Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Original poster

Amhlaoibh

138 replies

working9while5 · 08/10/2011 11:05

For a variety of reasons, if we have another boy we would like to give him this name.

It's pronounced Oh-lee-uv, and is the Irish version of Olaf. I am Irish and we have strong Norse connections, and this is a family name on my side.

However, clearly is it a NON RUNNER for a baby living in England, to be honest I doubt many Irish people can pronounce it.. so, we are trying to think of a way of incorporating it that will not lead to torture for any baby boy we have.

My granduncle Amhlaoibh had Humphrey as the English version of his name (back then, births had to be registered with an English name) and was called Uncle Free when the family spoke in English. Where they got Humphrey from Amhlaoibh I have no idea, but I'm not sure about it! Possibly thinking (randomly) James Amhlaoibh or Amhlaoibh James and we might do what my family did and call him James. It is common in both our families to have children known by their second name but have an alternative first name, so I have a nostalgia for this even though it makes sod all sense really!

Unless someone can think of a better alternative??

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
Original poster
working9while5 · 08/10/2011 20:17

SheCutOffTheirTails, my pronunciation is from Coolea (West Cork). I would have thought that from reading it that the "amh" was more of an "ow" too if I just read it and to be honest, I don't know how they spelled it (expect it was the old Irish system of spelling). I grew up hearing it as there were a number in my father's family who had it, but my father's family (all native speakers) all took their English names when they grew up e.g. Tadhg became Tim, Diarmuid became Derry, Donal became Daniel and both Amlaoibh's became Humphreys! So I have never seen it written down, searched for it for my last baby at one point but didn't know how to spell it. My father couldn't even help as he has never seen it written either! Definitely they say it as Oh-lee-iv (if anything with a bit of velarisation of the lee.. which I have no way of writing, in phonetics it's called a dark l and is the sound that Yorkshire people often use for 'l' at the end of words). Perhaps an O with a fada, like Olaoibh? Not much better looking in terms of decodability!

I am in two minds about the importance of decoding etc, I suppose here there are so many different children with such a wide variety of names that children are used to it, there is a Gorgeous, Lao, Ali Shan, Myrto and Shephard in my son's nursery and no one would ever give it a second thought... I am just worried he would hate me for a name no one can ever say or spell! (Had a friend called Aislinn at uni who was not at all impressed with her name!)

OP posts:
tralalala · 08/10/2011 20:16

about '5' names

tralalala · 08/10/2011 20:16

also it can be a runner in UK, about names in my sons reception class are unreadable (lots of different nationalities) the only one he had trouble with was the new girl (not from nursery) called the unusal name of 'natasha'!

tralalala · 08/10/2011 20:13

I love it - he will hate having to spell it but apart from that I would go for it. My name is hard to read and pronounce for some but it never bothered me, in fact I quite like it.

My mate has a kid with a very unusal irish name (that I can't spell) and people have reacted really well to it (in dublin)

SheCutOffTheirTails · 08/10/2011 20:04

I love it! Never come across it before, but it's great.

I would pronounce it Owl-leev.

Just use it. There's nothing particularly hard about the pronunciation. People will learn how to spell it.

It's quite rude and ignorant to say that a perfectly spelled name in another language just looks like random letters.

Lonnie · 08/10/2011 19:58

I would just use it people get used to the names and you get used to being called odd things even with fairly common names. Spelling can happen with perfectly ordinary names (think of Claire/Clare Sarah/Sara Sofie/Sophie and lets not even get into how many ways you can spell names like Nicholas and Timothy)

dd3 is called Aoife people regularly cant spell it and dont know how to pronounce it first time they come accross it (and that is not even that unusual these days) but they remember it.

Booooooyhoo · 08/10/2011 19:53

it's a name in a language that isn't english so of course it just looks like a load of scrabble tiles thrown on a table Hmm (drives me up the wall TBH- cant pronounce it so lets belittle it.)

i think it's lovely. if you want other people to be able to pronounce it without difficulty i would go with Olaf which i think is beautiful. i personally dont understand naming a child something when you have no intention of using that name so i dont get the using the middle name as his first name thing but then names are such a very personal thing that i wouldn't take much heed of what strangers think. but that's just me Grin

Trills · 08/10/2011 19:44

It looks like you just hit the keyboard randomly, TBH.
Go for it as a middle name - he can use it for "I bet you £5 you can't guess my name and I'll give you 100 guesses".

scaevola · 08/10/2011 19:42

I'd go with Olaf - lovely name!

Original poster
working9while5 · 08/10/2011 19:41

I know Mummys! Smile.

I love how it sounds too though, Oh-lee-uv. I wish there was some way of writing it that wasn't so scrabbly yet didn't look like Oh-lee-uv either! I love the sound of it and the sentiment but why, oh why does it have to look like that!

OP posts:
MummysLittleSunbeams · 08/10/2011 19:38

It's a lovely sentiment but tbh it looks like a bunch of scrabble tiles have just been thrown on the table!

sparkle12mar08 · 08/10/2011 11:13

I's just go with Olaf frankly, it's strong, simple, distinct, likely to be the only one in his peers etc. Really nice. If you have decided already on using the name full stop, I'd use it as a middle name. It's pointless having it as a first name at all if you're not going to use it on a daily basis...

MelinaM · 08/10/2011 11:13

Oliver or Olivier perhaps?