Celtic Baby Names: A Developer's Guide to Cultural Name Data

Celtic names are some of the most beautiful — and most mispronounced — in the English-speaking world. At BabyNamePick , we've built special handling for Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Cornish names. Here's what we learned. The Pronunciation Problem Celtic languages follow different phonetic rules than English. Caoimhe is pronounced "KEE-va." Siobhan is "shi-VAWN." Cillian is "KIL-ee-an." Without guidance, English speakers will mangle these names every time. Our solution: pronunciation guides on every Celtic name page. Not IPA (too academic), but simple phonetic spelling that anyone can follow. { name : " Caoimhe " , pronunciation : " KEE-va " , origin : [ " irish " ], meaning : " Gentle, beautiful " } Celtic Names in Our Database We currently have names from four Celtic traditions: Irish — Declan, Cillian, Caoimhe, Niamh, Saoirse Scottish — Callum, Greer, Hamish, Isla, Lachlan Welsh — Cerys, Bronwen, Rhys, Elowen, Carys Cornish — Elowen, Kerensa, Demelza Many of these are gaining populari