Whats up with the starred names?
The starred names represent native Irish and Scottish Gaelic (and a couple of Dutch and Yiddish) names that were “translated” as English names by English speakers. This occurred, in the case of Irish and Scottish, when the native speaking populations were ruled by English speakers. Because the English speakers couldn’t understand, pronounce, and spell the native names correctly, they assigned English names to the native names based mainly on sound. Thus the Irish and Scottish name Domhnall isn’t actually etymologically related to the Hebrew name Daniel, but it was “translated” as so. Because of this cultural connections, the names have been connected and equated for a couple hundred years now. In the case of the Dutch names, people changed them to similar sounding English names upon immigration to the USA. The Yiddish names are a whole other kettle of fish. See the explanation on the Yiddish page.
