The tricky art of picking a name to last a lifetime
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
If you know anyone called John Paul, you can hazard a fair guess that they recently passed the age of 40 – because, while the world had JPs before and since, the real proliferation came around the time that the Pope visited Ireland in 1979.
If you know someone called Marian, chances are she was born around 1954 – because that was the Marian Year, as designed by Pope Pius.
There are other reasons behind children’s names of course; Jennifer might suggest a fan of Friends, or Jurgen a fan of Liverpool – and then some people like to keep using the same name over and over again through the generations.
That said, a recent survey revealed a number of Irish names that were once among the most popular in the land, but which are now in steady, if not terminable, decline.
From a male perspective, the survey suggests that omens are not good for John, Michael, Patrick, Seamus or Peadar – and for the ladies, Mary, Brigid, Maureen, Joan and Dolores no longer hop off the pages when it comes to notices of new arrivals.
And that’s apparently because parents see them as traditional – the names of their parents and grandparents – as opposed to the more fashionable names of today.
That said, the official register of births found that Patrick was still the eleventh most popular name chosen in Ireland last year – and if you throw variations such as Paidi (31st), Paddy (32nd) and Padraig (65th) into the mix, it’s still clearly a winner in many households.
Some of the most popular names today remain the same as they ever were – names like Jack or Conor or Liam or Sean – and others, like Oisin or Tadhg, appear to have made a comeback.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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