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ArchivesRe: English names in Ireland
in reply to a message by Indy
It's true that the English discouraged the use of Gaelic in Ireland, and hence Gaelic names. But the more important factor was changes in Church policy. All across Europe in post-Reformation times, there was a great deal of worry about Catholics giving their kids some weird crypto-Protestant name, a secular name, or a nonsense name. Since many kids were named after their godparents, and some godparents had weird names, this was a problem. There had also been a bull many years ago forbidding Catholic parents in Muslim countries to give their kids predominantly Muslim names like Muhammed, even though there had of course been martyrs and saints named Muhammed too.
So at that time (ie, not beforehand and not now), there was a strict rule that kids had to be baptized with a saint's name or the name of some Catholic holy day or theological aspect of God. The saints had to be saints in the Roman Martyrology (which did include certain Biblical OT figures). There were some exceptions where local martyrologies continued to be used for saints' names, but it took some doing by the local Catholic authorities.
Ireland had tons of local martyrologies, but very few saints in the Roman Martyrology right after the Reformation. St. Patrick wasn't on the Universal Calendar yet, even. Difficult.
So what happened was that people took "functional equivalent" baptismal names, and these were usually their legal names too, for use in encounters with the government or English speakers. If the priest wasn't sure about Patrick, you could use "Patricius," another saint with the same name. If not Brigit, you could use Bridget after St. Bridget of Sweden (who was named after St. Brigit of Kildare anyway). If you couldn't use Conn or Connor, you went with "Cornelius," as many of my ancestors did. (The nickname was still Conn or Connie.) If you couldn't be Maire or Mor, you could go with St. Maura of Antinoe. Tadhg was Timothy. Diarmaid/Dermot was Jeremiah.
There are a ton of these. You can usually go directly from Popular Name in Previous Generations to New Popular Functional Equivalent by just looking at genealogies of families through the period for common names that run in the family.
I hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
So at that time (ie, not beforehand and not now), there was a strict rule that kids had to be baptized with a saint's name or the name of some Catholic holy day or theological aspect of God. The saints had to be saints in the Roman Martyrology (which did include certain Biblical OT figures). There were some exceptions where local martyrologies continued to be used for saints' names, but it took some doing by the local Catholic authorities.
Ireland had tons of local martyrologies, but very few saints in the Roman Martyrology right after the Reformation. St. Patrick wasn't on the Universal Calendar yet, even. Difficult.
So what happened was that people took "functional equivalent" baptismal names, and these were usually their legal names too, for use in encounters with the government or English speakers. If the priest wasn't sure about Patrick, you could use "Patricius," another saint with the same name. If not Brigit, you could use Bridget after St. Bridget of Sweden (who was named after St. Brigit of Kildare anyway). If you couldn't use Conn or Connor, you went with "Cornelius," as many of my ancestors did. (The nickname was still Conn or Connie.) If you couldn't be Maire or Mor, you could go with St. Maura of Antinoe. Tadhg was Timothy. Diarmaid/Dermot was Jeremiah.
There are a ton of these. You can usually go directly from Popular Name in Previous Generations to New Popular Functional Equivalent by just looking at genealogies of families through the period for common names that run in the family.
I hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
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