderful!!!! I just love her name!!! I never in a million years would have considered Rosary for a little girl, but because of Theresa and her beautiful baby it’s totally on my radar as a viable Rosie name. Nice work Heckamans! And I’m ever so grateful for the update!
 

Rosary Brigid Elise

Happy Feast of St. Joseph! And a name by any other spelling?

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Happy St. Joseph’s Day! Especially to my Italian-heritaged readers! What a wonderful feast day, what a wonderful saint!

We considered Joseph for our third son before we decided to give it to our fourth, and when we were first thinking of it, when #3 was on his way, we considered spelling it Jozef (or was it Josef?), because Pope Benedict’s name had been spelled that way. Of course, now that I look it up, in order to provide a link to Jos/zef Cardinal Ratzinger, I’m only seeing the Joseph spelling. So maybe I’m crazy? I just looked it up on behindthename and Josef and Jozef are listed as variants of Joseph in Czech and Polish and Dutch … but not German. So now I have a memory coming back that maybe we liked the Polish version (Józef)? Because my father-in-law’s family is from Poland? (We would not have used the accent.)

Anyway. We did consider that spelling, and when we got to #4 we had abandoned the unusual spelling for the usual, and all has been fine, and I’m very happy with the spelling Joseph.

I was thinking last night about spellings of names, and how spelling really really makes a difference to me. Does it to you? I mean, on the one hand, in day-to-day life, the spelling of one’s name barely matters. You hear what you hear, and who cares if your best friend’s name is Kelly or Ckelleigh? It all sounds the same, and that sound is what you associate with your best friend, and it’s a pleasing sound because of it.

But we’re not an audio-only society, and the visual adds a whole dimension to names, doesn’t it? For example, I’m not a huge fan of the name McKayla. I can definitely see its appeal — it’s kind of cool and kicky with the Mc- beginning — it’s got an Irish feel, it’s got a surname feel. The Kayla part is pretty and feminine. Put cool and kicky with pretty and feminine and it’s sort of obvious why it’s spread like wildfire all over the country in recent years. It’s just not my style, you know? But you know what name I looooove? Michaela. Or Micaela. I’m good with either of those spellings. Guess how I pronounce Mic(h)aela? Exactly like McKayla.

Off the top of my head, other names that have totally different feels for me based on their spellings are:

John and Jon

Julia and Giulia

Sara(h) and Sera (like Serafina)

Even Juliet and Juliette

And not only do the names have different feels for me based on their spellings, but I get a different impression of people themselves based on the spelling of their name (before I get to know them. After that, I find spelling doesn’t influence me in regards to how I feel about them one way or the other). If I was reading over two resumes, one for a Jon and one for a John, I’d have a totally impression of each, exclusively based on the spelling of their name. (So unfair, right? It’s not Jon/John’s fault, this one’s on Mom and Dad. Parents, beware!)

Swistle had a post somewhat recently where I first really took notice of this: the older child, a girl, has a first-middle combo that are both nouns used as names, and her husband really wanted to consider the name Noel for their second if it was a boy. It’s not really my favorite name for a boy, and I find the pronunciation NOLE (which is what they intended to use) sort of … something. I don’t know, maybe hard to say? I know that’s weird, because it’s such a simple sound, and especially considering that a reader suggested changing the spelling to Knoll, to fit better with the nature-y noun name the big sister had, and ohmygoodess I was blown away by the brilliance of that suggestion and what I considered to be the perfectness of it for that family. Why on earth would Knoll strike me as so fabulous and the sound of it not bother me at all — in fact, I thought it *sounded* pretty cool with that spelling — but Noel, with the exact same pronunciation, was not really doing it for me. There was also an interesting post on BNW just the other day, where a reader was asking about the name Ceilidh for a little girl, which is a noun (the name of a dance-party type thing in Irish), and it’s pronounced just like Kaylee. I don’t love Kaylee, but I kind of love Ceilidh!

What about the rest of you? Do you find that knowing the spelling of a name influences how you feel about either the name and/or the person with the name?

Finney the Leprechaun

sanctanomina On my bookshelf

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all!

Our very own reader Irish Nannie has published a book, the first in a series of books for children called The Adventures of Finney the Leprechaun. This first book is called Finney Hides the Pot o’ Gold, and I’m delighted to tell you more about it here.

