ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1646
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1646
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14 Apr 1999
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked our helping choosing an Irish name that means "Caitriona
daughter of Dillon".  This letter is a brief answer to your question.

<Caitri/ona> is a later Gaelic form of the Norman <Caterine>, adopted
into Gaelic sometime after the Norman settlement of Ireland.  In the
12th or 13th centuries, the Gaelic name was spelled <Caiteri/ona>.  The
slash represents an accent on the preceding letter.  The earlier form
was pronounced \KAHT-@-REE-n@\, where \@\ represents a schwa, the sound
of the <a> in <sofa>.  The spelling you asked about is pronounced
\kat-TREE-n@\.  Many people in the Society pronounce it \ka-tree-OH-na\,
but this is incorrect [1].

<Cathleen> is a modern English spelling of the Gaelic <Caitli/n> or
<Caitili/n> which was in turn a Gaelic adaptation of the Norman name
<Cateline>.  That name was a variant of <Catherine> [1, 4].  <Caitli/n>
is pronounced \KAT-leen\, while <Caitili/n> is \KAT-@-leen\.

<Dillon> is not a Gaelic first name, so unfortunately "daughter of
Dillon" could not be an authentic Irish surname.  <Dillon> was an
English surname carried to Ireland by English settlers.  In English, it
has a couple different origins.  Sometimes it may have derived from the
Norman masculine given name <Dillo>, for which <Dillon> was a pet form.
Possible examples include <Geoffrey Dilun> 1203 and <Richard Dylon>
1332.  Other times it derived from the placename <Dilwyn> in Hereford,
which is recorded as <Dilun> in the 12th and 13th centuries [2].  The
surname was introduced to Ireland fairly early in the history of English
colonization, where it was Gaelicized as <Di/olmhain> or <Di/olu/n>.
Anglo-Irish documents c.1600 record it as <Dylun> and <Dilloun> [4].
The name was probably pronounced something like \DIL-oon\.

We also found an unrelated Gaelic family name <O/ Dalla/in> or <O/
Duillea/in>.  The former appears in English records as <O Dullane>, <O
Dallan>, and <O Dallon>, the latter as <O Dullaine> and <O Dyllane> [4].

Before you can put this information together into a name, you need to
decide whether you want a name suitable for a woman from Irish Gaelic
society or for an Anglo-Irish woman, who could have been either a
settler from England or the descendent of settlers.  A native Irishwoman
named <Caitri/ona> who was a member of the <O Dalla/in> clan could have
been known as <Caitri/ona inghean ui/ Dhalla/in>, literally "Caitri/ona
daughter of O/ Dalla/in".  This name would have been pronounced
\kah-TREE-n@ IN-yen ee GHAHL-ahn~\ up to the early 15th century or so,
\kah-TREE-na nee GHAHL-ahn~\ afterward.  \GH\ represents the voiced
version of the rasping <ch> sounds in the Scottish word <loch> or the
German <Bach>.  \n~\ is the sound of the Spanish n-tilde, as in
<sen~or>, or of the <gn> in French words like <montagne>.  For more
information on the formation of period Gaelic names, we recommend this
article:

  Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames
    http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/scotnames/quickgaelicbynames/

On the other hand, <Cateline Dillon> is a fine name for an Anglo-Irish
woman in the last three centuries of our period.  That name could have been
rendered in Gaelic as <Caitili/n Di/olu/n>.


We hope this brief letter has been useful.  Please write us again if you
have any questions.  Talan Gwynek assisted me in preparing this letter.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  14 Apr 1999


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References

[1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The
Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Caiteri/ona.

[2] Reaney, P. H., & R. M. Wilson, _A Dictionary of English Surnames_
(London: Routledge, 1991; Oxford University Press, 1995), s.n. Dillon.

[3] MacLysaght, Edward, _The Surnames of Ireland_ (Dublin: Irish Academic
Press Ltd., 1985, ISBN 0-7165-2366-3), s.nn. Dillon, O Dillane.

[4] Woulfe, Patrick, _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_
(Kansas City: Irish Genealogical Foundation), s.nn. Caitli/n, Di/olmhain.