Pronounce Irish names like Saoirse with NameShouts!
As a startup founded in Canada, this one was a long time coming. Irish names are quite prevalent here, and some of them can be challenging to pronounce.
Irish names have a rich cultural history, and Ireland was one of the first countries in Europe to use surnames. In fact, surnames were commonplace in Ireland in the late 1100s, with the practice first developing as early as the tenth century.
With this history comes diversity in naming, with one example of a series of family tombstones offering six different spellings of a single surname -- from "McEneaney" to just "Bird."
And while Ireland has long practiced naming children uniquely, Irish parents used four times as many unique names in 2015 versus forty years prior.
That means the chances of you encountering an Irish name that you may not have seen before are higher than ever, and you best be prepared.
That's why we've put together a guide to 100 of the most common Irish names, from Siobhán to Aoife, to celebrate the launch of Irish on NameShouts.
If you're interested in other languages, you can check out our previous posts in this series, such as Vietnamese or Japanese.
And if you'd like to learn more about common Irish first and surnames, the folks over at the Irish Family History Centre have a great article here that explores just that.
So, without further ado, here are the 100 most common Irish names, and how to pronounce them:
- Connor
- Sean
- Jack
- James
- Adam
- Michael
- David
- Aaron
- Daniel
- Dylan
- Shane
- Cian
- Ryan
- Luke
- John
- Eoin
- Mark
- Patrick
- Thomas
- Jordan
- Liam
- Jamie
- Stephen
- Matthew
- Oisin
- Nathan
- Robert
- Andrew
- Darragh
- Ciaran
- Joseph
- Dean
- Kevin
- Evan
- Jason
- Brian
- Niall
- Ben
- Paul
- Christopher
- Eoghan
- Cathal
- Ross
- Joshua
- Ronan
- Lee
- Darren
- Peter
- Craig
- Colm
- Chloe
- Aoife
- Sarah
- Ciara
- Niamh
- Emma
- Rachel
- Rebecca
- Lauren
- Megan
- Amy
- Laura
- Katie
- Emily
- Shauna
- Nicole
- Roisin
- Sophie
- Kate
- Shannon
- Hannah
- Caoimhe
- Jessica
- Ellen
- Aisling
- Sinead
- Leah
- Anna
- Tara
- Grace
- Saoirse
- Aine
- Jennifer
- Jade
- Eimear
- Orla
- Mary
- Clodagh
- Claire
- Michelle
- Caitlin
- Olivia
- Lucy
- Courtney
- Louise
- Holly
- Lisa
- Danielle
- Grainne
- Kelly
- Siobhan
- Meadhbh
- Dearbhla
- Oisin
- Tadhg
- Ruaidhri
- Sile
