Irish names starting with S

The S names in brief

• Sadhbh · “SIVE (rhymes with 'hive')” · Girl's name · also Sive, Sabia, Sophie, Sábha, Sava
  'sweetness, goodness'. One of the commonest names in medieval Ireland, a daughter of Brian Boru bore it, and one of the hardest for outsiders to read: four letters, one syllable, said 'sive'. In the Fenian tales, Sadhbh is the woman turned into a deer who becomes the mother of Oisín.
• Saoirse · “SEER-sha” · Girl's name · also Seersha
  'freedom, liberty'. The youngest of the great Irish names: it was barely used as a given name before the 1920s, when republican families began naming daughters for the freedom they had just fought for. It has since travelled the world — helped by the actress Saoirse Ronan, who has patiently taught chat shows to say it.
• Saorbhreathach · “SAYR-vra-hakh” · Boy's name · also Saerbhreathach, Justin
  Saor and breathach: 'noble judge'. A common name among the MacCarthys, says Woulfe. It was borne by the father of Cárthach, the man from whom the family takes its name.
• Scáthach · “SKAW-hakh” · Girl's name
  'the shadowy one', from scáth, 'shadow'. The warrior woman who taught Cú Chulainn to fight, on her own island, usually taken to be Skye. It was Scáthach who gave him the Gáe Bolga, the spear he could not be beaten with, and she trained the greatest hero in the literature at a time when the warriors in it are all men.
• Séadna · “SHAY-na” · Boy's name · also Sidney
  An ancient name; Woulfe gives no meaning. Woulfe records four saints of the name. He puts the English Sidney in brackets, his sign that it is a substitute rather than a translation.
• Séafra · “SHAY-fra” · Boy's name · also Geoffrey, Jeffrey, Seafraid
  The Irish form of Geoffrey. Séathrún Céitinn (Geoffrey Keating), a priest of Tipperary, wrote 'Foras Feasa ar Éirinn' around 1634 — the first full history of Ireland written in Irish, and for two centuries the way the Irish told their own story to themselves.
• Séamus · “SHAY-mus” · Boy's name · also Seamus, James, Shamus, Séamas
  The Irish form of James. Séamus Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize in 1995, made it the most quoted Irish name of the late 20th century, 'hope and history rhyme' comes from his 'Cure at Troy'. The Jacobites' loyalty to James II gave Ireland the phrase Séamus an Chaca, 'James the Sh—', after he fled the Boyne.
• Seán · “SHAWN” · Boy's name · also Sean, Shane, Shaun, John
  The Irish form of John, via Norman-French Jehan. Ireland's commonest man's name for centuries, and proof of how thoroughly the Normans were absorbed: their Jehan became Seán, then produced Shane in Ulster and Shaun and Shawn wherever the Irish went. Seán Lemass and Seán O'Casey between them span the state's politics and its theatre.
• Seanán · “SHAN-awn” · Boy's name · also Senan, Sinan
  From sean, 'old, wise' — 'little wise one'. St Senan founded the monastery on Scattery Island in the Shannon estuary, and legend has him banishing a monster, the Cathach, from the island. Scattery's round tower still stands; the last islanders left in 1978.
• Séarlas · “SHAYR-las” · Boy's name · also Séarlus, Charles
  Germanic Karl, 'man'. A rare name in Ireland, Woulfe says, until James I called his son and heir Charles as a lucky royal name. In Ireland, Charles also became the English stand-in for native names such as Cearbhall.
• Seoirse · “SHOR-sha” · Boy's name · also Seórsa, George
  From Greek Geōrgios, 'husbandman, rustic'. The name of the patron saint of England, and rare in Ireland, Woulfe says, until the Hanoverian kings came to the throne in the 18th century.
• Seosaimhín · “SHOH-sa-veen” · Girl's name · also Seósaimhthín, Josephine
  A feminine diminutive of Seosamh (Joseph). Woulfe calls it a name of comparatively recent formation, borrowed from the French. Wiktionary gives it as Seosamh with the diminutive -ín on the end.
• Seosamh · “SHOH-sav (Mayo and Ulster SHOH-soo)” · Boy's name · also Joseph
  From Hebrew Yosef, '(God) shall add'. The Irish Joseph; Woulfe gives it as a variant of Iósep. Wiktionary shows the dialects parting over the ending: a v sound in Munster and Galway, an oo sound in Mayo and Ulster.
• Setanta · “SHAY-dan-ta” · Boy's name · also Sétanta
  Possibly linked to the Setantii, a British tribe. The birth-name of Cú Chulainn. As a boy he killed the smith Culann's guard-dog in self-defence and offered to guard the house himself until a pup was reared — and so became Cú Chulainn, 'the Hound of Culann'.
