Just curious. I’m visiting the Emerald Isle in September. My Christian name happens to be Liam. I’ve always assumed that naming your child Liam, rather than William, in Ireland is akin to naming them Bill, rather than William, in the U.S.
Hence my question: is Liam primarily a pet or a given name the Motherland?
BTW: I wouldn’t mind hooking up with y’all. I’ll be in Dublin for a few days, after which my family feels compelled to trek across the island for the remainder of the week to take pictures of the ancestral mud and the ancestral sheep. But that’s a different forum.
Liam is the Irish version of William, much as Séamas is Irish for James, Pádraig is Irish for Patrick, etc. It’s not a nickname, though I suppose there may be Irish Williams who use it as such.
Remind us closer to the time. I’m sure we can work something out
Thanks. My confusion arose the other night as I was perusing a baby name book on a whim; it said that Liam was a “pet form” of William. “Christ,” I thought,“my parents named me Bill.”
I’m visitng Ireland myself in August, and my given name is also “William.”
Is William considered a Protestant name (due to good ol’ William of Orange)? Can I look forward to a series of savage beatings? In an effort to forestall this, should I request that my wife refer to me as “Liam” in a loud voice in all the pubs?
I suppose I could confer with the spirit of William Butler Yeats about this, but Sligo comes lateish in my itinerary.
More so in the North. Nobody really thinks much or cares about those things down here. Both my first name and surname are Protestant names and nobody’s ever expressed the slightest bit of shock or even interest in finding out I’m actually Catholic. And even up North the American accent is a good way to get out of any trouble your name (or anything else) might get you into.
If you do go up North it might, however, be advisable to tell your wife not to call you “Billy”
