Sorcha... pronunciations?

///\ Agree...

It's difficult, if not impossible to explain this to Brits, whose culture and language has such a worldwide dominance. A lot - not all - just can't or won't 'get it' about why some nationalities take this so much to heart and are as protective as they are. When your language is the most widely spoken; is the international language of business, IT, music and entertainment, well, they're just words really, aren't they? Nothing to get so het up about.

I come from another small country which was brought under British rule in the 1840s - our population is the same size as Ireland's roughly and we also have a protected second language. My ancestors are British, so I'm not even one of the indigenous population, and yet I feel protective enough of the second language - I would say that most of us of European decent in my country actually do. So I can only imagine how the owners and speakers of the language itself must feel about it.

I also agree that what's getting people's back up is honestly how Pinky is coming across on this thread. :( She is basically playing up to the outdated stereotypes which many people who still carry a grudge against the English still hold in their minds - basically, dismissively arrogant. I'm sure she doesn't mean to come across like this and might even read back on this and not see how that has come across at all, but it really has. Why else has this thread gone quite so badly? 13 pages, FFS!!

much love to BRITs by the way. Peace and love :) :)

I asked my Scottish friends if they had ever heard the name Sor-cha/ Sorcha and they looked at me like this ... so I'm thinking it's not all that common in Scotland?

Pinky - you talk about the different pronunciations that are in Celtic baby books. To be honest, many baby books, published by (American? I'm guessing) authors mangle spelling/pronunciation to what they think it should be (Caitlin/Katelyn) so they're not necessarily a reliable guide.

I think part of the reason this thread is throwing up such angry feeling is the feeling that A BRIT is taking LIBERTIES with our language (whether we speak 2 words of it or not). I know I felt a condescending whiff of 'you and your silly little language with its extraordinary spellings' from her at times which has thrown my back RIGHT UP irked me at times, and it is a shame really, because the inspiration for the name is lovely - she met a lovely Irish lady, and wants to name her daughter after her.

So OP. tally forth and name your little girl whatever you like, but possibly take away from this thread the fact that with languages you aren't familiar with, or literate in, it isn't really polite to come across in a way that makes people think you are disrespecting their home language/2nd language (The NO I do want to avoid the spelt and said differently thing that happens with Gaelic names comment really annoyed me for example). It's not spelt and said differently. English rules do not apply. I really think if you had expressed yourself differently people would be focusing on the lovely inspiration for the name and be more forgiving less hung up on less than accurate pronounciations.

I'm surprised by the Scottish pronunciation of 'ch'. How do Scots pronounce loch?

OP, it was years ago that I met this Sorcha - around 1990. She was English, and I met her through work; I hardly knew her but I just loved her name. About the same time I met an Irish chap whose name I stole for DS1. Thank heavens I married an Irishman!

The softer pronunciation could very well have come from people getting the name mixed up with Saoirse or with Seoirse (think I mentioned that above?). It could have been something like a phonetic spelling of Seoirse or something similar and the registrar just happened to spell it the same as Sorcha, a more popular name. I don't suppose there's any way to know how it happened!

I've got to say as well, even if I liked the sound of Seoirse and wanted to use that pronunciation, I wouldn't have a hope - the area in NI I live in now is more Irish than the rest of Ireland put together, and everyone I know is far too Nationalist to agree to call me a "proddy" version of a good, strong Irish name I was telling someone about this thread on Facebook and that's what they referred to your pronunciation as - no offence meant!

Yeah, basically an e or and i on either side of an s on its own makes a sh sound! So you could have Soirse/Sóirse or Soirsa/Sóirsa as a phonetic version of this name that you like, that would be the single S rather than the sound in Seoirse.

OP, I meant that people call me different things because the area I used to live in doesn't teach Irish, doesn't believe they ARE the Irish and actually burn people's houses down for being Irish haha. Irish has pretty simple phonetics rules so I think most people with any experience with the language would be able to look at something and know how to pronounce it.

