Hey guys! It's been a while since I posted, lol. I am repeatedly amazed at just how chaotic my life is at the moment...

Anyhow, my wife and I will be getting a new puppy in a few weeks. The breeders have asked us if we would like to pick out a name, so they can begin calling him that to help him learn to associate the name with himself. In continuing our current tradition of Irish Gaelic names for pets, we would greatly appreciate your help in translating a few words from English into Irish Gaelic. We would really love to have both the spelling of the word, and rough pronunciation of the word if at all possible.

The words we're considering, with context, are as follows:
Thick - As in, "That is a very thick tree." Referring to something with great girth.
Solid - As in, "The solid statue has stood for centuries."
Stone - As in, "The backbone of all the world is stone."
Rock - As in, "Someone threw a rock into the pool."
Boulder - As in, "I would hate to be hiking up the hill when that boulder breaks loose..."

Ok, so I kinda figured the last one was self explanatory and decided to make the sentence humorous. Perhaps I should know by now how well that works out for me...

Anyway, thank you very much for your assistance in this matter. I promise that some day I'll have the time to pick up a few books and learn the language by myself, though at this rate perhaps I'll already be able to speak it by then, with the help of your translations

Blessings to you all,

Scoot

Welcome back, Scoot. If you keep having puppies you may eventually acquire all of the basic vocab for the language before you ever get near those books.

Tiubh "Thick" TYOO (like the Tue in Tuesday when the Brits say it.)

Tathagach "Solid" TUH-huh-gukh
Dlúth "Compact, solid" D(uh)LOO
Cruánach "Solid" KROO-awn-ukh

Cloch "Stone" KLOKH rhymes with "clock" but has a hissing h sound instead of a k sound at the end.
Carraig "Rock" KAR-rig
Bollán "Boulder" BOL-awn


Did we introduce you to the vocative case yet? All names in Irish change depending on whether you are talking about someone (as above) or calling them.

The above in the vocative case would be:

A Thiubh "Thick" uh HYOO (like the "Hugh" when the Brits say it.)

A Thathagaigh "Solid" uh HUH-huh-guee
A Dhlúth "Compact, solid" uh GH(uh)LOO
A Chruánaigh "Solid" uh KHROO-awn-ee (has a hissing h sound instead of a k sound at the beginning)

A Chloch "Stone" uh KHLOKH rhymes with "clock" but has a hissing h sound instead of a k sound at the beginning and at the end.
A Charraig "Rock" uh KHAR-rig (has a hissing h sound instead of a k sound at the beginning)
A Bholláin "Boulder" uh WOL-awñ

Hope that helps ... (and await correction )

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[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Maithú Breandán,
Cloch sounds beautiful in irish, there's that guttural phlegmy sound to it, Nice phonetic descriptions by the way they all seem spot on, I learnt Munster Irish, I think the "ubh" we pronounce it as a "v" and we also pronounce the g in "igh" but both are pronounced gently in any case

As per the dog I think carraig is the easiest, cloch sounds nicer but will be difficult to get anyone to get his name right

What breed is the puppy?
We might think of better suggestions.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Ah, the breed. I will get to that shortly, but first I will explain a bit about what I look for in a dog. If you don't particularly want to read this part, feel free to skip down to the third paragraph of this post.

I don't like little dogs. I have one now, because he was adorable and fairly well behaved, but even he has shown me that I will not be keeping small dogs in the future (once he passes, anyhow; I'm not giving him up before then). I like a dog that is big enough to get my attention when it walks into the room, and big enough to be intimidating if someone were to attempt invading my home. Also, the dog is my horseplay partner. I can't play rough with my wife; she complains. I can't play rough with my children; I might hurt them. So I get a dog that will be about as heavy as I am, so I can roll around and shove and play with it. Also I've noticed large dogs seem immensely easier to train. Within three weeks of bringing home my purebred Great Dane, I had taught him 18 commands and completely house trained him. I've had my little Chiweeny for over three months and he's barely gotten command number 3.

The new pup is only 5 weeks old at the moment, so I won't be bringing him home for another 3 weeks. His father is a purebred Great Dane (not mine), and his mother is a purebred blue nose American Pit Bull. I was hoping to find one that had a Dane mother and a Pit father, but this specific cross is terribly hard to find at all; at least if you want to see papers on the parents to verify their genetics. I'll have to cope with the Dane father and Pit mother. I've been looking for this cross for over two years, and this is the first time I've found it with parents who are papered. I was also hoping to get either the harlequin coat (from the Dane side) or a brindle coat. Unfortunately I found neither. There were fauns, masked fauns, and blues. We chose a blue, with a white chin, neck, chest and back paws. The white from the chin, neck, and chest are all one solid large patch, while the back paws are white only on the toes, with pink claws. The remainder of his coat has the particular shade of gray known as blue. His eyes are light blue.

My hope is that the dog will get most of the size of the Dane, with most of the muscle build of the Pit. That's why I wanted to have the Dane as the mother; from what I've read about breeding, the overall height tends to come more from the mother's line than the father's (which is not to say the father has nothing to do with it, but the books I've read insist this is true for dogs...). The muscle build tends to come more from the father's side than the mother's (again, according to these books).

Some people have claimed that this particular cross is unwise, because of the stereotypical view of Pit Bulls as aggressive and unpredictable. Anyone who has owned a Pit (without hitting or kicking the poor thing, which often leads to aggression over time from any breed) can attest that this is utter fallacy. In fact, the dogs are amazingly loyal, fairly intelligent, and very good with children.

Others have claimed that Great Danes are dangerous, since they were the official dog of the Third Reich and were used to hunt humans. Again, this is utter fallacy. Danes are brilliant, incredibly protective and loyal, and act playful and excited as though they were puppies for their whole lives. In my own terms they're the smartest idiots I've met, since they're very easy to train but retain their friendly mischevious nature.

Anyhow, this is a very long response already, considering the original question. Because of that, I'll leave it here.

Thank you very much for the assistance you guys have already given. I really appreciate your help.

What about just calling it "madra"/dog

I had thought of that, lol. My wife quickly informed me that such names are neither funny nor witty, though I respectfully disagree with her.

That was interesting. Yes I read all of it.

If I hadn't seen pit bulls on television with Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) I'd probably buy into the stereotype myself. They are lovely dogs, friendly and loyal. It is the owners that make them violent.

He will be big and blue (coat and eyes) so what about -
Fathach gorm (blue giant)

You can call him "gorm" for short (blue) which is easier to say.


Although there could be a special word for that blue coat in Irish that I'm not aware of.

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___________________________________________________________

It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

That's a nice name for a dog 'Gorm'. It passes the 10 acre field test no bother!!

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Bí cinnte de go nglacfaidh triúr le gach aistriúchán a thabharfar.
Be sure to get three in agreement with a translation given.

I've read that words with "o" in them can be heard over longer distances, and are less likely to be confused with other words, so it should be a good name to use if you have to call him home, as Braoin noted.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.