What is the difference b/t gaelic and irish??

Question

the baby name I have chosen (first and middle name) are gaelic in one book and irish in another. What's the difference???

Answer 1

Gaelic has 3 modern branches:  Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx Gaelic, each of which is enjoying revival at varying levels of intensity.  If you want to learn Irish on-line for free, go to The Philo-Celtic Society School at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/philo-celt... and click on "Join This Group."

Answer 2

Per dictionary.com gaelic is: "a Celtic language that includes the speech of ancient Ireland and the dialects that have developed from it, esp. those usually known as Irish, Manx, and Scots Gaelic. Gaelic constitutes the Goidelic subbranch of Celtic. Abbreviation: Gael "

So it sounds as though Irish is Gaelic, but not all Gaelic is Irish. That was my original guess, but I thought I'd look it up to be sure. Gotta luv search engines...so much more efficent than posting here. ☺

Answer 3

Gaelic is language family which consists of Scots, Irish and Manx.

So Gaelic names would be names from Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man (Manx names are often left out and its usually only Scots and Irish).

Obviously Irish names would just be from Ireland.

For example Hamish could be in a list of Gaelic names but not a list of Irish names because its Scottish.

Also in a genuine list of Gaelic/Irish/Scots names there should be no names with the letters j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z because those letters dont exist in the alphabet used.

(Breton is not a Gaelic language)

Answer 4

Gaelic is a group of languages that all have the same origins. Irish (Gaeilge) is one of the Gaelic languages as is Scots Gael and i think maybe Breton?