Well at least he didn't suggest Adolf

I've never come across Janina before and I must say I really like it! Much nicer than Janine.

I knew an Iseult [very Irish name beginning with K] in school too. And a Berthold [very Irish surname] was a neighbour. Murphy might sound like a quintessentially Irish name that wouldn't go with anything but Biddy or Paddy but Irish families with the surname Murphy use all sorts of first names without batting an eye.

I went to school with two families of girls whose fathers had been German refugees. They had very German surnames and perfectly nice Irish first names. I know this is in reverse, but the juxtaposition never raised an eyebrow. I also have two cousins who have children with German names (German partners) and again the mix of names is really not that strange to my ears. Plus a German aunt who used her married name along with her very German first name ans strong German accent for sixty years in rural Ireland. Another family I knew i school had an Irish surname (a Mac- name) and Italian first names (Italian mother) -- but then maybe Irish people are a bit more relaxed about non-matchy names, indicated by the eagerness of the DH in this case to use German names for his children.

Svenja is lovely too

Oh dear...

How about:

Leo (Leopold)
Wolfgang (Wolfie)

Reike (Federieke)
Constance

Greta
Rudolph (maybe not)

Isolde is a beautiful name but will it go with an irish surname? e.g. Isolde Murphy

I agree most of those would set them up for a life of being mispronounced horribly if they live in the UK (diet-rich and jutter, anyone?). And Hedwig would get owl teasing as well as mispronunciation.

I do quite like Elfriede/Elfie though, and someone else's suggestion of Verena which is really pretty.

If it has to be obviously German, what about:

Martha (would be pronounced a bit "wrong" here but not as badly)
Kerstin
Agnes
Elspeth
Bettina
Janina
Birgit
Astrid
Sonja

Andreas
Leo
Hendrik
Franz
Holger
Markus (which would have the advantage that he could just shorten it to Mark if he didn't like the attention from having an obviously "foreign" name).

I do think you will need to consider what works with the surname too though, if it is "very Irish" as you say, then combining it with a pointedly German first name could end up sounding like a bit of a made-up "comedy name"... so if it was me I would lean towards something that really works in both languages.

Hedwig Goebbels was called Hedda which I actually like and Elfriede is nice

I know a Svenja - no one seems to have trouble with it.
Martin? That works in both.

Hedwig - sorry you are setting the poor child up for years of torment.

When is baby due? Can you hang on until the Olympics and name them after medal winners? So you can at least say "Katerina, as in Katarina Witt" - it is suprising how 'normal' a name is after there has been a famous sports person with it.

What about Hannelore, nn Hanni or Lori

We also need a name that's acceptable German english, but those names are horrible, sorry! I want a name that is written and pronounced the same in each language. That means I vetoed anything beginning with j.

Deutsche Vornamen Hitliste - als Inspiration, oder zum Vermeiden .

Sorry, didn't mean to be rude: was staring at this German website and typed German before I knew it.
Anyway, there are a few suggestings going back to the Middle Ages to chose from...

Johanna and Sabine would definitely fall into difficulties with pronunciation, based on my experience - if Johanna (assuming it's pronounced Yohanna) gets called 'Joanna' by all her friends/teachers, will your DH mind?

I also know a Sabine living in the UK who changed the spelling of her name to Sabina because she was so sick of being called 'Sabeen'. Luckily she prefers the spelling 'Sabina' anyway, but having to change the spelling of your name just to make the pronunciation clear is rather a faff!

Germans living in the uk that I know have called their dc

Fritz
Peter
Catherine

Kerstin/Kirsten
Niklas/Mathias

From your list...Elfriede or Joachim
The rest suck

Another two girls names:
Johanna
Sabine

Renata
Zigmund
Leopold

Love Valentin and Estel.

The only small German boy I know is called Liam ( unhelpful)

I teach primary in Germany and I have to say lots of the names I see are awful very old fashioned to English ears.

I'm watching this thread with interest though as German DP and I are ttc dc1....

We have, among others:

Girls
Lisann
Klara
Emilie
Ela
Katharina
Estel
Charlotte
Anna
Martha
Greta
Liesel
Isolde

Boys
Vincent
Leonard
Max
Laurence
Jakob
Valentin
Andreas
Kristian
Markus
Uwe
Wolfgang
Alexander
Sebastien

Ebba is lovely for a girl.

Do you think he'll object if the child ends up being called by an anglicized nickname (and actively try and stop that name being used?) - bearing in mind schoolkids will find any old excuse for a nickname, it will be hard to get the genie back into the bottle once a nickname has stuck.

E.g. I know of a Sigrid who is known as Siggy, pronounced Ziggy. Is that the kind of thing he's likely to have a problem with?

Other German people I've known:
Jens
Andreas
Rudolf known as Rolf

Claudia
Saskia
Manuela

Those are all the ones I can think of right now...

They are very gutteral.

I also love Elfriede and Bertram, Vess.

Also love Frieda.

How about
Cosima
Dagmar
Sigrid (Siri for short)

Anton
Konrad
Axel
Clemens
as suggested, all lovely imo. And Killian is fab.

I did actually know a little boy with german parents who was called Adolf. They called him Dolfin tho.

Pieter