Forum: Author Hangout

Luck of the Irish

Switch Blayde 🚫

I'm writing a short story and named my female main character Kerry. Well into the story, I wondered if Kerry is a boy's or girl's name and if I'd have to change it. The female character has jet black hair.

This is what I found when I googled it:

Kerry is a gender-neutral name of Irish origin. This name is something of a multipurpose one, with its consistent appearances as both a surname and a given name that defies gender binaries. It is chipper and modern with a distinctive edge, translating from Irish to mean "black-haired".

Did you notice the last part? "translating from Irish to mean 'black-haired.'" I nailed it without knowing that tidbit.

Replies: Paladin_HGWT sunseeker Dicrostonyx solreader50

Paladin_HGWT 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Huzzah!

The vast majority of my characters' names provide insight into those characters' motivations, or some other aspect. I don't usually explicitly explain it in my stories. They are "Easter Eggs" for any readers who might know, or look up a name.

sunseeker 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I've known both males and females with the name though the 2 females both spelled their names "Keri"...the guys were spelled "Kerry" though

SunSeeker

Replies: helmut_meukel

helmut_meukel 🚫

@sunseeker

though the 2 females both spelled their names "Keri"...the guys were spelled "Kerry" though

Wikipedia has an entry "Kerry (name)" with a long list of notable persons (females and males) with given name Kerry, Kerri, Kerrie; and two other entries for Keri and Ceri.

While most men have 'Kerry' as given name there are a few with 'Kerri', 'Keri', and 'Ceri'.
There are about the same number of 'Kerry' and 'Kerri' among the females, while the 'Keri' list is much shorter and mostly females. The 'Ceri' entry lists only two males and one female, all seem to be of Welsh origin.

This still doesn't say much about the distribution in general, because Wikipedia lists only notable persons.

HM.

Dicrostonyx 🚫

@Switch Blayde

While not directly applicable for this story, it's also worth noting that many names will appear in multiple languages. If the meanings are similar it's usually because of the name migrating from one language to another, but when the meanings are different it may simply be because there are a limited number of phonemes (language sounds) across a very large number of languages.

The Irish Kerry has over a dozen variations, some of which have multiple origins: Keara, Keira, Kerri, Kerrie, Kiara, Kiera, Kira, Keiran, Kiaran, Kiarra, Kieran, Kieron, Kierra, & Kyra.

For example, Kiara, which is a common Anglicisation of Ciara (from Saint Ciar), is also a version of the Italian name Chiara, which is the Italian form of Clara or Clare.

Other similar sounding names include:

Kåre (m) or Kári (m), Old Norse name meaning "curly" which is in modern Norwegian and Swedish.

Kari (f), Norwegian short form of Katarina.

Kaori (f), Japanese name usually meaning "fragrance", but there's an alternate reading of the characters which breaks down as "weaving".

Kerr (m), Scottish name meaning marsh or thicket, from the Old Norse kjarr.

My point is that if you have a situation like this again and don't luck out on the meaning/ gender, do some research on homonym names. There's lots of similar sounding names in the world and there have always been people who travelled, read foreign books, or just got inspired to giver their kids unusual names.

Replies: DBActive

DBActive 🚫

@Dicrostonyx

The Irish Kerry has over a dozen variations, some of which have multiple origins: Keara, Keira, Kerri, Kerrie, Kiara, Kiera, Kira, Keiran, Kiaran, Kiarra, Kieran, Kieron, Kierra, & Kyra.

But none of those are "Irish" names. Those are English adaptations of Irish names. If nothing else, there's no "k" in Irish.

Replies: helmut_meukel Dicrostonyx

helmut_meukel 🚫

@DBActive

But none of those are "Irish" names. Those are English adaptations of Irish names. If nothing else, there's no "k" in Irish.

Right, and the source Switch Blayde found is probably wrong about "black-haired".

Kerry or Kerri is both a masculine and feminine English language given name of Gaelic (Irish) origin.

In its original form Ciarraighe (Ciarraí), it denoted the kingdom of Ciar (ciar raighe), Ciar being the son of Fergus mac Róich, who gave his name to County Kerry. [Wikipedia]

Maybe Ciar means "black-haired" in Gaelic and he was named Ciar because he was borne with black hair, but I doubt it, because:

Ciarraighe was thus the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in the area of what is now County Kerry.

If Wikipedia is right about the pre-Gaelic tribe, how comes it's name is of Gaelic origin?

HM.

