What's in a name?
Celtic names for children
By Loreto Todd
Published by O'Brien Press
Price £4.99
Dillon, Brad, Kylie, Jasmin, Phoebe, are not just the names of
most favoured Australian and US soap stars, but increasingly
there is a trend by Irish parents to name their children after
such characters. Thankfully, it is not a lost cause yet; we
haven't reached the idiocy level of Paula Yeats and Bob Geldolf -
Fifi Trixi-Belle, Heavenly-Havana Tiger Lily
This latest guide to names joins several others on the subject
including Irish Names by Donnachadh O Corráin and Fidelma Maguire
(Lilliput £5.95).
The similarity of the names used in the Celtic nations is no
surprise given our shared ancestry and histories and both books
mentioned provide an explanation as to the origin of the name and
the variations now in use today. We can even discover that the
soap stars of another culture are but bastardisation of old
Celtic names. Trixie Belle does not deserve a mention. As with
most such guides it is virtually impossible to include every name
or variation used but both authors have produced very extensive
guides. Loreto Todd boasts of 2,000 in her book.
Just to let you know, among the gems of information I found was
that:
``Aengus was the Celtic god of love and poetry and his words were
so beautiful to hear that bees and birds were attracted to them
as if they were honey''.
By Aengus O Snodaigh
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)