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ArchivesRe: English names in Ireland
in reply to a message by Indy
I'm neither Irish nor a specialist in Irish name usage, but I do have 18th-century Irish ancestors, and in searching birth records for them I found not one single instance of an Irish name recorded - unless you count Bridget and Patrick, which were very common. A sample of common names given to babies born between 1700 & 1800:
Patrick, William, James, Joseph, Hugh, Michael, Henry, Daniel, David, Samuel, Christopher, John
Ann(e), Margaret, Mary, Mary Ann, Martha, Bridget, Hannah, Catherine, Jane, Ellen, Honora / Annora, Johanna
You have to bear in mind that the parish clerks would always have recorded names in either Latin or English, not in Irish, as the use of the language was discouraged at the time by the British government, and had been for some time. And as far as I am aware, because of the commonness of the names in use, people would often have gone by 'bynames', which may well have been Irish. But for the purposes of a story, I think it's safe to assume that the majority of people in Ireland in your period would have had names like the ones I listed.
eta: You might want to have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language
Patrick, William, James, Joseph, Hugh, Michael, Henry, Daniel, David, Samuel, Christopher, John
Ann(e), Margaret, Mary, Mary Ann, Martha, Bridget, Hannah, Catherine, Jane, Ellen, Honora / Annora, Johanna
You have to bear in mind that the parish clerks would always have recorded names in either Latin or English, not in Irish, as the use of the language was discouraged at the time by the British government, and had been for some time. And as far as I am aware, because of the commonness of the names in use, people would often have gone by 'bynames', which may well have been Irish. But for the purposes of a story, I think it's safe to assume that the majority of people in Ireland in your period would have had names like the ones I listed.
eta: You might want to have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language
This message was edited 6/14/2015, 9:37 AM
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