No one does Irish Catholic like Irish Nannie (whose author name is simply Nannie). This sweet story of Finney and his little friend Michaelín is full of love of God and His creation as he learns how very important it is to say “Please” and “Thank you.” It’s all in rhyme, and Nannie writes that her “hope is that this story-poem is read aloud … either to yourself or, even better, to or with someone. The best ever is if you have the great privilege and blessing to read to a child!” My own boys love to hear this story read out loud, and they loooove answering the questions at the end of the story!

There are beautiful photos illustrating the book, and also quite a few pages at the end that give the full and proper names of Finney and his family members, all Irishy Irish names (with pronunciations provided!). It is clear from every page that Finney Hides the Pot o’ Gold was a labor of love — love of all things Irish and love of God through Whom all good things come.

I’m also delighted to tell you that Irish Nannie is me own mum, and quite possibly my biggest fan, as I am of her. 🙂 ❤

Since all of March is Irish month, there’s plenty of time still to get your copy! And, as a special St. Paddy’s Day gift especially for all of you, Irish Nannie and I are offering a free signed copy to the first person to comment here with the correct answer to this question: In what town was my maternal grandfather born? (Hint: It was the last stop the Titanic made before it sank.)

Beannachtaí na Feile Pádraig daoibh go léir! (Blessings to you on St. Patrick’s Day!)

Spotlight on: Bridget/Brigid

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If I wanted to write a really great post about Bridget/Brigid, this wouldn’t be what I’d write, but I’m tired and I wanted to post something Irishy today in anticipation of Tuesday! So this is what I got for you tonight:

“… The cult of St. Brighid [which this author says is pronounced “BRY-id” in “modern Irish”] was very popular in England as well as in Ireland. In English she was usually called Bride or Bryde, which represents the Irish Brighde, the genitive case of Brighid … it does not seemto have come into common use in Ireland until the 17th or 18th C. St. Brighid was known as ‘the Mary of the Gael,’ and it is possible that her name, like that of the Blessed Virgin, was considered too sacred for ordinary use. It is significant that Mary came into general use in Ireland at about the same time as Brighid. They are now and have long been the two commonest names in that country. The common pet-form Biddy displays the same process of formation as Fanny from Frances, Kit and Kester from Christopher. The name of the Swedish St. Brigitte or Birgitte (1303-73), which is usually translated Bridget in English, was an independent Swedish name. French and German Brigitte may represent either the Irish or the Swedish name, as the cults of both saints had a considerable extension.”

~ The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, by EG Withycombe, 54

Stay tuned for more fun next week, including another celebrity guest on Monday!

Spotlight on: Pearl

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A reader emailed asking about the name Pearl from a Catholic point of view, specifically wondering if it might be Marian?

Pearl is actually very Catholic, but not in that form. It’s most familiar in the form of …. Margaret.

According to behindthename, Margaret is “[d]erived from Latin Margarita, which was from Greek μαργαριτης (margarites) meaning “pearl.”” There are loads of Sts. Margaret, and loads of versions of the name. My favorites include the French Marguerite and Margaux/Margot, the Spanish Margarita, the Welsh Megan, and my most favorite of all is the Irish Mairead. And the nicknames! Some of them are names in their own right, but they can also be used as nicks: Greta, Rita, Madge, Maggie, Meg, Meta, and others. Even Daisy, because the French form Marguerite is also a noun (marguerite) meaning daisy (the flower), and I’ve heard of a couple little girls given the name Margaret and the nick Daisy.

I mean, come on. Margaret has it going on.

One thing it isn’t, though, is Marian. I couldn’t find any title/appellation referring to Our Lady that included “pearl” anywhere (if any of you can prove me wrong, I’d be beyond delighted!). Even the Irish Mairead, which contains the Irish Mary within it (Maire), has no connection to Mary.

So: Pearl. Beautiful, saintly name, and very Catholic, as long as you look at it through Margaret glasses.

Baby name consultant: Wee Lassie Heckaman

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It’s March! In my house, March means Irish — Irish food, Irish music, Irish coffee in my green Claddagh mug (okay, maybe just the “coffee” part of “Irish coffee”), Irish green everywhere for the entire month — so what better way to kick it off than with an Irish-y Irish name dilemma?

