These latter changes are not calculated to disguise the Irish origin of the families who have made them, but they are still to be regretted, as they tend to disguise the origin, race, and locality of the respective families, and we should therefore like to see the original names restored.
Similar changes have been made in the family names among the Welsh, as Ap-John into Jones, Ap-Richard into Prichard and Richards, Ap-Owen into Owens, Ap-Robert into Probert and Roberts, Ap-Gwillim into Williams, &c. &c.
Having thus treated of the alterations the Irish have made in their surnames, or family names, for the purpose of making them appear English, I shall next proceed to point out the changes which they have likewise made in their Christian or baptism names, for the same purpose. Many of their original names they have altogether rejected, as not immediately reducible to any modern English forms; but others they have retained, though they have altered them in such a manner as to make them appear English. The writer could furnish from the authentic Irish annals and pedigrees a long list of proper names of men which were in use in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and which have been for a long time laid aside; but the limits of this Journal would not afford room for such a list: he must therefore content himself by pointing out the original forms of such names as have been retained in an anglicised shape. These changes in the Christian names have been made, not only by those families who have adopted English surnames, but also by those who have retained the Milesian O’s and Macs; but these families have assumed that the English forms which they have given this class of names are perfectly correct. This was assumed to be true so early as the year 1689, in which we find Sir Richard Cox writing on the subject as follows:—
“The Christian names of the Irish are as in England; Aodh i. e. Hugh, Mahoone i. e. Matthew, Teige i. e. Timothy, Dermond i. e. Jeremy, Cnogher i. e. Cornelius, Cormac i. e. Charles, Art i. e. Arthur, Donal i. e. Daniel, Goron i. e. Jeofry, Magheesh i. e. Moses.”
Now, I absolutely deny that these names are identical, though I acknowledge that they are at present universally received and used as such. In the first place, the name Aodh, which has been metamorphosed to Hugh, is not synonymous with it, for the name Aodh signifies fire, but Hugh, which has been borrowed from the Saxon, signifies high or lofty. Since, then, they bear not the same meaning, and are not made up of the same letters, in what, may it be asked, does their identity consist? It is quite obvious that they have nothing in common with each other. In the second place, Mahon, or, as Sir Richard Cox writes it, Mahoone, is not Matthew; for if we believe Spenser and some Irish glossographists, Mahon signifies a bear; and if they be correct, it cannot be identical, synonymous, or cognate with the Scriptural name Matthew, which does not signify a bear, but a gift, or a present. In the third instance, the Irish name Teige, which according to all the Irish glossaries signifies a poet, is not synonymous with Timothy, which means the God-fearing, and therefore is not identical or cognate with it; and I therefore doubt that the Irish people have any right to change Teige into Timothy. It was first anglicised Thady, and the writer is acquainted with individuals who have rendered it Thaddæus, Theophilus, and Theodosius.
In the fourth instance, Dermod, or, as Sir Richard Cox writes it, Dermond, is not identical with Jeremy, nor is it synonymous or even cognate with it. On this name, which was first very incorrectly anglicised Darby, the learned Dr O’Brien writes as follows:—“Diarmaid, the proper name of several great princes of the old Irish. This name [which had its origin in Pagan times] is a compound of Dia, god, and armaid, the genitive plural of the Irish word arm, Latin arma, armorum, so that Dia-armaid literally signifies the same as Deus armorum, the god of arms. Such is the exalted origin of this Irish name, which does not screen it from being at times a subject of ridicule to some of our pretty gentlemen of the modern English taste.”
It must, however, in candour be acknowledged that this is not the meaning of the name Dermod, and that Dr O’Brien invented this explanation to gain what he considered respectability for a name common in his own illustrious family, and which was considered vulgar by the fashionable people of the period at which he wrote. We have the authority of the Irish glossaries to show that Diarmaid, which was adopted at a remote period of Irish history, as the proper name of a man, signifies a freeman; and though this meaning does not sound as lofty as the Deus armorum of Dr O’Brien, still it is sufficiently respectable to show that Dermod is not a barbarous name, and that the Irish people need not be ashamed of it; but they will be ashamed of every Irish name in despite of all that can be said, as the writer has very strong grounds for asserting. The reason is obvious—because they have lost their nationality.
In the fifth instance, Concovar, or, as Sir Richard Cox writes it, Cnogher, is not identical, synonymous, or even cognate with Cornelius; for though it has been customary with some families to latinize it to Cornelius, still we know from the radices of both names that they bear not the slightest analogy to each other, for the Irish name is compounded of Conn, strength, and Cobhair, aid, assistance; while the Latin Cornelius is differently compounded. It is, then, evident that there is no reason for changing the Irish Concovar or Conor to Cornelius, except a fancied resemblance between the sounds of both; but this resemblance is very remote indeed.
In the sixth instance, the name Cormac has nothing whatsoever to do with Charles (which means noble-spirited), for it is explained by all the glossographers as signifying “Son of the Chariot,” and it is added, “that it was first given as a sobriquet, in the first century, to a Lagenian prince who happened to be born in a chariot while his mother was going on a journey, but that it afterwards became honourable as the name of many great personages in Ireland.” After the accession of Charles the First, however, to the throne, many Irish families of distinction changed Cormac to Charles, in order to add dignity to the name by making it the same with that of the sovereign—a practice which has been very generally followed ever since.
In the seventh instance, Sir Richard is probably correct. I do not deny that Art may be synonymous with Arthur; indeed I am of opinion that they are both words of the same original family of language, for the Irish word Art signifies noble, and if we can rely on the British etymologists, Arthur bears much of a similar meaning in the Gomraeg or Old British.