Where our information comes from
Every fact on Baby Names of Ireland comes from one of the sources below. Popularity figures are the Central Statistics Office’s own. Meanings, origins and spellings are checked against Irish dictionaries and reference works.
Popularity and rankings
- Central Statistics Office (CSO), Irish Babies’ Names 2025, published 27 February 2026
- CSO table VSA60, girls’ names registered in Ireland, 1964 to 2025
- CSO table VSA50, boys’ names registered in Ireland, 1964 to 2025
The tables are licensed CC BY 4.0. The CSO only publishes a name given to three or more babies in a year. Since 2018 it counts spellings with and without a fada separately (Sean and Seán, for example); we add them together and show how many babies had each spelling.
Meanings and origins
- Teanglann.ie, Foras na Gaeilge’s online Irish dictionaries
- Focloir.ie, the New English–Irish Dictionary from Foras na Gaeilge
- Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy, for historical people who bore a name
For the 82 names whose meanings we have researched and rewritten, the page lists its sources under the meaning. Besides the dictionaries above, they draw on:
- Patrick Woulfe, Irish Names and Surnames (1923), on libraryireland.com
- eDIL, the electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
- Logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland
- CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts, University College Cork
- Behind the Name
- Wikipedia
Where a name’s origin is uncertain, or the name isn’t Irish in origin, its page says so.
Pronunciations
Each name is respelled the way an English speaker would read it, with the stressed syllable in capitals. Irish has three main dialects, from Ulster, Connacht and Munster; where a second pronunciation is common, the page gives it too. The pronunciation videos are our own, from the Baby Names of Ireland YouTube channel.
Legends
The legends are retold from the Irish myths and sagas. Several were written for us by pupils at Coolderry National School in Co. Offaly.
Ogham
Names are written in Ogham letter by letter. Ogham has no J, K, V, W, X, Y or Z and no fadas, so those letters take the nearest Ogham letter (try the Ogham translator).
Corrections
If a meaning, pronunciation or spelling looks wrong, especially if you speak Irish, email support@babynamesofireland.com. We correct pages when we’re wrong. More about us.