Old Irish Name Generator

Old Irish (roughly 600 to 900 AD) and the Middle Irish that followed used spellings that predate lenition marks and later sound changes. Áed, Domnall, Diarmait, Eógan, Sadb and Derbforgaill are the period forms of Aodh, Dónall, Diarmaid, Eoghan, Sadhbh and Dearbháil. The sounds were also closer to the spelling: the th in Cathal was a real th, and the final consonants were pronounced.

They did not exist yet. People were identified by patronymics, so mac Néill means son of Niall and ingen Flainn means daughter of Flann, with the father's name in the genitive case. Hereditary Ó and Mac surnames such as Ó Briain and Mac Cárthaigh only became fixed around the tenth to twelfth centuries, at the very end of this period.

Many are. The kings, queens, saints and poets come from the Irish annals, genealogies and hagiography, and the heroes and gods come from the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle and the Mythological Cycle. The bare given names are drawn from the same sources so you can build original characters with authentic names.

Roughly: Áed is like 'eyth', Niall 'nee-al', Domnall 'dov-nal', Gormlaith 'gorm-la', Sadb 'sav', Derbforgaill 'derv-or-gal', Muirchertach 'mwir-cher-tach' with a throaty ch, Óengus 'oyn-gus'. The accent (fada) marks a long vowel, and a consonant followed by h or written as th, ch or dh is softened.