Guess the Pronunciation

[Redwolf]

I have to say that I'm confused by the "sei" in front of the surname.

Same here. Then it occurred to me that maybe it's an adoption of the practice of hyphenating names as in other traditions. A modern thing, perhaps?

But that would assume that "sei" is a name, and it's not...at least not in Irish. There's "Ó Sé," but that's as close as I can come.

Redwolf

[Nanohedron]

I have to say that I'm confused by the "sei" in front of the surname.

Same here. Then it occurred to me that maybe it's an adoption of the practice of hyphenating names as in other traditions. A modern thing, perhaps?

But that would assume that "sei" is a name, and it's not...at least not in Irish. There's "Ó Sé," but that's as close as I can come.

Redwolf

Yeah, that's as far as I got. UNLESS! "Sei" might be Japanese (pron. "say" in that case, and to my poor experience it would be a somewhat nonstandard surname), and Mukade has enhyphened himself unto his beloved.

[Cork]

If it's any help for the second one, if it's from Munster (which I'm guessing from the netnick "Cork"), the Irish form would be pronounced "Mock YIL-eh VUR-eh."

Redwolf

Actually, when I originally signed on to C&F I thought it could be appropriate to have a username germane to the topics at hand, and so it then occurred to me that perhaps nobody had chosen to name themselves after a flute's head joint cork. Yup, that's the story. However, it never occurred to me that I'd one day begin studying Irish, here.

It's likely fair to say that only English has been spoken in my father's family for at least the past hundred years (for instance, were he still alive he'd be 99 this September, born 1910), and so I can't say that I've ever heard the original family name pronounced correctly. Besides, apparently a few generations of his family lived in Belfast, but before that were from the Hebrides, and so the pronunciation of the name is quite displaced, at least to my awareness.

[mukade]

I think Chiff gets a grade A+.
Everyone's combined answers pretty much got the correct result.

Yes, the trap was the Sei, which Nano correctly guessed is my wife's Japanese surname.
Sei is an unusual name in Japan. There are only two small clumps of it - one here at the foot of Mt.Fuji and the other in northern Japan. Most Japanese people outside of those areas find it difficult to read.　It is written with the character for clean/pure.


As for the Irish part of the name, Chrisoff sent me a PM first saying it was Farquar - correct.
The Scottish version is most commonly Farquar or Farquarson.

The are many different version in both Ireland and Scotland. The closest to the original Irish is said to be McKerracher. Other version include Caraher, Carragher, MacCarehir and many variations of those.

The name is made up from the words Fear 'man' and Chara 'friend.' Fearchair was a male first name and it is most common in Monaghan and Louth.

Nice work.

Mukade

[Nanohedron]

BTW, am I wrong in suspecting there's an element of "Farquhar" in there?

All RIIIIGHT. I was on track, anyway.

BTW, Mukade, would that be the same Sei as Sei Shōnagon?

[mukade]

BTW, am I wrong in suspecting there's an element of "Farquhar" in there?

All RIIIIGHT. I was on track, anyway.

BTW, Mukade, would that be the same Sei as Sei Shōnagon?

From what I have found, Sei is an abbreviation of Kiyohara （清原）
Sei Shonagon was also of the Kiyohara clan. Women of that period took the first name of their clan as a name. Shonagon was a government post title.

The Kiyohara's are linked to the Emperor Tenmu.

Mukade

[Cork]

BTW, am I wrong in suspecting there's an element of "Farquhar" in there?

All RIIIIGHT. I was on track, anyway...

Good going, Nano! I didn't see that, at all.

Then again, as a beginner I'm just now getting my head wrapped around the idea that Irish words can include "silent" vowels, which simply indicate just which of two sounds a nearby consonant could have. And, the only light at the end of this tunnel is a suggestion that nearly all of the grammatical rules are at least consistent. OK, we'll see, eventually, but at the moment I'm getting ever more confusder and confusder!

Then, just add a dash of Japanese into the mix, as mukade apparently did, and...