Irish

Where Irish comes from

From Middle English Irish (12th c.), from Old English *Īrisċ, from Old English Īras (“Irishmen”), from Old Norse Írar, from Old Irish Ériu (modern Irish Éire (“Ireland”)), further origin heavily debated but probably from Proto-Celtic *Φīweriyū (“fat land, fertile”), from Proto-Indo-European *péyh₂wr̥ (“fat, swelling”), from *peyh₂- (“to swell; to be fat”), akin to Ancient Greek πῑ́ειρα (pī́eira, “fertile land”), Sanskrit पीव॑री (pī́varī, “fat”).
— Wiktionary's entry for Irish
  • 2 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1924
    First appearance
    #4,002 among girls, 7 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1960
    Peak, #1,789
    40 babies named Irish — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1967
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #3,085.
  4. 2025
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name of chiefly Philippine usage.
Namesakes

We look up famous namesakes for names that have made the top 1,000. Irish hasn't yet.

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.