PERSONAL NAMESAfter Columbanus there were some more Irish
Christians who pursued the
peregrinatio pro Christo
,
such as Fursa or Cellach who settled in Peronne in
Picardy. (It is not clear whether the
Schottenklöster
from the eleventh century onwards on the continent
can be taken as expressions of this ideal.) Contrary to
the widespread view which finds some apparent sup-
port in Adomnán’s Vita Columbae, Colum Cille, abbot
of Iona (d. 597), was not a representative of this ideal
because he visited Ireland after he had settled in Iona.
While the number of Irish
peregrini pro Christo
was
small, their exemplary lifestyle proved to be inspiring
on a large scale and was responsible for the enormous
influence of Irish spirituality on early continental
Christianity, including the system of penance. The
question remains whether it seemed impossible for
radical Irish Christians to live such a radical Christian
life at home.
M
ICHAEL
R
ICHTER
References and Further Reading
Charles-Edwards, T. M.
Early Christian Ireland
. Cambridge:
2000.
Richter, M.
Ireland and Her Neighbours in the Seventh Century
.
Dublin: 1999. (both with further references)
See also
Columbanus
PERSONAL NAMES
The earliest personal names are attested in inscriptions
carved on stone in the Ogam alphabet and dating from
the fifth to the seventh century. They may have served
to memorialize or to mark boundaries. Some four hun-
dred such names (normally in the possessive case) have
been found; (e.g., CATABAR MOCO VIRICORB)
(“[of] Cathbarr descendant of Fer Corb”). Their evi-
dence, however, is not always trustworthy either
because of difficulties in deciphering the readings or
problems with the phonology of the forms. Addition-
ally, since the geographical spread of the Ogam
inscriptions is quite narrow its names may not be rep-
resentative of the whole country.
The primary source of names are works from the
period, notably genealogies, annals, secular tales, mar-
tyrologies and lives of Irish saints, and the poetry of
the Bardic Schools. These works, however, tend to
reflect names of personages belonging to the privileged
classes, secular and ecclesiastical; very little is known
about name-giving among the lower orders of society.
In the secular genealogies of the early Irish ruling fam-
ilies over 12,000 names of people are listed, providing
some 3,500 separate names. Yet even this abundance of
evidence has its problems: many of the names occur
only once, raising the possibility that some of them may
have been invented by professional genealogists. Dis-
tribution is also limited: over 4,000 of the persons listed
share a mere 100 of the names, the five most common
being
Aéd, Eochaid, Fiachnae, Ailill
, and
Fe rgus
.
Given the patriarchal character of early Irish society
and the ecclesiastical provenance of its written records,
it is hardly surprising that women’s names are poorly
represented: some 100 in the genealogies and 300
more in a twelfth-century poem on famous women.
Most of the names are rare and confined to the earliest
period. Among the most common, well attested in
tenth- to twelfth-century sources, were:
Aífe
,
Ailbhe
,
Áine
,
Cacht
,
Eithne
,
Mór
,
Gormlaith
,
and
Órlaith. A
few names could serve for either men or women, such
as
Ailbhe
,
Cellach
,
Columb
,
Flann
, and
Medb
.
Morphologically, in both men’s and women’s names
four types of formation are evident: (1) simple, uncom-
pounded names, many of which are identifiable with
nouns or adjectives of known meaning, for example
Áed
(“fire”),
Art
(“a bear”),
Donn
(“brown”); (2) derived
names, formed by adding to an existing word a dimin-
utive, adjectival, or agency ending, such as,
Aéd-án
(“little Aéd”),
Dún-amail
(“like a fort”), and
Mucc-aid
(“a keeper of pigs”), respectively; (3) close compounds
consisting of combinations of noun and adjective ele-
ments; for example,
Fe r
- gus
(noun
noun),
Barr
fhinn
(noun
adjective),
Cóemgen
(adjective
noun),
Find-
chaem
(adjective
adjective); and (4) loose compounds,
consisting of noun/substantival adjective+adjective (
Cú
Buide
) or proper name (
Cú Chulainn
) or noun (
Donn
Bó
). The fourth type, although apparently of non-Indo-
European origin, became the most dynamic source of
new names from the seventh century on, vastly outnum-
bering the other three.
Informal varieties of personal names abound, espe-
cially pet (hypocoristic) names and nicknames. The
rules for hypocoristic formations have not yet been
fully elucidated though some patterns are evident. The
most common involves the shortening of the normal
form to a single root syllable ending in a doubled
consonant followed by
a/e
; for example
Diarmait
becomes
Dímme
and
Colmán
becomes
Conna
(com-
pare Modern English “Samuel” and “Sammy”). In
another type the shortened form is preceded by
mo
(“my”) or
to
(“your”) in the vocative, a type of affec-
tionate naming used for monastic saints; such as
Mo
Chumma
(
<
Colmán
) and
To Lua
(
<
Lucaill
). Also of
monastic provenance are pet names in –
óc
, a formation
borrowed from British; for instance
Mo Chíaróc
or
Tu
Medóc
. Nicknames are more problematic since it is
not always possible to tell in individual cases whether
a specific emphasis on the name’s meaning was
intended. Nevertheless, certain names that denote
prominent physical or psychological features suggest
ultimate origins as nicknames; such as
Becc
(“the