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Thanks for your perspective.  In the case of the naturalizations, the writer was a U.S. government employee who did not have an Irish last name and who was probably a native English speaker.  His handwriting was polished.  He was probably reasonably well-educated though perhaps unfamiliar with Irish county names.  This leads me to believe he wrote the county name as he heard it.  Reading the earlier discussion that said that certain Meath accents would make the word sound more like Maid or Mead caught my eye since it mentioned speakers from Navan as an example.   This fit nicely with the other early records I've found linking the family to nearby Stamullin and Drumcondra.  It seems like there is a reasonable chance that my ancestors pronounced the county as Mead, adding a small bit of evidence to the idea that they were from somewhere near Navan -- unless this pronunciation is widespread throughout Meath or perhaps even into Westmeath and/or Roscommon.  Pronunciation aside, I'm starting to put more weight in the early records that mention Mead/Meath since they were generated for the individuals themselves by government or clergy.  The records mentioning Westmeath and Roscommon relied on informants who gave info for deceased family members many years after they left Ireland. 

Hello and thank you for the helpful info already posted about the pronunciation of Maid or Mead for Meath.  Wondering if anyone can help localize this pronunciation further...  Is the pronunciation "Mead" unique to Navan or is it found in other areas of Meath?  Would someone from Westmeath or Roscommon pronounce Meath as "Mead"?  I'm trying to determine which records are correct for three brothers and one sister in my Callan family who left Ireland in the 1840s.  I have naturalizations for two of the brothers that list their county of origin as "Mead."  A recently discovered baptism that is likely for their sister was from Stamullin Meath and this corresponds to the oral history passed down through her descendants that the family was from Meath.  However, the obit for the third brother says he was from Westmeath.  And a descendant of one of the brothers who's naturalization said "Mead" has said that the family was from Roscommon!  I'm hoping the pronunciation "Mead" is localized enough to rule out some of the conflicting possibilities.  Thanks, Kate