Theresa and Sean Heckaman are expecting #8, a little girl, who will arrive via a scheduled c-section on St. Paddy’s Day. Their other children are:

Theodore (Teddy) Stephen Joseph

Joshua David Joseph

Patrick Darrel Joseph (also born on St. Paddy’s Day!)

Joseph Wayne Michael

Miriam Anna Rose

Evalena (Evie) Margaret Marie

William (Liam) Fulton Joseph

Theresa gave a lovely explanation for each one, which I’m not including here for space reasons, but each name is a lovely mix of family and saint names (note also the “Joseph” in each boy’s name and the form of Mary in each girl’s).

Theresa wrote in this comment here on the blog:

“I am scheduled for a c-section on March 17th, and we decided to go with the name Rosary Brigid Marie. It’s making me a little nervous because it’s not common and anyone who isn’t Catholic looks at me like I’ve got three heads. I love the nickname Rosie, and can’t seem to settle on any other formal name, so Rosary it is! The good news, though, is that any Catholic who hears it is thrilled 🙂 … I’m having a hard time with the middle names, though. I’m not entirely sold on Brigid, the first draft was Rosary Therese Marie, but that changed when we learned the baby’s birthday, now we have to do something Irish! We’ve always planned on having our girls’ third middle name to be Marie, but we started off with Miriam Anna Rose (figuring Miriam is enough Mary for one name), so I’m not afraid of finding another Mary name, but flow is a problem. Moira and even Maura seem to make it too much of a mouthful. I’m probably overthinking this!”

I’d responded to that comment with:

“Theresa! This is gorgeous! And Rosary has a long history of use in other languages — Rosario, for example, is a name used for both men and women in Spanish, and for men exclusively (I think) in Italian. My mom actually has a friend named this, an older Italian man, and he’s always gone by “Soddy” (I assume because the Italian pronunciation is more like ro-SOD-io? With that semi-rolled R?).The behindthename.com entry says about Rosario: “Means “rosary”, and is taken from the Spanish title of the Virgin Mary Nuestra Señora del Rosario meaning “Our Lady of the Rosary”. This name is feminine in Spanish and masculine in Italian.” So I’m totally on board with Rosary, nice job! And Rosie totally makes it not a big deal — friendly, “normal,” accessible nicknames can make just about any formal name okay, in my opinion. … (I do just want to whisper to you though, since you’ve already decided on Rosary and all, that Roisin is one of my favorite favorite Rose names, and it’s sooo Irish!!! It’s a diminutive of the Irish Rois (Rose), and could totally take the nickname Rosie! Roisin Therese Marie? Mmmmmm!) … Also, the Rose names are considered Marian, and I totally would consider Rosary to be so too — does that help with your flow problem? You don’t need to use Marie (unless you want to of course) because Our Lady is already honored. If you still want an M Mary name there, I agree Moira and Maura don’t flow well, because I think the rhythm of Marie is what works — two syllables, with the emphasis on the second. So Maureen would flow quite well I think (or the Irish spelling Mairin, accents over both i’s).”

I encouraged Theresa to email me if she wanted to chat about it some more, and I’m so delighted that she did!

She gave this further info: “Other first names considered for this new baby: Louisa and Beatrice. I have always wanted a Rosie, though. I think the main problem we’re (actually myself since my husband is fine with the current name, Rosary Brigid Marie) is just the middle names and finding something that really goes together well and has an Irish feel.”

So this is what I have to say about all that:

First off, I actually think Rosary Brigid Marie sounds fine and flows well and — honestly truly — sounds like a name a native Irish person would use (at least in Old Ireland): reverent, Catholic, and Irish. A beautiful, gorgeous name for a St. Paddy’s Day baby! And St. Brigid is St. Patrick’s female equivalent, so I really do think they’ve chosen a brilliant name. (I have a long love of all things Irish — my maternal grandfather was born and raised there, in Cobh, Co. Cork, and my own mom has studied the Irish language, and I studied abroad in Galway while in college, and have visited a bunch of other times … it’s all I can do right now to not replace “mom” with “mum” and start saying “thanks a million” and go make some tea. So I hope my sense is right that Rosary Brigid Marie is a good Irishy Irish name!)