• Siadhal · “SHEE-al” · Boy's name · also Siaghal, Shiel
  An old name; Woulfe gives no meaning. Woulfe records two saints of the name, one of whom is said to have been bishop of Dublin. Its Latin form was Sedulius.
• Síle · “SHEE-la” · Girl's name · also Sheila, Sheela, Celia, Julia, Sile
  The Irish form of Cecilia. So common in Ireland that 'sheila' became Australian slang for a woman, carried there by 19th-century emigrants. It is also the name in the sheela-na-gig — the bold carved female figures on medieval Irish churches whose meaning is still argued over.
• Sinéad · “shi-NAYD” · Girl's name · also Shinade, Jane, Janet
  The Irish form of Jane / Jeanette. Irish took the Norman-French Jehanne and made it Sinéad — the feminine of Seán. Sinéad de Valera, wife of the president, was a noted writer of children's stories in Irish; Sinéad O'Connor made the name known in every record shop on earth.
• Siobhán · “shi-VAWN” · Girl's name · also Shivaun, Chevonne, Joan, Judith
  The Irish form of Joan (Norman-French Jehanne). Another Norman import gone thoroughly native — and a lesson in how Irish spelling works: the bh sounds like a v, so the name written 'Siobhán' is said 'shi-VAWN'. The great Abbey actress Siobhán McKenna carried it to Broadway.
• Síofra · “SHEE-fra” · Girl's name · also Siofra
  'elf' or 'changeling'. A name taken from folklore: a changeling was the fairy substitute left in the cradle when a human child was stolen. Its bearers include the Irish judge Síofra O'Leary of the European Court of Human Rights.
• Síomón · “SHEE-mone” · Boy's name · also Síomún, Síomonn, Simon
  From Hebrew Shim'on, from a root meaning 'to hear'. St Peter's first name, and the name of another of the apostles. Woulfe says it was rather common among the early Anglo-Norman settlers.
• Sionann · “SHUN-an” · Girl's name · also Sionna, Shannon
  The goddess the River Shannon is named for. Granddaughter of Manannán mac Lir. She went to the well of knowledge for the forbidden fruit the druids had planted, and the water rose and took her and kept rising: it became the Shannon, the longest river in Ireland or Britain, and it carries her name still.
• Sláine · “SLAW-nya” · Girl's name · also Slaine, Slany
  From slán, 'health, wholeness'. Borne by a daughter of Brian Boru who married the Norse king Sitric of Dublin — one of the marriages that stitched Gaelic and Norse Ireland together in the years around Clontarf.
• Somhairle · “SOR-la” · Boy's name · also Sorley, Samuel, Somerled
  From Norse sumarliði, 'summer traveller' — a Viking. A Norse name gone Gaelic: Somerled, the 12th-century lord who founded the Lordship of the Isles, and Sorley Boy MacDonnell (Somhairle Buí, 'yellow-haired Sorley') who held the Glens of Antrim against both Elizabeth I and Shane O'Neill.
• Sorcha · “SOR-kha (Ulster SUR-akha)” · Girl's name · also Sorka, Sarah, Sally
  'brightness, radiance, clarity'. Long anglicised, quite wrongly, as Sarah, with which it has no connection at all. Its real meaning is light: the same root as the word for brightness.
• Sósaidh · “SOH-see” · Girl's name · also Susie
  A pet form of Súsanna (Susanna). The Irish Susie: Woulfe lists it as the pet form of Sósanna or Súsanna, written the Irish way.
• Stéise · “STAY-sha” · Girl's name · also Stacy
  A pet form of Annstás (Anastasia). Woulfe gives it only as the pet form of Annstás, the Irish Anastasia. Wikipedia's list of Irish given names pairs it with Stacy as well.
• Stiofán · “STIFF-awn” · Boy's name · also Steafán, Stiabhán, Stephen, Steven
  From Greek stephanos, 'crown' or 'wreath'. The name of the first Christian martyr. Woulfe lists seven Irish spellings for it, from Steafán to Stiabhna, and says it was rather common among the early Anglo-Norman settlers.
• Suibhne · “SIV-na” · Boy's name · also Sivney, Sweeney
  'well-going'. Borne by seven Irish saints — and by Suibhne Geilt, the king driven mad at the battle of Mag Rath who spent years in the treetops speaking poetry. Buile Shuibhne is one of the finest things in medieval Irish.
• Súsanna · “SOO-sa-na” · Girl's name · also Susanna, Susan
  From Hebrew shoshannah, a lily. From the Hebrew woman falsely accused and saved by Daniel when he showed her accusers to be liars. Another name the Anglo-Normans brought in.

Also spelled with S

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

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