How to pronounce this name

[denmcdough]

I love Gaelic names. My non-English name is Donncha. My sons have the names: Eamon and Colin. My brother's kids are named: Sean, Conan, Erin, and Brendan.

Now, if I had another son, I'd go with the name Declan.

[Lyle1]

If you use the Gaelic spelling, "Deaglán", would you include the accent mark as you did in your post? If you did include the accent mark, would anyone else ever use it? Would it be truly Gaelic without the accent mark? The lack of an accent mark would not bother me, but it is something to consider.

I've known several people, including my mother, whose legal given name was only used on the birth certificate. In later life (late 50's for my mother), it was necessary to prove that they were the person named on the birth certificate that they claimed as their own. Ironically, in my mother's case, her birth certificate had the Gaelic form of the name she had use all of her life as her "legal" name. The older members of her family always used the Gaelic form when talking about her, but everyone assumed that it was a nickname.

[ForresterModern]

Squeaky

Since nobody else sems to be coming up with the answer I did a little internet searching myself. So far:

Irish gaelic Deagl'an is indeed a form of declan and pronounced DEG-lawn with the accent on the first syllable. Means "full of goodness".

Another source says irish or gaelic Deagl'an is pronounced DEK-luhn which to me sounds like how I would pronounce the anglicized version.

Another source says that the second vowel in a two vowel syllable is silent to the first vowel is dominant, so pronounce the short e but not the a = DEG-lun or DEK-lun

Another says the accent mark is optional

Another says the meaning is "fully good"

Another says that the g can be variably pronounced as a hard g or a k or something in between depending on local dialect and convention

Another says it is an Irish Gaelic name of long history, dating back to the original gaels, but of unknown original meaning, with variable pronunciations as described above in other sources.

So what I am gathering from my short bit of research is that regardless of the spelling it is generally pronounced similar to the anglicized version Declan although you can soften the hard c a bit into a g if you so choose. Also seems to be very strongly originally irish gaelic rather than scottish gaelic, and probably made its way into Scotland with the irish/gaelic invasion of the western parts of scotland well before christianity reached the british isles with the later romans. It is however a relatively popular scottish name, in the top 100 male names in one compilation (date indeterminant).



Hope this helps. I still love the name. You started an extremely interesting thread Squeak.

jeff

[Squeaky McMurdo]

Thanks. Now I just have to convince the husband that it's a great name. He gets the last name and the middle name (his name is James) so I should get the first name right?

I usually prevail, but with the girls I let him choose the spelling he liked better, so will do the same in this situation...probably


This section of the forum needed some life shot into it, happy to be of service.

[SeumasA]

After reading this thread I have a couple of comments . First of all, congratulations on the addition to your family.
Be sure that you can put up with correcting everybody who doesn’t know how to say the name. As you can probably guess from my user name, I have a Gaelic first name. When I was very young my mom got disgusted with everybody mis-pronouncing my name and started calling me by my middle name. I’ve been Terry instead of Seumas ever since. It even got to the point that when I started school, she told them my first name was James, which is the English version of the name. It wasn’t until I applied for a passport that I found she hadn’t really changed my name legally. So, naturally I changed it back. Even though I still go by my middle name, I actually like having an unusual first name. If nothing else, I can always tell when I have a telemarketer on the phone. “Hello, is Seee-ew-mas, there?” “Sorry, I obviously don’t know you. Goodbye.”
As far as the ‘cool old’ names go, my great-grandfather was Sanford Leonidas. His brothers and sisters were; Hetta Rosetta, Amos Milroy, Ozena Hestella, Icadora Phillina, Viola Arminta, Newton Francis and Wilford Nelson. I really got a kick out of them when I was researching family history.

[ehiker]

Hating the fact that my name #12 on the list of baby names from the year of my birth, and that it was frequently mistaken for Jason (God only knows why...), the number #2 name on the list for that year, I decided to name my son a simple, Scottish, original yet pronounceable, Biblical name of "Ian" and I've been pretty happy with that... so far I've encountered 1 other "Ian" his age, amongst the seemingly countless Ethans, Aidens, Jaydens, Calebs, etc (the top 4 names for the year of his birth).

Oi. Try seeing your name in the top four. I used to have a pretty uncommon name...

Ethan

[SeumasA]

I guess I don't need to worry about that.

[Squeaky McMurdo]

Seumas, it's pretty popular in Star Valley, WY actually. A lot of the Scottish handcart saints were sent to settle here and there are quite a few people that gave their children family names.
***Can't get too far into that discussion because it will break Rule #5***