Irish baby names go in and out of fashion.
The current most popular Irish name for boys, for instance, is Rían, which wasn’t really on our radar as a first name until recently, and Ireland’s favourite Irish girl’s name is Éabha, which was pretty much unheard of until a few years ago.
The parents of babies called Rían and Éabha, and other popular names that have become very popular in this decade, like Fiadh, Fionn, and Tadhg, are of a different generation of Irish names. The mums might be Sínead, Aoife or Ciara; the dads are most likely to be called David, John, and Micheal – not Irish names but the most popular names of when those parents were being born.
One of the most popular Irish names for girls of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s (it was in the top twenty most popular girls’ names until 1984) is Deirdre, and we’re sure you know one or two. Or three or four!
It’s a great name, steeped in Irish history and mythology, but it does have a rather unfortunate meaning, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Pronounced deer-dreh, Deirdre means ‘broken-hearted’ or ‘sorrowful’.
Deirdre of the Sorrows is a famous Irish mythological figure whose tragic story has been immortalised through the writings of William Butler Yeats, J.M Synge, and John Coulter, and while that is cool inspiration behind a baby name, it has fallen out of favour in recent times.
According to the CSO, when records first began in 1964, Deirdre sat in 14th place in the most popular baby names list, with 408 baby girls given the name.
However, by 1990, only 143 baby girls were given the name, and just 16 babies were given the name in 2000.
If you search the name in the CSO’s baby name database for the most recent list, no results will come up at all.
We love the name, despite the less-than-cheery meaning, and we think that more little Deirdres should join the Deirdre tribe!
*This article was originally published on RollerCoaster.ie.
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