Colleen

Colleen comes from the Gaelic word cailín, which means "girl" or "wench." Although Colleen is often though of as an Irish name, it is apparently not used as a given name in Ireland. Using it as a name there would be about the same as naming a girl "Gal" in the U.S. What is interesting, however, is the number of girls of Irish descent in the U.S. who were given the name Colleen, because it "sounds Irish" and went well with their Irish surnames. Colleen has enjoyed some popularity as a given name in the U.S., however, peaking in the 1960's. It currently is still used often enough to be a top 1000 name, but is far from common.

Donovan

Donovan is a surname which is also used as a given name for boys. The surname comes from the Irish surname, the Gaelic Ó Donndubháin, which means "descendant of Donndubhán." Donndubhán comes from the combination of donn ("brown") and dubh ("dark" or "black".) Probably the most well known Donovan is the singer Donovan Leitch, famous for such songs as "Mellow Yellow," and "Sunshine Superman." Donovan's music has recently been in the American consciousness once again through the use of his song "Catch the Wind" in a Volvo television commercial, though many people probably don't realize who the singer is, or the signifcance of the song (it was Donvan's first record.) In recent years there has been a strong trend of using surnames (such as Ashley, Reagan, and Kendall,) as given names for girls. Donovan hasn't turned up in this trend so far, and I am vaguely surprised by that; to me, at least, this seems at least as good a choice as Kendall or Reagan. In any case, if you are in search of an Irish or Gaelic derived surname to use as a first name for your new daughter, and you want one that hasn't yet been overused, Donovan is certainly worth consideration.

Fearchar

Fearchar is a Gaelic name that means "dear man," from the elements fear (man) and char (dear.) This name shows up in the early histories of Scotland and Ireland, and anyone researching their Irish or Scottish genealogy is likely to run across it. The slightly more familiar name Farquhar is the English version of Fearchar, and became a surname, so if you hit a dead end in your genealogy search with either Fearchar or Farquhar, try broadening your search to include the other.

Eva

Eva has (at least) three sources. One is as a form of the name Eve. Another other is as an English form of the Gaelic name Aoife, and another is an English form of the Irish name Éabha. Despite being a derived form of another name (in either case,) Eva has become quite popular as a name in its own right, and was particularly popular in the U.S. in the first 3 decades of the 1900's. Unlike many other names that were popular during that era, however, Eva has not become "old-fashioned" and is still in regular use. Eva is sometimes pronounced EE-vah, and sometimes pronounced AY-vah. Very occasionally Eva is pronounced EH-vah, but this is rare in English-speaking countries.

Niall

Niall is the original Gaelic form of Neil. This spelling of the name is now quite popular in Ireland, and could possibly spread to other English-speaking countries. Niall also tends to appear in novels set in Ireland or fantasy novels with Irish themes.

Ryan

Ryan is yet another first name that comes from a surname. In this case the surname is Ó Riain, which is Gaelic, and itself means "descendant of Rian." So a first name that came from a surname that came from a first name. Isn't it great how names recycle themselves like that? Ryan is an extremely popular name among new parents in the United States these days. Ryan has been a top twenty baby name for boys every year since 1990. This means there are a lot of young Ryans out there. If you are expecting a baby boy and looking for the perfect name, I'd hesitate before naming him Ryan for that reason. Parents of baby girls apparently haven't wanted to be left out of the Ryan-frenzy entirely--the name has been given to new baby girls since the 1970's, but the popularity of Ryan as a girl's name does not seem to be rising. However, it seems that a given number of parents do name their daughters Riane or Rianne or some other variation of Ryan. This is fine but in a lot of these cases they want to use these as variant spellings and keep the pronunciation of Ryan. If you really want to do this, it's your kid, but consider the fact that not many people are going to see Rianne and automatically assume it's pronounced like Ryan. So your daughter will spend a lot of her life correcting people who mispronounce her name. I do know of one couple who chose Ryane as their feminine version of Ryan and so far that's worked out just fine. Worth consideration.

Kyle

Kyle is yet another of those surnames that is now used as a given name. It comes from a Gaelic word (caol) which means "narrow." That word was used as a geographical term to mean a channel or strait, which led to it being used a surname. I haven't found information yet on exactly when and where the name started to be used as a given name, but it was in use (for boys) at the beginning of the 1900's, made it to the top 100 in the 1970's, and has been there ever since. A few girls have been named Kyle, as well. These show up in the top 1000 in the 1950's, and again at the end of the 1980's. Why? In the 1980's it was probably because there was a fad for giving girls Gaelic or Celtic inspired names, regardless of the usual gender associated with the name. A comment by a reader at Behind the Name suggest that in the 1950's girls were named Kyle because of an Irish Soprano who appeared as a panelist on a game show. I'd assume that in her own case at least, the commenter is correct about the inspiration for her name--and probably for at least some, if not most of, the others. This is irrelevant, but since I'm writing this I'll mention it here anyway--Kyle is my favorite South Park character.

Donald

Donald is a Scottish name that comes from the Gaelic name Domhnall. Since I'm working from several sources here that almost but don't quite agree on things, it appears to mean something like "almighty ruler of the world." This makes it an awesome name for a cat. The folks at Disney apparently thought it was also an excellent name for animated water fowl, and Donald Duck is probably one of the first mental associations people make with this name. Donald Trump also comes to mind--a good example of someone at least attempting to live up to his name. Donald is not as common as it was in the first half of the 20th century, but is still widely used. One reason for its continued popularity is that it is a versatile name. A child named Donald can also be called Don or Donnie.