Irish Baby Names

Since we have been telling people that we will have our baby here in Ireland, a lot of them ask if we are going to give KidZilla an Irish name. . .we've considered it. But I wanted to share with everyone some of the names (and their spellings and pronunciations) that we have encountered while here. Maybe if you read long enough, I might divulge the names we are realling considering. ..

All the following information is from www.babynamesofireland.com This is just a really cool website in general, including a lot of background about the history and meaning of names as well as audio files with pronunciation.

Some Irish Girl Names:
Siobhan (sha-vonne) Very popular. We've met a lot of girls names Siobhan.

Niamh Now, I would really like this name if it were pronounced like "Liam" but with an "N". It's actually pronounced (knee-iv or kneev). Well, maybe I still like it. . .

Aisling (ash-lin or ash-ling) Very pretty.

Aoife (eee-fa) Also have seen this name a lot.

Caoimhe (kee-va)

Ciara (kee-ra) With a little different spelling, I would really consider this one.

Dierdre Very popular. And easy to pronounce.

Grainne (graw-nya) Have seen this one written and had to "look it up" to figure out how to say it!!!

Roisin (ro-sheen)


Irish Boy's Names:

Declan

Ciaran (kee-ran) Love it. . .for a girl. But we have met tons of Ciaran/Kiarans and I don't know if it's crossed over as a girl name here yet. .

Aedan Lots of different spellings. We considered this as a last name until we learned it was the #1 US boy's name for 2005.

Cian (key-an)

Gerard Guys with this name always go by "Ger." Like the first part of the word "geranium". Super-popular name with older men.

Liam This must be the most popular little boy name in Ireland. You hear this named screamed a lot in McDonalds.

Ruari Lots of other ways to spell it, but this is "Rory" Also head yelled by frantic mothers in department stores throughout the country.

Tadhg (tigue) This is the head doctor at my GP's office's name. I had no idea it was pronounced this way. . .


So I mean absolutely no disrespect by listing some of the unusual names we have encountered here. They really are beautiful, if difficult to spell and pronounce. There are tons more of unusual names at the site listed above, but I limited my list to ones we have actually encountered. Many people have really "normal" names. Jake and Emma are usually the most popular baby names each year. But I just had to share some of these...

As you know, John is in Houston being a wonderful husband, friend, and son all weekend. I have tried to keep myself busy to prove that I am not a crumbling mess without him. So far, minimal success.

I met up with one of the expat gals at the gym this morning for a little workout. Had a funny moment. . . when she was picking up some freeweights and was reaching for some "heavy" ones, I was like: "Oh, they're in kilograms." And she was like: "Umm, I think these are pounds."

Bam! My perceived fitness level was cut in half in less than a second! I was pretty crushed and felt stupid. . .(1KG=about 2.2 lbs). . . after she struggled with her 4"LB" weights after a few repetitions, we agreed that, indeed, the weights were in kilograms. Or we are just both REALLY out of shape. I prefer not to ask the staff and continue believing they are KG. Let me revel in my ignorance!!!

We grabbed a "quick" lunch--pretty much an oxymoron here! But we popped into Barry's--a pub a restaurant in Douglas Village, and it was fast and good. We had some tomato basil soup--certainly not LaMadeline. I was like: "Where's all the creamy goodness???" But I'm sure this was healthier. . .

After lunch, it was such a gorgeous day that I decided to brave venturing into downtown to the main shopping strip to find the Mothercare store. (Like Babies R Us but 1/27th the size.) Finding parking was not too difficult. . .just a little scary as I turned into what I thought was a parking garage but ended up being a courtyard packed with vehicles. It was a legitimate parking lot, but they had to sort of valet your car around to get it to fit.

And off I went in search of Mothercare. I did discover the Burger King here. Score! We can expand our eating out repertoire to include another fast food restaurant! Everything is along the main shopping corridor of St. Patrick's street. It was really awesome!!! I hope we have some nice days to take people down there even if it's to window shop. A good mix of stores and a nice, old town centre feel. But not so nice when it is raining, as it started to do as I retreated back to the car.

Made it to Mothercare, which is in the throes of a massive sale. Even at 50% off, baby clothes are still way too expensive here, but gosh are they cute!!! Little newborn down jackets! Amazingly cute, and, interestingly enough, useful here. At least the baby clothes are made with much better quality than the clothes for adults here!

Anyway. . I checked out some strollers--they are so high-tech!--and cruised around the store several times. (This took about 5 minutes) I made it out of there with a prenatal yoga DVD to try to get myself motivated and headed back home.

While crossing the bridge to the car park, a drunk homeless man was setting up shop along the bridge. His secret stash of booze must not have been tightly capped as he spilled a huge gush of cheap merlot-looking substance as he sat down. I'm sure that got cold to sit in after a while.

I felt like pretty hot stuff after venturing into the city centre by myself. It's pretty high-intensity with tons of people and cars. But once you get lost a few times, it all starts to make sense. And as John always says, you just can't get lost here. It's too small!

This evening I'm planning to eat the remainder of my lunch (roast beef sandwich on some good brown bread) and try out the Irish prenatal yoga video. Hopefully it was produced in Dublin so the accent is not as difficult to decipher.

Oh, and I guess if you've read this far, you might want to be "rewarded" with the names we are considering.

Girl: Kamille is my number one favorite. But we are also considering Keira and maybe Kieran (yeah, I know it's a boy's name but who will know back in Texas???) And then there's Keely and perhaps some other "K" names that are interesting. For a middle name. . .Ireland. That would be cute. But if baby is born on the 4th of July, maybe something like Independence or Liberty or something like that. It's a middle name--does it have to be serious??

Boy: I think we are settled on Zane, but we also like Reese, Lane, and John likes Dane (reminds me too much of the dog). I promise that we will not have three boys whose names rhyme. But those are names we like. For middle names. . .Austin or Owen. Maybe something else. We liked Aidan for a while, but maybe it's too popular.

Don't get out your embridery machine to create personalized burp cloths yet. . .we still have a long way to go before we settle on the name.

Hopefully John won't mind that I blogged about this. I don't think we were keeping it a secret.

And I must report that it is 4:30 and there is still a lot of sunlight left. Whoo-hoo!!! It's a Chamber of Commerce day for sure!!!