I was reading an article about the singer Joe Heaney which mentioned that his birth name was Seosamh Ó hÉanaí.
Joseph (or Joe) Heaney is obviously an Anglicised form of that name (or perhaps not that obvious if you’re unfamilar with the vagaries of Gaelic spelling), but I was wondering what the legal aspect is. If you’re given a Gaelic name at birth, do you also have an “official” English name, or is the Gaelic name the only truly correct one. Can you have either version on your passport, for instance?
Most names in Ireland, especially Irish surnames, have an English form and an Irish form, sometimes with various spellings. For example, my surname is McDonagh, and that’s the form I would normally use. However, in school, I was registered as MacDonnchadha as I was in a Gaelscoil, or Irish language school.
It’s not always as obvious as that: for example, the Irish for the name “Walshe” is Breathnach, and for “White” it’s deFaoite.
AFAIK, it’s okay to use either form of your name on a passport. If you use a form of your name that isn’t the same as recorded on your birth certificate, you need to provide evidence you are commonly known by that name. I think they accept two examples or more showing two years proof of usage, so I guess things like bank statements and utility bills with the Irish form can be used for this purpose.
Ireland has two official languages of which Irish is the first (which to be honest is a polite fiction, English is the day to day choice of the great majority of the country). Birth certificates do not have separate lines for English and Irish names, just one space (labelled in both languages). Parents fill in what they want. The translation into English is normally pretty easy for traditional Irish names, surnames of non-Irish origin are generally not translated going from English to Irish (with the possible exception of replacing some letters that Irish doesn’t have, like Q and Z, with appropriate sound-alikes)
Either the English or the Irish form of a name is acceptable but common usage is to use the English form when talking English and the Irish form when talking Irish. For example my friend James would be Seamus if he came up in conversation in Irish.
That said it is not uncommon to run into people who insist or prefer on the Irish version, this is entirely their prerogative (it’s their name after all). The aforementioned James now goes by Seamus on all documentation, without an eyebrow raised.
There is some minor and unfortunate politicization of the issue associated with the continued hijacking of the Irish language as a Republican cause. When one sees a letter to the papers espousing some Republican lunacy it will often be signed with an Irish name despite being written in English. The majority of the time it’s just because the person like the Irish version better or there is already someone with the English version in their close family
I don’t know about passports etc, but I know some nurses from Ghana–they have two names as well, their real names and their English names. They use their English ones at work and out in commerce etc, their real ones at home and church.
Can I ask what Eleanor would be in Irish (or is it Gaelic?)?
Yep - PDF of the application form, with the ‘yes/no’ option for including the original name. I suspect this may also be an option for a British passport and others as well, for people who have changed their name but also want to ensure that the document matches their birth certificate for future ID checks (visa applications etc.) (the UK form isn’t available online).
My co-worker was just talking about this. He uses the Irish and English versions of his name. He says he can be on two GAA teams with the two different names and says that usually when you see a GAA (gaelic football or hurling) player with an Irish name, chances are he’s signed up to another team with his English name too. I’ve toyed with the idea of spelling my name in Irish but it would only change my surname and then I’d have a different surname to the rest of my family which would be kinda silly.
I’m the opposite, in that there’s no Irish equivalent to my surname. However, some relatives often spell my Welsh first name the Irish way (which I’ve never used myself), showing their Gaeltacht habits. I couldn’t care less which spelling is used.
I missed this one. Breathnach = Walsh? I would have thought you’d spell it “Branagh” in English. Hmm, doing a bit of Googling, it appears “Breathnach” means “Welsh”, hence the name Walsh. Clearly this is more complicated than I thought…
Okay, I see a direct etymological connection between names like Patricius/Patrick/Padraig - one form was created based on direct experience with its predecessor. Same with, say, Breathnach and Branagh.
There are also direct etymological connections between the names Smith and Schmidt – they have a common linguistic form and history.
Take, however, the names Smith/Ferrer/Haddad/Lohar. They have the same literal meaning, but don’t share the name “kinship” relationship that Smith and Schmidt do.
Thus, I would say, “Padraig is the Irish form of Patrick” or that “McCoy is an English form of Mag Aoidh.”
But I would not say that “Lohar is the Panjabi form of Smith.” They’re two separate names whose literal meanings just happen to be the same.
So if the connection between “Breathnach” and “Walsh” is only their literal meanings, then I would say that Walsh is not the English form of Breathnach, but an English name that merely happens to have the same literal meaning as Breathnach. So a someone name Breathnach who starts calling himself Walsh is really changing his name, not just using a different form of his name.
Aha I get you now. My late dad was an amateur scholar of Irish and Irish history and etymologies and would have been able to answer your question but I can only share with you some bits and pieces. Many Irish surnames are translated into English by sound alone so that a name like Mac Giolla Channaigh becomes McIlhenny. While Mac Giolla Channaigh has a distinct meaning in Irish (“Son of the Servant of Saint Canice” I do believe) its English equivalent is meaningless without reference to the original Irish. So for example as far as I’m aware the Irish equivalent to Smith is MacGabhann (“Son of the Smith”) but this would often be transposed (is that the right word?) into English as McGowan not Smith.
I’m sorry I’m not able to be of more help. I could arrange a seance and ask my dad but I think he might have better things be doing nowadays.
So they’re not “translated,” they’re simply Anglicized. The same way that Patricius became Patrick and Padraig. Thus, Patricius/Patrick/Padraig are the Latin/English/Irish forms of the same name.
Right, so MacIlhenny is an Anglicized form of mac Giolla Channaigh.
And so McGowan is an Anglicized (or English) form of mac Gabhann, but Smithson is not “the English form of” mac Gabhann, but a different name altogether that happens to have the same literal meaning.
I think we’re on the same track here.
So when Irish people adopt an “English” form are they doing (1) mac Gabhann -> MacGowan or (2) mac Gabhann -> Smithson, or is such a distinction not considered important?
I don’t know all the details but I think that the transition from Irish to English has never been done systematically so in some cases names have been Anglicised, other times the English equivalent has been used and in at least one case I know of, names have been Anglicised erroneously because of existing homophones or near homophones in Irish.
No offense, but I’ll stick with the English spelling…(is it pronounced the same way?) just curious.
If names were spelled phonetically, does that explain why there is MacClure and McClure, for instance? ( Scots names, but can’t think of an Irish example).
Kind of like a pervasive, dynamic Ellis Island–making geneology difficult for progeny to be.
