Welcome to my user page.
My screenname comes from Ferdiadh, best friend and foster-brother of Cúchulainn. Most know of Cúchulainn, the Hound of Culain, from the Táin Bó Cúailnge.
Years ago when I was first on the internet, I would rely on my Irish Heritage to concoct screennames for myself. My first screenname was Séamus, an allusion the Irish version of my middle name, James. However has time progressed, the letter e with a fada became hinderance to logging in, and Seamus without the fada had been taken a million times over on yahoo!, hotmail and everywhere else.
I had learned Amhrán na bhFiann, the National Anthem of Ireland. As a linguist by degree, I was amazed by the intriguing orthography of the word, bhFiann. Pronounced like the name Ian with a V, I quickly used bhFiann as my new screenname.
BhFiann received a lot of backlash due to the curious orthography and I would get /buh-fee-in/. Not as crafty as J.K. Rowling with the name, Hermione, I sought out a new handle. By this time, I was reading the Táin and loved Cúchulainn. Therefore, I tried removing the fada from Cú and attempted to use it as a new screenname, but like my failed venture with Seamus, Cuchulainn was taken. Seeing Ferdiadh as a nobel character in the Táin and noticing its lack of diacritic marks, I plugged Ferdiadh into AOL, yahoo, etc. and it worked. So the screenname has struck.
Please fell free to wiki my page, proofread, add to it, ask questions or just plan comment.
Thank you.
 | This user is a citizen of the United States of America. |
 | Éireannach This user is Irish. |
 | This user attends or attended the University of Pennsylvania |