Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Not what I expected, but okComment: This is a good book if it is the first or only one you'll get. I did not like the sections, I found myself using the index then looking up the names. The one section I did like was the "translation from English to Irish" section. The pronunciations were great, but a few were different than I have HEARD them pronounced. I bought this book to look for more names, but I find the website [...] has most of the same names, and you can hear the pronuncations. I'm glad I got my copy used.Customer Rating: Summary: EireComment: This was a really well laid out book. We found one of our girls names in there (Keira) and quite a few others that made it to the list. In the end, the other daughter received a Russian name ;-)
Customer Rating: Summary: Not worth the return postage...Comment: I ordered this book and was going to return it because it is such poor quality but it wasn't worth the return postage. I put it in the recycling bin instead. Seriously! I was surprised to see so many good reviews that I felt it was my duty to report otherwise. Try doing a web search if you are looking for Irish baby names rather than wasting the money on this book. You can see by my signature that we went a different route entirely (this was not caused by the terrible quality of the book, however! We decided our surname was good enough).Customer Rating: Summary: Rough at bestComment: Only mildly accurate, the clumsy mix of true Gaelic forms along with Anglicizations leaves me a bit put off. This might make it useful to many, but it is not at all formal in structure. There are also some names with variations given that are just ridiculously old. Noone uses the root 'dub' in place of 'dubh.' Some truly ancient names are included, but their selections are random. It appears to be mostly gloss from a few limited sources.Customer Rating: Summary: Great for reading and referenceComment: This charming name book will assist parents in choosing the appropriate Celtic name for their baby as it provides an extensive list of evocative Irish names. But why an Irish name? For some reason, this musical language and the magical legends of Ireland have become very popular in the Anglo-Saxon world and further afield. The introduction discusses trends in the giving of names and mentions the most popular current Irish names. The chapter Little Dark One provides a cursory history of the settling of Ireland by the Celts and then lists and explains suitable names for dark haired people, such as Darcy, Douglas and Duane. In the chapter The Fairest Of Them All there's mention of the Tuatha De Danaan and a discussion of names like Barry, Finbar, Kelly, etc. Red haired people are treated in the next chapters, where some of the more common names are Rory and Rowan, whilst the next chapter deals with names deriving from the root words for light or brightness; these include Aidan and Keegan. A Celtic Menagerie provides names that are connected with animal names or qualities: here you will find Colm, Conan, Conor, Oscar and Ronan. In the chapter titled The Green Isle, names derived from plants are given, including Darren and Tyrone. Warrior names in the next chapter include Casey, Fergal and Kane. Wednesday's Child provides names for less worthy traits, like Doran, Etain and Kennedy. Banshee names include Bevin, Cliona and Una, while names invented by authors include Fiona, Gulliver, Imogen and Vanessa. The next chapter discusses and lists the retranslation back into Irish, of popular Anglophonic names and also provides a list of Irish names with their English translations. The A - Z index lists all the names and their meanings/histories alphabetically and is followed by a calendar of saints' feast days. This interesting read and valuable reference work concludes with a thorough index.
