View Message

I live in the US where there is a high concentration of people of Irish descent (myself included), but I've yet to hear it. In fact, I can't think of any time I've heard of a baby being born in this area where an Irish name with the Gaelic spelling is used. The first time I saw the names "Sinead" and "Siobhan" were in the '80s, my Irish pen pal used to tell me of friends she had with these names. I had no idea how to pronounce them. I know of "Niamh" not just from these boards but from the show "Ballykissangel" which I used to watch on PBS - there were books put out based on the series and that is where I saw the spelling "Niamh", but having heard the correct pronounciation "Neev" on the show.
Irish names like Aidan, Connor and Maeve are popular around here, along with many others. But I suspect many people are afraid to use the names with Gaelic spellings, gorgeous sounding though they are, for fear of dooming their child to a lifetime of correcting people on the spelling and pronounciation of their names.
I knew someone who was considering "Declan" but settled on Connor. I never heard of Declan until I read a Maeve Binchy book with a character by this name several years ago. I could see that one rising in popularity eventually since the it is spelled as it is pronounced.
Interesting stuff, all this is!