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Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked for information on period Irish names, about the given names <Kathleen>, <Erin>, <Meghan>, <Brigit>, and <Shannon>, and about the surname <Moore>. Here is what we have found.
<Kathleen> is an anglicized form of the Irish <Caitlín> and <Caitilín>, which were in turn derived from the Old French <Cateline>, a nickname for <Catherine>. The slash represents a sharp accent on the preceding vowel. Both Irish names are pronounced roughly \KAHT-leen\, and both were in use in Ireland from the 12th century onward [1].
<Brigit> did not come into use in Ireland until modern times. In our period, names of saints were not used as personal names in Ireland. Instead, children were often named "servant of" or "devotee of" a saint. <Máel Brigte> "devotee of Brigit" was a common early medieval Irish woman's name; it is pronounced \male VREE-djeh\. The later medieval form (post-1200) was <Maol Bhrighde> [1].
<Erin> is a form of the Irish name for Ireland. It was not used as a human name in our period. <Shannon> is another modern name, derived either from the name of a river in Ireland or from an anglicization of the masculine name <Seanán> [2]. <Megan> is a late-period Welsh variant of <Margaret>, not found in Ireland; <Meghan> is a modern "Irishized" spelling [3]. You can find a full discussion of <Megan> on the web at
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/problemnames/megan.html
The Irish surname <Moore> is usually a shortening of <O'More>, which derives from Gaelic <O/ Mórdha> [4]. The root of that name is the Irish word <mór> "large". That word was quite commonly used as a personal descriptive byname, very often with the same meaning as "senior" in modern American names [5, 6]. For example, <Caitlín Mhór> means "Kathleen senior" or "Big Kathleen". Notice that <mór> has become <mhór> after the feminine given name. This grammatical change is called lenition; it represents a softening in the sound of the first sound of the word. In this case, the \M\ sound has become \V\. <Mór> was also quite common as a woman's given name in medieval Ireland [5].
We've suggested three medieval Irish given names that you might want to a descriptive byname. To build a complete Irish name, you'll want to add a patronymic byname (i.e. a name that means "daughter of" your father, such as <Caitlín inghean Mhurchadha>) or a clan name (i.e. a name that means "daughter of the descendent of" your ancestor, such as <Caitlín inghean uí Dhomhnaill>). You can find a full discussion of how to put together those parts of your name in two more articles available on the web:
Feminine Names from the Index to O'Brien's 'Corpus Genealogiarum
Hiberniae'
http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html
Quick and Easy Gaelic Bynames
http://www.stanford.edu/~skrossa/medievalscotland/quick_gaelic_bynames.html
I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Talan Gwynek, Charles O'Connor, and Effric nin Kenyeoch.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
References
[1] O/ Corráin, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, Irish Names (Dublin: The
Lilliput Press, 1990).
[2] Dunkling, Leslie and William Gosling, The New American Dictionary of
First Names (Signet Books, 1983).
[3] Arval Benicoeur, "Concerning the Name Megan", in _Problem Names_
(WWW: S. Krossa, 1997)
http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/problemnames/megan.html
[4] MacLysaght, Edward, The Surnames of Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic
Press Ltd., 1985, ISBN 0-7165-2366-3).
[5] O'Brien, M. A., ed., Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae (Dublin: The Dublin
Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976).
[6] Sixteenth Century Annals of Ireland