Talk:Scottish Gaelic name

Gàidhlig

"Where a person’s mother is a native married to an outsider, he may be named after her, e.g. “Domhnall Ciorstan” (Kirsten’s Donald)." "...“Iain Mhurchaidh Dhomhnaill Alasdair”! This means “John [son of] Murdo [son of] Donald [son of] Alistair”, a patronymic."

Shouldn't “Domhnall Ciorstan” also lenite, to “Domhnall Chiorstan”? - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 20:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

In some areas, yes, in some areas no. The writer, Angus Peter Campbell is Aonghas Phàdraig and Aonghas Pàdraig depending on where he is. --MacRusgail 19:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Dòmhnall Dubh

I think the following is rather POV:

“Domhnall dubh” is also a familiar Gaelic nickname for the Devil. (This may be partially because the Gaelic words for devil and demon – “Diabhal” and “Deamhan” bear some resemblance to the name “Domhnall” (Donald).)

I'm referring to the supposed resemblence between "Diabhal"/"Deamhan" and "Dòmhnall". However, in Irish at least Dónall (earlier "Domhnall") is used as a sort of generic name for particular types of people, animals or things in certain phrases such as "Dónall na gealaí" literally "Dónall of the moon" i.e. "The Man in the Moon" and "Dónall na gréine" or "A happy-go-lucky sort of person". "Dónall Dubh" is also a nickname for the raven. Other names used in a similar manner and "Tadhg": "Tadhg an dá thaobh" meaning "Two faced Tadhg" and "Tadhg an mhargaidh" or "Tadhg of the market" or "The man in the street" and "Siobhán an Chaipín" meaning "Siobhán of the cap" or the bird known in English as "stonechat". An Muimhneach Machnamhach (talk) 17:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Essay-like

If the article is largely based on an essay by Edward Dwelly, that's fine but either in-line citations or block quoting would clarify any essay-like tone. This is particularly the case since there has been the apparent addition of uncited, non-Dwelly additions to the text. You can't put the blame on Dwelly for not writing in the form of a Wikipedia article for us. Having his essay as this article's basis does not exempt us from licking it from an essay into the form of an encyclopaedic entry. Mutt Lunker (talk) 18:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

MacRusgail, this article has not been "Written by the author of the best Scottish Gaelic dictionary". It was written (initially at least largely) by you, using an authoritative source (by "the author of" etc.) but one which is in the form of an essay. It may be a good basis for, but is not in the form of an, encyclopedia article, so adding sections in wholesale (if that is what you are saying you have done) does not make it one without a wee bit of work.

What's more, and once more, as the article has had further and uncited contributions since your incorporation of the Dwelly text, inline citations are needed to indicate which sections can be attributed to Dwelly and which can not, and since the latter are uncited, can be questioned. Thus the section which had been tagged as in need of citation, the tag for which you removed, can not necessarily be assumed to be from Dwelly. If it is, no problem, put in an inline citation. In-line citation alone would probably go most of the way towards addressing any potential "essay-like-ness", by clarifying what in the article is authoratative and what is possible OR by later editors.

Can you please address these points, either by addressing the article or by discussing here rather than just reverting? Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Domhnallach

The first time I came across the adjectival form of Domhnall was many years ago in the context of an article in Irish about the O’Donnells. I find the Scottish use of Domhnallach for males with surnames in English form MacDonald puzzling for this reason. Also puzzling is the use of an accent over the Ò when in modern Irish Domhnall becomes Dónall through dropping the mh. 109.78.52.93 (talk) 16:07, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Nothing puzzling about that, Irish also has surnam forms ending in -ach, including Dónallach. Nothing puzzling about the ò in Dòmhnallach either, modern ScG has a tendency to use ò where a vowel has been permantently lengthened through loss of a neighbouring consonant cf. roghnach > ròghnach, cumhnant > cùmhnant etc. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:14, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Fictitious family tree

Is there a reason in this presentation as to why this James MacLeod can be distinguished (or, in Wikispeak, disambiguated) from other James MacLeods in the area simply from his father's forename, but his children all take the names of two previous generations for the same purpose? The impresion is given that Donald's children and their putative cousins would have three such names, and so on ad infinitum. Why is James under-named compared to his offspring? Is Neil's father unidentified or disowned? Kevin McE (talk) 18:15, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

In real life, that might occur if Seumas Nèill is sufficient i.e. there are no other people in the area called Seumas Nèill, so unless Seumas Nèill was reciting his ancestry (in which case he'd pile on the names as far back as he can), he'd usually just stop there for economy. But it's also a question of economy in the tree, if we made him Seumas Nèill Mhurchaidh, we'd have to add a Murdo to the tree and then Murdo's parents and so on. Where to stop? :) Akerbeltz (talk) 21:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)