Entry № 9208 · Irish origin

Saoirse Saoirse — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ SEER-shah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Irish
Meaning
"Freedom, liberty"
Syllables
1
First recorded
20th c.

A name that means "freedom, liberty".

Saoirse is the Irish word for "freedom" or "liberty" — a noun that became a given name only in the twentieth century, after Irish independence in 1922. It was associated with Republican politics for decades, and only became widely used as a name from the 1980s onward.

The pronunciation — roughly SEER-shah, though Irish speakers will note nuances no English transliteration captures — has been the chief obstacle to its spread outside Ireland. It is now one of the fastest-rising names in both the U.S. and the U.K.

A noun that became a name.

The name in its native script.

Saoirse
Transliteration
Saoirse
Pronunciation
/ ˈsɪːɾ.ʃə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Saoirse stands.

Saoirse does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Saoirses before her.

Real people
Saoirse Ronan
Irish-American actress. Academy Award-nominated four times for Atonement, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, and Little Women.
born 1994
Saoirse-Monica Jackson
Northern Irish actress known for the TV series Derry Girls.
born 1993
In fiction
Saoirse
Selkie child at the centre of the animated film Song of the Sea by Cartoon Saloon.
2014 film

Names connected to Saoirse.

The number behind Saoirse.

5

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Saoirse reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.