Asking for some Scot Gaelic help

[Lyle1]

Since you are posting from American, I assume that your mother will be selling to Americans. If she gives her business an unpronounceable Gaelic name, the title of her company will have little recognition value (i.e., the name of the company will not tell potential customers anything about her business; they will have to look somewhere else to know what she is selling). The title could also cause problems with indexing, though applied tags could work for a web site. She might want to try a name that speaks more plainly to what she is doing and would prompt potential customers to look at her wares.

[DrumMayer]

the name of the company will not tell potential customers anything about her business; they will have to look somewhere else to know what she is selling...

Point taken, and I'm no marketing guru by any means, but it seems to me a distinctive name in Gaelic would speak volumes to the niche market. Whether the Gaelic is the main banner or a translation tag line to the English name, it sends the message of tradition, hand-craft and "the exotic," for want of another term.

Suas leis a' Ghàidhlig!

[Deirachel]

Many thanks to the great debate here.

Question, how would one refer to the object of the knitting, i.e. the hose, sweater, et al. or the "knits"?

An example of this would be to say, a Knit jacket (a cartigan) over a sewn jacket, or a knit cloth, over a woven cloth.

As this is the goal, in otherwords, the name would mean Grandmother's Knits (or knitted things, in essence.)

I'm working on the lovely primer linked above, but it has appears so far to be a complicated as knotwork! For example, using the knitted petticoat, it appears "bhioran" would mean "knitted", but I'm not there yet

[DrumMayer]

Question, how would one refer to the object of the knitting, i.e. the hose, sweater, et al. or the "knits"...

The collective noun for knit wear is "obair-fhighe."

So, use it with your preferred usage for "grandmother." Possessives can tricky, but I think you would say "obair-fhighe sheanmhar," for instance. Perhaps someone can verify this construction?

I hate trying to write out the phonetics, but very roughly: "oebir ee-gaa hennaver." In other words, exactly as it is spelt!

You might try a phrase book if you want to get more specific about items of clothing and so forth, or use this online dictionary. Click the button on Beurla, type in an English word and click Lorg.

I for one think it's smashing you want to use the Gaelic! Éirich air! (go for it!)

[Lyle1]

Point taken, and I'm no marketing guru by any means, but it seems to me a distinctive name in Gaelic would speak volumes to the niche market. Whether the Gaelic is the main banner or a translation tag line to the English name, it sends the message of tradition, hand-craft and "the exotic," for want of another term.

Suas leis a' Ghàidhlig!

That would only be true if customers had some idea of the meaning of the title, assuming that they even recognized the words as Gaelic. That said, you might get around the language recognition issue by using a graphic with the title, perhaps incorporating the two into a logo. You could also include a translation of the Gaelic (or something about the products offered) in a smaller type that did not distract from the logo.

Pronunciation could be another issue. If people can't pronounce the name of your business, it would be harder to remember the name, and they couldn't tell other people about you. If you chose a Gaelic phrase for which you could include an easy to read phonetic transcription, that might not be such a big issue, and could be part of your advertising campaign.

Good luck.