Irish names starting with A

The A names in brief

• Achall · “AKH-al” · Girl's name
  The name of a hill by Tara, for the woman said to have died on it. Daughter of the king of Tara. When her brother Erc was killed by Conall Cernach she went up a hill near Tara and died there of grief, and the hill was called after her.
• Aifric · “AF-rick” · Girl's name · also Affrica, Africa
  Possibly 'pleasant' or 'agreeable'. Two 12th-century abbesses of Kildare bore it, and so did a queen of the Isle of Man — Affrica, daughter of the king of Ulster, who married Somerled's rival Olaf. Nothing to do with the continent.
• Aignéis · “ag-NAYSH” · Girl's name · also Agnes
  From Greek hagnē, 'pure' or 'sacred'. From the Roman girl martyred in 304. Woulfe records that it was brought into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans, like a good many of the saints' names now thought of as Irish.
• Ailbhe · “AL-va” · Used for girls and boys · also Alva, Alby, Elva
  Possibly from albho, 'white', or from ail, 'rock' — 'noble, bright'. Used for women and men alike. St Ailbhe of Emly was a bishop in Munster before Patrick's mission was finished — one of the 'pre-Patrician' saints, said to have been suckled by a she-wolf as an abandoned infant, and remembered as the patron of Munster.
• Ailill · “AL-ill” · Boy's name · also Ailil, Oilioll
  Possibly 'elf' or 'sprite'. Ailill mac Máta was Medb's husband and king of Connacht — and it is their argument in bed over who owned more that begins the Táin, the greatest epic in Irish. He is remembered as the more reasonable of the two, which in that marriage was not difficult.
• Ailís · “AY-leesh” · Girl's name · also Alice, Ailis
  The Irish form of Alice. Norman Alice became Ailís in Irish mouths. Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, the subject of Ireland's first witchcraft trial in 1324, bore the Norman form; she escaped, and her maid was burned in her place.
• Áine · “AW-nya” · Girl's name · also Anya, Anne, Hannah
  'brightness, splendour, radiance'. Áine was a goddess of summer, wealth and sovereignty, associated with Cnoc Áine (Knockainey) in County Limerick, where midsummer fires were lit in her honour into the 19th century. She is also called a queen of the fairies in Munster folklore, and the FitzGeralds claimed descent from her.
• Aingeal · “ANG-al” · Girl's name · also Angela
  From Latin angelus, 'angel'. The Irish Angela — a short entry in Woulfe, and a name that says exactly what it means.
• Aisling · “ASH-ling” · Girl's name · also Ashling, Aislinn, Ashlyn
  'a dream, a vision'. Not an ancient personal name but a literary form: the aisling was a genre of 18th-century Irish poetry in which Ireland appears to the poet as a beautiful woman in a dream, foretelling deliverance. Poets like Aogán Ó Rathaille made it the vehicle for hope under the Penal Laws; the 20th century turned the word into a girl's name.
• Aodh · “AY (also EE)” · Boy's name · also Hugh, Aodhán, Hughie
  'fire' — the name of a pagan fire-deity. One of the oldest and most royal names in Ireland, anglicised, quite arbitrarily, as Hugh. Aodh Mór Ó Néill (Hugh O'Neill) fought England to a standstill in the Nine Years' War; Aodh Rua Ó Domhnaill (Red Hugh O'Donnell) escaped Dublin Castle through a snowstorm to join him.
• Aodhagán · “AY-a-gawn” · Boy's name · also Egan, Aogán
  'little little Aodh' — a double diminutive of Aodh, 'fire'. Irish could stack its diminutives: Aodh gives Aodhán, and Aodhán gives Aodhagán. Aogán Ó Rathaille, the last great poet of the old Gaelic order, carried it.
• Aodhán · “AY-dawn” · Boy's name · also Aidan, Aiden, Edan
  'little fire' — a diminutive of Aodh. St Aidan of Lindisfarne left Iona in 635 to convert Northumbria and is remembered as the apostle of the English north — one of the many Irish monks whose names are commoner in England than at home. The spelling Aiden is now among the most popular boys' names in the United States.
• Aodhnait · “AY-nit” · Girl's name · also Enat, Ena, Eny
  The feminine form of Aodh, the old word for fire. Woulfe records her as an Irish saint whose feast was kept on 9 November. The name is built from Aodh, which was both the word for fire and the name of a god before it was anybody's name.
• Aoibhe · “EE-va” · Girl's name · also Eva, Aoife (related)
  From aoibh, 'beauty, radiance'. A short, modern favourite built on the same root as Aoife — part of a whole family of Irish names (Aoife, Aoibheann, Aoibhe) that all say beauty in slightly different ways.
• Aoibheann · “EE-van” · Girl's name · also Aoibhinn, Eavan, Aveen
  From aoibhinn, 'beautiful, radiant, of pleasing form'. The name of the mother of St Énda and of several medieval princesses, including a daughter of the king of Tara. The poet Eavan Boland carried its anglicised form into modern Irish letters.
• Aoife · “EE-fa” · Girl's name · also Eva, Eefa
  From aoibh, 'beauty' or 'radiance' — 'the beautiful one'. Ireland's most enduring female name. In the Ulster Cycle, Aoife is the warrior-woman who trains and loves Cú Chulainn and bears his only son, Connla — whom Cú Chulainn later kills without knowing him.
• Aonghas · “AY-nus” · Boy's name · also Aonghus, Angus, Aeneas, Neese
  From oinos, 'one', and gustus, 'choice' — the one choice. An ancient name, frequent among the MacDonnells, O'Dalys and O'Leynes, and borne by five saints in the Martyrology of Donegal. Aonghus was also the god of love among the Tuatha Dé Danann, who kept Brú na Bóinne.
• Aonghus · “AY-ngus (also EN-gus)” · Boy's name · also Angus, Aengus, Aeneas
  'one choice' or 'one strength' — aon + gus. Aengus Óg, god of love and youth, lived at Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange), which he won from his father the Dagda by asking to stay 'a day and a night' — meaning all days and all nights. Yeats put him in 'The Song of Wandering Aengus'.
• Ardghal · “ARD-gal” · Boy's name · also Ardal, Arnold
  Árd, 'high', and gal, 'valour'. A favourite among the MacKennas and MacMahons of Ulster, who anglicised it, unaccountably, as Arnold. Still in use as Ardal.
• Arlia · “ar-LEE-a” · Used for girls and boys · also Arlía
  Not known — Macalister could only write ‘a name not found elsewhere’. It survives once. A small slab at Clonmacnoise, a Greek cross in a square panel, and a name cut into it: Arlia.
• Art · “ART” · Boy's name · also Artt, Arthur
  'bear' — and by extension 'champion, hero'. A genuinely ancient name, unrelated to English 'art'. Art mac Cuinn was a legendary high king; Art Mór Mac Murchadha Caomhánach humbled two royal expeditions of Richard II in the 1390s; and Art Ó Laoghaire's murder in 1773 produced the greatest lament in the Irish language.
• Athracht · “AH-rakht” · Girl's name · also Attracta
  The name of a Sligo saint. Patron of the parish of Lough Gara and of Tourlestrane in Sligo, and sister of Bishop Conal of Drumconnell. Her feast is 11 August, and her holy well and the lake she is associated with still carry her name.

Also spelled with A

Listed on the atlas under another spelling, but the A form is the one many families carry — they are the same name.

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