But I will always have a suggestion or two (or three, actually, as I always shoot for) when it comes to names, and here they are:

(1) Alternatives to Rosary

Theresa loves Rosie, but not the Rose names. Rosary is pretty inspired I think, and I suggested Róisín already (though I get that might be too much for someone who doesn’t live in Ireland) (pronounced row-SHEEN), but I also wanted to suggest Rosaleen. Beyond Shannon and Sean: An Enlightened Guide to Baby Naming (by the Nameberry ladies) says, “The Irish had imported Kathleen to America in the nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until the 1920s that the true impact of the Irish “een” names began to be felt. These included not only actual Irish names like Pegeen, Eileen and its variant Aileen, Maureen (a diminutive of Maire, the Irish Mary) and Noreen (a diminutive of Nora), but also Josephine, a French name that was very popular in Ireland; Doreen, an Anglicization of the Irish Dorren or Doireann; and Rosaleen, the Irish pet form for Rose. Colleen — an Irish word meaning “girl” but never used in Ireland as a name — hit the New World in the 1940s, peaking in popularity in the early 1960s” (6) (my emphasis).

Rosaleen is sweet and old-fashioned (in the best way possible) and Irish. I love it. Also, when I’m considering Irish names (as I would have loved to have given my boys names like Padraig and Tadhg but my husband has not a drop of Irish blood and his style is “Bob”), I consider the kinds of names that traditional Irish parents might choose — which may or may not be super duper Gaelic-y Gaelic but almost certainly will be saintly or otherwise heavy-hitting-Catholic (one of my native Irish friends when I was in school there was John Paul — along with a thousand [or more?] other boys his age, as he was born just after JP2 was elected pope). This all brings to mind a friend of mine from years ago named Rosemarie, who is also native Irish, and represented the Gaelic-speaking part of Ireland (the Gaeltacht) in the 2001 Tralee Festival (read about the Festival here and here). I love Rosemarie, and have had it on my list for years, through all these boys of mine.

(2) Alternatives to Brigid

I’m thinking of the second middle as the most obvious nod to the baby’s birth/feast day. Brigid is great — as I mentioned above, she’s St. Patrick’s female counterpart, and even has a cross named after her. Very Irish, very saintly, just lovely. Another idea is Bríd (said breed), which is a contracted form of Brigid and might be helpful if a one-syllable name would work better in that spot. BUT, if other super-Irish ideas are wanted, how about:

  • Catriona — said kah-TREE-nah (like Katrina), an Irish form of Katherine
  • Kathleen/Caitlin — the Heckamans could do Kathleen, that spelling, or Caitlin, which in Irish is said exactly like Kathleen! They’d have an uphill battle trying to get people to say a first name Caitlin as Kathleen, but in the middle they can do anything they want
  • Eilis — said EYE-lish, the Irish form of Elizabeth

I particularly like the idea of a C/Katherine or Elizabeth variant for them, as they haven’t used either one yet with their other girls, and they’re such big Catholic names.

(3) Alternatives to Marie

I know Theresa said they aren’t worried about finding a suitable Marian name, but I thought I’d throw a few good Irish options out there anyway, especially since they’d originally planned on Rosary Therese Marie — if the Marie were to change to an Irish form, they could go back to using Therese if they wanted and still have an Irish-y name:

  • Máire — Beyond Shannon and Sean says this is “the true Irish version of Mary.” They say it’s pronounced like Marie; behindthename says it’s pronounced MOY-ra; babynamesofireland says it’s pronounced MY-ra. That says to me they can choose the pronunciation they want!
  • Some other “Mary equivalents used in Ireland” (according to Beyond Shannon and Sean): Carmel (after Our Lady of Mount Carmel); Dolores (after Our Lady of Sorrows); Máirín – said like Maureen, an Irish diminutive of Mary; Maureen (anglicized form of Máirín); Molly (a diminutive of Mary)

What do you all think? Can you think of any other ideas that might be helpful for Theresa and Sean for their little Irish Catholic baby girl?? Are there any Irish readers out there who can verify my Irish thoughts or tell me I’m full of bologna/blood sausage?