Biblical Names in Irish

Generally speaking, the only foreign names that have been translated into Irish Gaelic (and used as given names) have been names of saints, names that were brought by the Normans and a few brought by the Vikings. Biblical names were never used by the populace unless they were also saints' names. In the early days iof Christianity, saints' names were considered too sacred to use for normal people, so names had a "mael" ("devotee of") or "giolla" ("servant of") placed in front. Thus, if a family wanted to honor St. Mary or St. Patrick, they would name a child Maol Muire or Giolla Phadraig. The names listed here are the versions of names found in An Bíobla Naofa, or the 1981 Irish Language translation of the Holy Bible. In most cases, these names have not been used as baby names, simply as translations of people's names in the Bible. However, some of these are in use as names. Those names are included in parentheses (in many cases they are the same). A lot of the translations of names are a little odd; for example, many names contain the letter "z," which does not exist in the Irish language!