Irish names meaning fire or light

Each name, and where the meaning comes from

• Ailbhe · “AL-va” · Used for girls and boys
  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.
• Áine · “AW-nya” · Girl's name
  '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.
• Aodh · “AY (also EE)” · Boy's name
  '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
  '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
  '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
  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
  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
  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
  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.
• Fintan · “FIN-tan” · Boy's name
  Fionn + tan, 'white fire' or 'fair offspring'. Fintan mac Bóchra, in the mythological tradition, survived the Flood in Ireland and lived five thousand years as the island's memory — a one-man archive. Some seventy saints share the name, chief among them Fintan of Clonenagh.
• Fionn · “FYUN (also FIN)” · Boy's name
  'fair, bright, white'. Fionn mac Cumhaill, leader of the Fianna, gained all knowledge by burning his thumb on the Salmon of Wisdom and sucking it — and thereafter had only to put thumb to mouth to know anything. Folklore made him a giant who built the Giant's Causeway to reach Scotland.
• Laoise · “LEE-sha” · Girl's name
  Usually read as 'radiant girl'; sometimes linked to Laois. Often used today as an Irish equivalent of Lucy, because both carry the idea of light. It may also connect to the ancient Laigis people who gave County Laois its name.
• Lasairfhíona · “la-sir-EE-na” · Girl's name
  Lasair + fíon, 'flame of wine'. One of the most gorgeous names in the medieval annals, borne by several noblewomen of Connacht — and rare enough today that its bearers tend to be asked to repeat it twice.
• Lasairian · “LASS-a-reen” · Boy's name
  From lasair, 'a flame'. Four Irish saints carried it; one is patron of the diocese of Leighlin in Carlow, where the great old yew still stands at St Laserian's.
• Muirgheal · “MWIR-yal” · Girl's name
  Muir, 'sea', and geal, 'bright' — 'sea-bright'. Woulfe reads it as 'sea-bright' or 'the fair one of the sea'. It travelled out of Ireland as Muriel and was thoroughly naturalised in English long before anyone remembered where it came from.
• Niamh · “NEEV” · Girl's name
  'brightness, radiance, lustre'. Niamh Chinn Óir, Niamh of the Golden Hair, rode out of the western sea on a white horse and carried Oisín away to Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth. He stayed three hundred years, thinking it three; when he came home and his foot touched Irish ground, he crumbled into an old man.
• Sorcha · “SOR-kha (Ulster SUR-akha)” · Girl's name
  '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.

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