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Regan Regan (Gaelic)was first used as a girl's name in the English-speaking world by Shakespeare as the name for one of the two disloyal princesses in his 1606 tragedy "King Lear... It comes from ri 'sovereign, king' and the diminutive -in and means "the king's child" or may come from riogach "impulsive, furious." King Lear's daughter played by Penelope Wilton Roisin Roisin pronounced "ro + sheen" Roisin is an Irish form of Rosaleen, which comes from the Latin name Rosa and means 'little rose'. Records show that the name has been in use in Ireland since the sixteenth century. When the expression of Irish patriotic poetry and song was outlawed during Ireland's troubled and turbulent past, the Irish bards would disguise their nationalistic verse as love songs. In the figure of Roisin Dubh ("Dark Rosaleen"), a Gaelic poem translated by James Clarence Mangan in 1835, the name became a poetic symbol of Ireland, reflecting the Irish tradition of disguising outlawed patriotic verse as love songs.
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