How do you pronounce the name "Coughlin"?

Why did you ask me that? That's a tough one!

First of all, people who don't know any Coughlin's and telemarketers almost always pronounce this name incorrectly--and it drives me crazy! But I guess I should cut them some slack because it's just plain complicated and problematic--the pronunciation of the name Coughlin. Even in my own family I hear three different pronunciations: /COCK-lin; COG-lin; and CAWG-lin/. I think in my own lifetime I myself have pronounced this name in these three different ways!

My grandfather, Cornelius F. Coughlin (known as "Connie"), 1889-1960, was unambiguous about the pronunciation of his name. It was /COCK-lin/ period! That's how his father and grandfather, both born in West County Cork, Ireland pronounced it. The West-Cork angle is important and I hope to discuss it later.

In the summer of 1978, Linda and I traveled to Ireland for the first time. In Cork City, capital of what some call "The People's Republic of Cork," we found accommodations at a Bed & Breakfast and my first order of business was to ask the lady of the house how my name is pronounced. She immediately became flustered, hemmed and hawed, and finally said something like /CAWL-lin/. I couldn't believe it and thought she must have misunderstood me. I was later to discover that in Ireland itself there are probably 3 or 4 different (and I'd guess you'd say correct) ways of pronouncing my name. Indeed, in Cork City /CAWL-lin/ is a common pronunciation. You can also hear things like /COG-lin/, /CA-huh-lin/, and /COCK-lin/. The spelling of the name varies greatly too. In Irish-Gaelic, the name is spelled Cochláin. In English, the spelling can be Coghlin, Coghlan, Coughlin, Coughlan, Coholan, and probably a half dozen other ways. We must remember that names began in an oral culture, and these names in an oral Irish-Gaelic culture. Translating Irish sounds to English spellings is not all that easy; there are Irish sounds that don't exist in the English language. There are some fairly consistent transliterations (the Gaelic "ch" usually becomes the English "gh" spelling, for example), but there are inconsistencies galore. One complicating factor is the nature of Irish-Gaelic itself. There is no one homogenized standard; rather, Irish is an assembly of related dialects, and pronunciations can vary significantly from one region to the next. So an Irish "ch" spelling (which often becomes "gh" in English), can vary in pronunciation from a /k/ sound, to a sound like the "ch" in the German word Nacht, to an /h/ sound. And it can almost disappear as a sound. If you know someone with the last name spelled "Dougherty," you might pronounce it in many different ways, and the same holds true in Ireland.

One important thing to remember is that often in Ireland you can tell where someone comes from by the way they pronounce their last name. And the pronunciation /COCK-lin/ is a West Cork pronunciation--an important clue in our genealogical research.

When people with my last name came to America, things changed again (this is not true just for Coughlin's! Think about what happened to the Przybylski's! Some of these Polish immigrants had their name changed to something like "Shibilski," almost totally losing the Polish root and spelling!). These spelling changes can seem like losses, but you could also look at them as simple markers, trail clues--almost like the minute changes in DNA that track evolution.

In America, some people see the name Coughlin and try to pronounce it with our American-English phonics rules. They see the word cough in the name and pronounce the "gh" digraph with an /f/ sound. This drives me crazy, but ironically many American Coughlin's pronounce their name in that manner, including the famous football coach for the New York Giants, Tom Coughlin. This pronunciation puts priority of spelling and current American phonics rules over the longer oral tradition for the pronunciation of the name. Ironically, when I listen to sports announcers say the name of Tom Coughlin, it actually sounds pretty close to the Irish pronunciation, especially when they don't overemphasize the /f/ phoneme. Still, I must admit, I do not like this pronunciation of my name. It feels like a betrayal.

Many other Coughlin's in America pronounce their name /COG-lin/ or /CAWG-lin/. This probably is a compromise pronunciation (or maybe the only pronunciation many people have ever known). It takes some dogged determination to constantly correct people to keep away from the /KAUF-lin/ pronunciation. In America I've never heard the /CAWL-in/ pronunciation, but I occasionally hear the West-Cork /COCK-lin/ pronunciation. I have a feeling that it is hard to persevere in this pronunciation because people simply can't make the connection between a /k/ sound and the "gh" digraph in America. And secondly, I wonder if people worry about using a syllable that sounds like an American curse word. My grandfather and my Dad and my Uncle Bill didn't seem to worry about that--they said /COCK-lin/, and Uncle Bill, at age 85, still does say that. Most cousins seem to say /COG-lin/ or /CAWG-lin/. And that is the pronunciation I have heard when referring to the great American Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin. That's also how I've heard sports announcers refer to the great Irish distance runner, Eamonn Coghlan--/COG-lin/. I don't know if Mr. Coghlan pronounces his name that way himself.

One final note. The name Coughlin, which in Irish Gaelic is written Cochláin, apparently comes from the Irish word cochal, which means "hood, sheath, or cowl." I like to think we are descendants from monks, who, for a while at least, abandoned celibacy. One odd thing is that a Cork City pronunciation of Coughlin is /cowl-in/ and the name itself comes from a word meaning "cowl."

So that's more than you wanted to know about the name Coughlin!