Caitlín

In Irish it is kat-LEEN, with the stress on the long í. The anglicised KAYT-lin is a different treatment of the same name, and both are in use — Kathleen came from the Irish, and Caitlyn came back from the English.

• th → h — never the English th
• á é í ó ú (the fada) → a long vowel — and never optional

All seven rules, and every name with a respelling →

Cathleen Ni Houlihan, Caitlín Ní Uallacháin, is Ireland personified as an old woman who sends young men out to die and is made young again by their sacrifice; Yeats and Lady Gregory put her on the Abbey stage in 1902. The name's American spelling, Caitlin, is usually said quite differently from the Irish.