Unrelated, but there was a girl in my class in school called Niamh but it was spelt Naimh. She used to get so angry at people for getting it wrong or for "accidentally" calling her Nahv.

SorchaTallulah - a very interesting point you make about the English struggling with the "Irish" pronounciation of Sorcha - it can become a very harsh-sounding name without the benefit of a melodic Irish accent! Maybe that's why I (and others who are living in the UK), prefer the softer and easier Sor-sha. Once you are told how to say Sor-sha, the average Brit won't get it wrong, but I dread to think how your name gets mangled.

I asked DD2 what she thinks of her name. She loves it, although she said that most people when they saw it written down didn't know how to pronounce it (but that would be true however it were pronounced). But she loves the fact that there aren't many Sorchas about.

Like you, OP, I'd been stocking it up for years before I could use it, having met a Sorcha (Sor-sha) many years ago.

Sur-ka, it's Irish for Sarah which is my name

Sorry for the double-post, but OP, what about Sorcia? Or even Sorscha?

Sorry Maryz, I didn't mean I thought Seoirse was the Irish spelling of Sorcha! I'm on the side of good in this thing :) I was suggesting Seoirse as an alternative because it's the closet name I can think of to what the OP wants that's actually a real name. Obviously I'd prefer she went for Sorcha pronounced Sorcha but I know it's the pronunciation she's fallen for moreso than the spelling.

Someone once tried to tell me that Seoirse was the Irish version of Sarah - looks like a lot of people get these names all mixed up. I just relayed this thread to the girl I live with and she's never even heard of Sorcha pronounced as Seoirse and thought I was pronouncing Saoirse wrongly :P I don't know if that's a good thing or not!

Ooh it did get a bit mad in here!

I do agree though, ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies... you had made up your mind and that's fair enough, but why waste everyone's time by asking a question that you didn't want to hear an answer to that conflicted with your own opinion?

I can't understand for the life of me why people give their children difficult to pronounce/contentious names, it seems very self-serving to me, but you clearly like this name that you have in your head and are convinced your child will feel the same and that is enough for you. No need to talk about it on here at all!

I love sorcha with a sha and would have pronounced it that way at first glance without realising it was incorrect. alternative spelling so that it can be pronounced with a sha? x

Ooh sorry I thought you were using the Irish spelling as well... If you're not then I don't see what everyone's getting all up in arms about :S The strictly correct pronunciation would be the surr-a-kha one that people kept mentioning - no fada on the O so it isn't sore, it's more sir/sur. The middle syllable is there to soften the word basically - there's another "common" name, Donnchadh (someone I work with is called this and goes by "Denis" on the phone!) that does this too. When there are 3 consonants in a row (I think that's the rule) then you add in a vowel sound (is it called a schwah or something?) so that it flows better. The ch (which I've written as "kha") is the "ch" in loch, and gets anglicised as a k sound or as an h - another girl in my work gets called Sur-a-ha which in a Belfast accent just sounds like Sarah sometimes! But yeah, only my mum really calls me Surr-a-kha, most people just call me Sorka or Surka. I've noticed that Sorka is a more "manly" nickname and my male friends seem to lean towards that one where as people who actually realise I'm female go for Surka :P But yeah, my whole point is that I'm mostly known by a shortened form, but I use the full one in formal situations and the like. Remember as well, in Irish accents the name doesn't sound anywhere near as harsh as you might be reading it - even when I go for Sorka, English people on the phone always think I'm saying Surka - we seem to soften the vowel sounds naturally. Another difference is that we pronounce the "R" in words/names and that's why when I lived in England I stuck to sur-a-kha so that other people would actually pronounce the R as well haha. I've totally gone off on a tangent here, sorry for being so boring!

My pronunciation isn't really region-specific, but I do live in an Irish-speaking area of Belfast. Although I just spent ten years in a very British/Unionist towns and got called all sorts. I was too polite and quiet to correct them as well. I still have mates who think I'm called Saoirse...