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HelpRe: Hey!
in reply to a message by Caroline Mae
"Many irish names have an anglacized version for a reason, to make them more user-friendly to people who do not speak or understand the native tongue. I am not saying it is wrong to use them, just saying that they are a bit different than French, German, Spanish, etc. names for English."
I agree with you on this part! Even in Ireland, it's not too uncommon for parents to use an anglicised spelling of a traditional Irish name, because the traditional spelling would cause too much hassle for the child. The example that always springs to my mind is nineties girl band B*witched, made up of four girls from Ireland, one of whom was named Keevy. Not Caoimhe, Keevy. So some Irish spellings don't really make sense from an English speaker's perspective, even if the English speaker happens to have been born and raised in Ireland. In fact, when a girl named Mairead (a fairly easy one to pronounce, IMO) started at my work, it was my Irish team leader (who spent her whole life in Ireland, and moved over here less than three years ago), who had more trouble than anyone else remembering how to say it!
I agree with you on this part! Even in Ireland, it's not too uncommon for parents to use an anglicised spelling of a traditional Irish name, because the traditional spelling would cause too much hassle for the child. The example that always springs to my mind is nineties girl band B*witched, made up of four girls from Ireland, one of whom was named Keevy. Not Caoimhe, Keevy. So some Irish spellings don't really make sense from an English speaker's perspective, even if the English speaker happens to have been born and raised in Ireland. In fact, when a girl named Mairead (a fairly easy one to pronounce, IMO) started at my work, it was my Irish team leader (who spent her whole life in Ireland, and moved over here less than three years ago), who had more trouble than anyone else remembering how to say it!
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