ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1665
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1665
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From: "Brian M. Scott" 
21 Mar 1999

Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!

You asked about the suitability of <Liadan ni Ciaran> as a feminine 
Irish name from the 10th to 13th centuries.

With minor changes this is probably quite a reasonable choice for
the 10th century.  <Li/adan> is the name of one early Irish saint and
the mother of another.  (The slash stands for an acute accent over
the preceding vowel.)  Yet another <Li/adan>, an early nun and poet,
was loved by the poet Cuirithir; their story is well-known in early
Irish literature. [1]  However, these people could not have lived any
later than the 9th century, and we have no other examples of the
name.  We might reasonably speculate that it could still have been in
use at the beginning of your period, but that's as far as speculation 
can safely be pushed.

<Ciara/n>, the name of some 26 early male saints, was much less 
common as a secular name, but it was used, and an early 'Li/adan 
daughter of Ciara/n' seems to be quite possible. [1]

The early Irish word for 'daughter', however, is <ingen>, not <ni>.
In fact, <ni/> is a post-period contraction of <inghean ui/>,
meaning 'daughter of O/ ...'.  (For instance, <ni/ Dhomhnaill> is
short for <inghean ui/ Dhomhnaill> 'daughter of O/ Domhnaill'.  Here
<inghean> is a later spelling of <ingen>.)  Thus, 'Li/adan daughter
of Ciara/n' is <Li/adan ingen Chiara/in> in early Irish.  This is
pronounced roughly \LEE-@-d@n EEN-y@n KHEE-@-rahn\, where \@\ is the
schwa sound of the <a> in <sofa> or <about>, and \KH\ is the slightly
rasping sound of the <ch> in Scottish <loch> or German <ach>.

You'll notice that after <ingen> the name <Ciara/n> adds an <h> and
an <i> to become <Chiara/in>.  These changes are required by Irish
grammar.  <Ciara/in> is the genitive (possessive) case of <Ciara/n>;
that is, adding the <i> is rather like changing <Hugh> to <Hugh's> in
English.  Irish grammar then requires the initial consonant of
<Ciara/in> to be 'softened' in pronunciation from \K\ to \KH\; this
'softening' is indicated by the <h> in <Chiara/in>.

I hope that this quick letter has been helpful.  If you have any 
further questions, please write us again.

For the Academy,

Talan Gwynek
17 March 1999

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References:

[1] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire.  Irish Names
(Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990); s.nn. <Li/adan>, <Ciara/n>.