Well, I suspect this thread to be long, but I will address a few questions at a time to keep this post less than the length of a small country.
1) I have noticed on the site some names are listed as Gaelic, some as Irish Gaelic and some as Scottish Gaelic. How much difference is there? Are they all the same language with different pronunciations or accents, or is there multiple dialects.
For example, I noted that 'torin' is chief in Irish Gaelic and 'conn' is chief in gaelic, according to the site. This also continues into question 2.
2) The following english words have more than one gaelic word given. I wanted to know if they are synonyms, or if there are not english equivalents of the words, so the english approximation is given.
river = ABHANN & GLAIS
poet = FILE, BARD & TADHG
dark = Ciardha, dorcha & dubh
slender = SEANG & CAOL
man = FEAR & VIR
wolf = cú & faol
That's all for now. I need the answer to #1 before I can ask more. Why I am asking all this is I have Scottish heritage. My last name is Cameron, and I have been the first girl in out particular line for quite a while. My fiance is German and Dutch, and I will be taking his German last name, so I want to name any impending children with Gaelic names. Growing up with an extremely common (9 girls out of ~100 in my graduating class), I felt I lacked a sense of identity. I got a lot of odd nicknames by teachers and class mates to try and differentiate us 9 girls, and very few people, including my own family call me by my first name, or any name for that matter. When people do say my name, it doesn't catch my attention, doesn't really feel like it belongs to me.
Anyways, long story not so short, I want to give my children unique and meaningful names. In addition, I have no English background, but my parents gave me an English name... So I want to take Gaelic words and create a name. The example I gave in a former post about something else was Daesloch, from the words 'deas'=south and 'loch'=lake --> 'from the south lake'. I didn't create it, I met someone with the name whose parents created the name from the Gaelic elements.
So I need to get pronunciations correct and as I am Scottish-Gael, I want to not use Irish words.
Thanks, and sorry I ramble ^_^
~SD
Ps. I hope u enjoyed my life story, lol