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ArchivesMy column on Sean (and Shawn and Shaun)
Here is the link to today's column:
https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-sean-has-roots-in-irish-ancestry/article_6e36f098-d10b-11ee-a07c-9fc2d77585fc.html
Here I was surprised again by just how recent the use of Sean in official records in the USA is. When I wrote my column on Ian a while back, I found that Ian really was not used as an official name in an English-speaking context until 1858, with it being automatically translated to "John" otherwise. With Sean, it looks like it was not used in an English speaking context until the late 19th century in Ireland, and wasn't used in the USA until the 1920s! I know I have read many fiction pieces and seen many examples in film and TV of men of Irish descent called Sean in the 19th century or even the 18th century. It turns out that if the characters are not supposedly in an Irish Gaelic speaking context, this is an anachronism, and any man called Sean when people were speaking the Irish language would probably automatically have been called John when people were speaking English before around 1890.
https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-sean-has-roots-in-irish-ancestry/article_6e36f098-d10b-11ee-a07c-9fc2d77585fc.html
Here I was surprised again by just how recent the use of Sean in official records in the USA is. When I wrote my column on Ian a while back, I found that Ian really was not used as an official name in an English-speaking context until 1858, with it being automatically translated to "John" otherwise. With Sean, it looks like it was not used in an English speaking context until the late 19th century in Ireland, and wasn't used in the USA until the 1920s! I know I have read many fiction pieces and seen many examples in film and TV of men of Irish descent called Sean in the 19th century or even the 18th century. It turns out that if the characters are not supposedly in an Irish Gaelic speaking context, this is an anachronism, and any man called Sean when people were speaking the Irish language would probably automatically have been called John when people were speaking English before around 1890.
This message was edited 2/25/2024, 12:08 PM
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Replies
Something that many people don't realize is that the vast majority of Irish people had ordinary English names for centuries because of how much control the English had over Ireland. From what I've read, Irish people in the 19th century spoke English and had English names. Irish names weren't revived until the late 19th/early 20th century due to Irish nationalism, which led to a revival of Gaelic culture.
The first American-born Seans were probably the children of recent Irish immigrants. During the 1920s many Irish were still leaving Ireland.
Needless to say, some English names were more common in Ireland than the rest of the English-speaking world due to Ireland being mostly Catholic. But I think these tended to be saint names (such as Patrick, Ignatius, Theresa, and Ursula) rather than Gaelic names.
The first American-born Seans were probably the children of recent Irish immigrants. During the 1920s many Irish were still leaving Ireland.
Needless to say, some English names were more common in Ireland than the rest of the English-speaking world due to Ireland being mostly Catholic. But I think these tended to be saint names (such as Patrick, Ignatius, Theresa, and Ursula) rather than Gaelic names.
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Actually as the column points out the first two Seans born in the USA (according to census records) were not children of recent Irish immigrants, but grandsons of Irish immigrants whose own parents were highly educated. This is normal, as highly educated persons would have been those most likely to be paying attention to how the Irish language forms of names were being revived back in Ireland, and later generations were actually more likely to want to revive names from their ancestry than immigrants, who would want to assimilate.
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The Shawn spelling being used for girls might have been influenced by it being more common as a surname spelling. If you heard Sean for the first time and were only familiar with it as a surname, it might have sounded unisex. During the 1930 to 70s when Shawn trended for girls there was Ted Shawn, William Shawn and Dick Shawn.
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