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A significant proportion of people to whom I introduce myself
in person often exclaim "That's a good Irish name!",
often in a fake Irish accent. I usually just smile and say
nothing, or occasionally I'll say "well, Scottish, actually".
While I'm not claiming to be an expert on this, and if any
of this is wrong I would very much like to hear
your corrections, this is designed as a little forum about
my name.
Why I was called "Seumas"
My father was born-and-bred in Scotland, and moved out to
Australian in his twenties to marry my mother. As a result,
many of my siblings have Gaelic names - Deirdre, Catriona,
Kirsten, Morag, Calum.
When it came to me, my father actually wanted to name me
"James", after himself. My mother flatly refused
- she said "there was no way that she was going to have
a James Snr and James Jnr in the house at the same time".
As a result, they compromised on "Seumas", which
is the Gaelic derivation of "James".
Seumas and James - one and the same
I have been told that Seumas is a direct Gaelic derivation
of the name "James", which developed because they
couldn't say the "J" sound - it came out as a "SH"
sound. If you say "James" over a few times aloud
replaceding the "J" sound with "SH", you
can understand why they ended up with "Seumas".
(Interestingly, the same concept applies to "Sean",
which is the Gaelic derivation of "John").
They are effectively the same name.
Why is your name spelt differently? I've seen it spelt other
ways!
The most commonly understood spelling of my name appears
to be what I understand is loosely Irish spelling: "SEAMUS".
However, my spelling is apparently much more common in Scotland
than it is in Ireland - with the U and the A swapped around.
Less common, but still a valid way of spelling it.
How common is the name?
I can't say for worldwide, but in my lifetime, which has
been majority spent in Australia, I've only ever run into
two other namesakes - one was an Irish Catholic priest (spelt
"Seamus"), and the other a kid that was at the same
school that I was for about 3 months (spelt "Shamus")
before he moved on.
I've never met anyone personally that shares the same spelling
as my name - that said, there is a Seumas Froemke in Ohio,
USA, that owns SEUMAS.COM.
I don't know the guy, and to be honest, I've never written
to him either, but there are some kinda funny areas of the
site.
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