Colleen

My grandparents and parents gave me this name, they were from County Kerry and Mayo, Ireland. I was always aware that it simply meant, Irish girl. I was the first born in my family and they had picked out the name John (my father's and grandfather's name). So I guess it was like, "It's a girl!" I heard some discussion on here why someone would name their child this so I thought I would share from my story. Also, they pronounce it Cahleen, and sometimes both sets of grandparents would put different emphasis on the syllables. Perhaps because father's side were immigrants and mom's side were first generation Irish. The irony is that my middle name is Mary- which means "bitter". SO I always tell people, "I am the bitter Irish girl" haha...

I think it's important to point out that the idea of using Colleen as a feminine given name doesn't seem to have originated in Ireland itself, but rather with Irish-Americans and/or Irish-Australians. In Ireland, the word "Colleen" is in everyday use as a synonym for "girl", and so in Ireland no one would have named a daughter Colleen any more than Americans would name a daughter "Girl". Many people who were raised in Ireland thought it was very odd when their relatives who were a couple of generations removed from Ireland in the USA and Australia started naming daughters Colleen. Eventually when some American and Australian Colleens like Colleen Dewhurst and Colleen McCullough became famous world-wide, a few girls were named Colleen in Ireland itself, but that doesn't seem to have happened until well after Colleen was established as a given name outside of Ireland. [noted -ed]

It could be possible that the name COLLEEN is linked to the French word for hill, colline.

I saw in a baby names book once that Colleen is Irish and means girl.

It does! My name is Colleen. I've always the liked the meaning. It is the Anglicized version of Cailin. I actually have a cousin who's name is Cailin! My aunt didn't know it was another version of Colleen when she named her that.