Replies: Switch Blayde DBActive

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@helmut_meukel

the source Switch Blayde found is probably wrong about "black-haired".

Probably because different sources have different meanings. I got my first one from https://www.thebump.com/b/kerry-baby-name# which says:

translating from Irish to mean "black-haired"

The reason for the post here was because I was ecstatic that my black-haired character's name matched that meaning. I didn't name her Kerry because she had black hair. It was a coincidence. And since it was an Irish name, my luck was "luck of the Irish."

But back to the meaning being wrong. I just checked further. Mom.com says:

Its Celtic/Irish meaning is 'Dark Princess'.

And https://www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/kerry/ says:

In Celtic Baby Names the meaning of the name Kerry is: Dark.

I stopped there. So it seems they all say the meaning is "dark", only one saying "dark-haired."

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@helmut_meukel

If Wikipedia is right about the pre-Gaelic tribe, how comes it's name is of Gaelic origin?

I don't know what "pre-Gaelic" means. The language at that time was Gaeilge Ársa - Primative-Irish. It's the earliest written form of Irish.

In any case, the history of those times was written in Early Irish so the people would have been given names in Irish.

Dicrostonyx 🚫

@DBActive

But none of those are "Irish" names.

Right, but that's my point. Not everyone of Irish ethnicity necessarily has an Irish name or Irish spelling of a name and not everyone with an Irish-derived name necessarily uses the spelling common to their language or region.

There have always been travellers. You can always justify a character having a variant of a preferred name.

Replies: DBActive

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@Dicrostonyx

My point was that "Kerry" itself is not Irish. It's an English name. My surname is common in Ireland, but, like almost all surnames in Ireland, it's an English name.
My first name is one of the few that's the same in Irish and English.

solreader50 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Far be it from me to disagree with you but I am missing the "Dubh" or some Anglicized version of it in your name, Kerry.

I don't have extensive knowledge of Gaelic, Scots or Irish, but I do know that black is Dubh. For example, the fairly common name Douglas in Gaelic is Dùbhghlas meaning black river or dark river. Or Ard Dubh (Ardue), black point in the Applecross district of Scotland.

I just don't see any "dubh" in Kerry. What I do see is someone who comes from Contae Chiarraí (County Kerry) in the south-west of the island of Ireland.

Replies: Switch Blayde DBActive

Switch Blayde 🚫

@solreader50

I just don't see any "dubh" in Kerry.

I have no idea. I simply picked "Kerry" because it's the first name that came to mind when I was naming the character. I didn't choose it for any meaning. But when I started reading another story that had a guy named Kerry, I thought maybe it wasn't a girl's name so I googled it and found it is both male and female. But the thing at the top of the Google results said it meant "black-haired" and my character had jet black hair.

I just found another site (https://nameberry.com/babyname/kerry/girlhttps://nameberry.com/babyname/kerry/girl) that says:

The name Kerry is both a boy's name and a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "dark, dark-haired".

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@solreader50

I don't have extensive knowledge of Gaelic, Scots or Irish, but I do know that black is Dubh. For example, the fairly common name Douglas in Gaelic is Dùbhghlas meaning black river or dark river. Or Ard Dubh (Ardue), black point in the Applecross district of Scotland.

Apparently cair does mean dark when referring to people:

EXACT MATCHES IN FOCLÓIR GAEILGE—BÉARLA

ciar1, a. (gsm. céir, gsf. & comp. céire, npl. ~a).(Of colour, complexion) Dark, swarthy. ~ dubh = CIARDHUBH

For black you add the -dhubh

EXACT MATCHES IN FOCLÓIR GAEILGE—BÉARLA

ciardhubh, a1. Jet-black, sable. A duail chiardhubha, her raven locks.

There's a typo in that phrase - should be ciardhubha -not chi---

in modern Irish it would be "a glais duibhe "

I don't have much Irish, but it also surprised me.

Replies: Dicrostonyx

Dicrostonyx 🚫
Updated:

@DBActive

Apparently cair does mean dark when referring to people... For black you add the -dhubh

Oddly, this reminds me of the Sumerians. The name Sumer actually comes from an Akkadian word which they applied to the non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia.

The Sumerians themselves used a word which meant "the black-headed people" (𒊕𒈪, sag̃-gíg). Whether they were actually ethnically distinct from the other peoples of the area is unknown.

Edit: Who knew you could paste Sumerian pictograms in to the forum?

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Luck of the Irish

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