Ways to breed as many Gráinnes as possible. Our goal is to increase the concentration of people named Gráinne Ní Riain. Misspellings, especially misspellings that omit the fadas, are not counted. No Grainne Ni Riain. No Anglicizations either; sorry Grainne Ryan you don't count.
Current generation rates
Unfortunately, the rate of new Gráinne generation in Ireland is concerning. CSO data showed that 259 Gráinnes were born in 2024. The CSO has no data on the usage of Ní Riain specifically; but it has data on the usage of Ryan; in 2024, 347 had Ryan as their surname. Ireland had 54,060 births in 2024. Thus, Gráinne accounts for 0.479%, and Ryan accounts for 0.641%. 0.641% of 347 is 2.082, meaning that in 2024, about 2.08 Gráinnes were born, and whether any of them will adopt Gráinne Ní Riain as their name is unknown.
The particle Ní is also not permanent; a Gráinne Ní Riain loses her Ní when she marries. Thus, only lonely women, celibates, or those intentionally isolated from dating opportunities are likely to retain their Ní for the majority of their lifetime. In 2024, 20,348 couples were married. The average age for a bride in Ireland at marriage was 35.9 years, which means that around 74.67 years of life will be experienced by these people with the surname Ní Riain, assuming they generate observable Internet activity that includes their legal name.
The Gráinne colony
Linguistics note: Officially, a Gaeltacht refers to an officially recognized area where Irish, rather than English, is the dominant language; but here we use the Gaeltacht to collectively refer to all of them.
One of the methods through which the rate of Gráinne generation could be increased is for the voluntary recruitment of 50,000 persons who speak Irish natively for a colony mission to an Earthlike planet with a similar climate to Ireland, for the formation of a civillization with as little Anglicization as possible. Anglicization is likely to result in the degradation of a Ní Riain into a Ryan.
Care should be taken to maintain the concentration of GNRs at an acceptable level; for example, humans on Earth surnamed Smith will almost certainly refrain from naming their son "John", as "John Smith" is excessively common. Thus, by occasionally offering GNRs from the colony a chance to move to Earth or other worlds across human space, the total concentration of GNRs can be increased, while preventing the colony's generation rate of GNRs from decreasing.
Rendering Ní opaque
Another solution targets the primary sink of Ní Riains; the loss of the Ní particle upon marriage. Cultural adjustments could be made in America or on the colony that treat Ní Riain as an opaque string in the "last name" field. This has already occurred with O; the name O'Reilly is an anglicized form of Ó Raghallaigh, a surname reserved for men; yet if we pick a random sample of people with Wikipedia articles, we have Jennifer O'Reilly (1943-2016), Caitriona O'Reilly (born 1973), and Emily O'Reilly, all of whom are women who have the name in "violation" of traditional Irish naming.
Lemuria is rather obsessed with the name "Gráinne", if you can tell. He wrote this on 2026-05-22, well, at least, that's when the first and only Lemuria Wiki edit was.