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04th Apr 2018

This Beautiful Popular Irish Name Also Has A Second Disgusting Meaning

Darragh Berry

The Irish Times sparked a massive debate after publishing an article which revealed that The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has no record of names with fadas in them.

Róisín, Seán, Oisín, Sinéad and the rest of ye, we’re sorry to break the news.

The CSO said that names with the síneadh fada – which gives meaning and pronunciation to words in Irish – are analysed as if they were without the fada.

“We don’t regard names with accents as different names. Names containing accents have been analysed without those accents, e.g. Séan was analysed as Sean,” the spokesperson said.

The article caused major debate and the publication received a letter from one of their readers who was concerned about what this lack of recognition would do to someone who’s name is Órla…

Apparently, removing the fada from the O changes the beautiful name in a massive way.

The Letter reads:

“A chara, – Further to Éanna Ó Caollaí’s piece “CSO says it does not regard names with fadas as different names” (Home News, March 16th).

“Imagine your parents lovingly named you ‘Golden Princess’ but the CSO recorded your name as ‘Vomit’. Well this is exactly what the CSO have done in the case of the name Órla, which derives from the older spelling Órfhlaith, whereas the Gaelic word Orla, pronounced urlah, means ‘Vomit'”

“Misrepresenting the public’s details is outside the CSO’s legal remit and omitting fadas from names is one such misrepresentation.

“The CSO is directly answerable to Oifig An Taoisigh and I would be certain that Leo Varadkar, who has recently learned Irish, will put this right to ensure that he is not credited with knowingly insulting the people of Éire.”

You can read the letter in full here.

We love a good Irish name, whether it’s this famous girls’ one that’s taking America by storm or this one that has featured in the top 100 list of Baby names worldwide.

But we’re not sure how we feel about names with síneadh fadas in it after this…

READ NEXT: There’s A Lovely Irish Meaning Behind The Rooney’s Strange Baby Name

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