Is Aoibhe a step too far in the UK?

I think there is some validity to the complicated spellings argument.

I'm an Irish speaker, and my daughters all have Irish names.

And their spellings won't be straightforward in England.

I chose them so that they would be easy to say for their English family - so no Caoilfhinn or Líadan.

But with the spelling thing I think simplicity for English speakers is important.

Why choose Orfhlaith instead or Orla?
Or even Orlaith instead of Orla?

The more modern spelling is more standard, more straightforward, and completely acceptable in Irish.

Choosing to make a simple name very hard to spell seems kind of dickish to me.

If I were living in England I might even choose Maeve over one of the many Irish spellings.

I would consider Dervla ahead of Deirbhile.

I would definitely pick Finola over the uglier and more complicated Fionnuala (and no way would I dream of using Fionnghuala.)

Aoibhe falls under the pointlessly complicated spelling rule.

It's just a way of giving a nice, simple English name an Irish spelling.

I don't see the point of it in Ireland. But why would you lumber an English child with what is effectively Eva but with complicated spelling?

I feel the same about Éabha and Eimile. Just use Ava and Emily FFS. Emily is a far more traditional name in Ireland than giving your child the name of a town in Offaly and then mangling the pronunciation to make it sound like Emily.

I love Irish names, but pointlessly complicated spellings irritate me.

Sadhbh basically has to be Sadhbh (although Sive is OK), Róisín has to be Róisín. And they are both easy to say for English speakers.

But Orfhlaith? No
Aoibhe? No

I used to work with a Caoimhe. lovely lovely name, and really easy to learn how to say. my struggle was with trying to spell it. But go for it if you like it

Totally agree BlackBlackBlack. As usual on Mumsnet, a load of anti-Irish/anti-Celtic sentiment emerging whenever a more unusual Irish or Welsh name is mentioned. If the spelling or pronunciation if your name actually held you back at work then you would have a fine case for discrimination. Fwiw I work in a field with a good number of people from all backgrounds and a variety of names and non-English spellings. The idea that it would have held anyone back or prevented them from getting the job in the first place is just ridiculous.

Wow - a lot of of ignorance on this thread. Verging on the offensive, actually. Irish names 'ridiculous'? Bosses choosing subordinates depending on how 'pronounceable' their name is? Nicknames in order to fit in? How depressing.

What about Labhaoise (Lee-sha)? for the unspellable or Dearbhaile/Dervala (der-vlA)
I like Aisling/Ashling myself for a UK based Irish baby. Or Aileen

I tend to think its a bit intrinsic to the function of a name that it's vaguely attemptable without help by the majority of people coming across it. Its primary function is to be your label after all, for use by other people. Once it's done that job it can also be pretty or expressive or culturally significant or whatever.

On that basis Orla and Dervla yes. Some of the others no.

I think it's great. People are used now to the Aoi in Aoife, also the bh in Siobhan. I'm sure they can get their heads round a combination of the two.

Clodagh is also lovely (and Bronagh to whoever suggested that).

Hahaha! Yea I guessed that part would of nailed it for people! Worst part is that I worked with a Jemma at one point,can you imagine the confusion that caused! Especially when we were both on shift and somebody needed one of us to deal with a specific customer or go somewhere but could only call us using a tannoy system?! And to make it worse we both worked on the same 2 departments so they couldn't call Gemma/Jemma from X either!

I only meant ignorance quangle if people don't learn how to say it after being told, and I'd be happy to learn any name (written and spoken forms!) in the Latin alphabet, I'd learn how to pronounce any name written in Cyrillic by asking and learning the sounds and would genuinely give the writing a bash! It's someone's name after all.

I think we can all learn how to say any name when we have been told it and as you've said that might take a few attempts (spelling is less important to me), but it's manners - to rule out all names that aren't phonetic in English is lunacy to me.

Perhaps it's harder having this discussion in the abstract, when it's real people I genuinely can't imagine people making it an issue.

Aoife is lovely and means beautiful as far as I can recall. what about Aoibheann which I think can be pronounced evanne or aveen?

Or totally screw people's minds and call her Sadhbh or Orfhlaith!!! :-)

MummyBurrows - I used to work with a Gemma who has the same problem so it was the first name I thought of with the G or J issue (although also worked with a Gill who had the same issue so that was a contender too), but when you said M for Mother not N November, that nailed it. (am now feeling super sleuth clever though! :-)

Agree with mummy burrows. I know an AOife a little bit through work and I do find it hard to keep the name in my head because I have never heard the name before and the spelling of it gives me no clue as to how to say it. As I only come into contact with her once a year or so, each time I have to go back and check on the sound. To be fair I have it now but the first few times it was a conscious effort.

Aoibe would be a real struggle I think. Yes her friends and teachers will get it but you often share your name with lots of other incidental people and I don't think it's fair to expect people to have a notion how to say it. Not through ignorance - just through that not being the spelling in use in this country. I actually don't think it's fair to talk about ignorance in this context. After all, how's your Cyrillic ?

It's very nice to have an unusual name but don't expect anyone to have the remotest idea how to say it. (though Clodagh I do know and it's perfectly easy to render that with just English sounds at your disposal so most people could probably guess that one)

Hahaha! Yes damsonjam! What gave it away lol?! The G or J bit or the "No its M for Mother,not N for November" part

Are you a Gemma by any chance? (just being nosey now!) :-)

Same here! It really doesn't help that even spelling my name out doesn't always help..."No its M for Mother,not N for November"...grrrr!! It should be pretty obvious what my name is by the G so why on earth some people still need it spelling out is beyond me but hey! If it began with a J I could understand the confusion past the G or J bit but the other name isn't even spelt with a G!...sorry,completely off subject and ranting now lol!

Maeve and Grainne are my favourites, and both have lovely meanings, so many pretty Irish names it is hard to choose.

My ds's have their name spe,t wrongly sometimes, mainly ds3 and ds4. They are Dylan and rudi, so not difficult names to spell...

Similar to my name problem mummyburrows, wish if I had to spell it out at least I was called something amazing!! :)

In all fairness,its not just Irish names that can cause confusion...my name causes some confusion despite how simple it is,but only because it can be spelt 2 ways,either with a G or a J,I'm a G but I have to state this over to people over the phone...I find it highly annoying. Also my name sounds like another name so sometimes I even have to spell out my full name if they've misheard me! Sometimes I wish my mum and dad had chosen a simple name that has only one spelling and can't possibly get confused with any other name! Like Penelope for example!

I think they are all quite difficult, TBH. Depends how much it would bother you to continually spell/pronounce it over the years.

Got it in one. And repeating 'like the one from Bananarama' for 20 years before we moved here did me no harm .

I love Nuala and Aoibhinn, but here it's names like Maggie, Eliza and Kate that seem to be catching on.

I love Caoimhe and Aiobhe, they are on my list of future DD names despite the fact I'm not having any more.

I know an Aoife which is pronounced with the 'a' sound rather than the traditional 'ee' sound. But I think even now you would be fairly safe with Aoibhe.

I adore Caoimhe. This is my top girls name, but have seen the bastardised version Keeva - to help those who can't get to grips with the Irish version. I also love Orla, but that is rather popular too.

DH wouldn't let me have Caoimhe - he can't even spell Niamh FFS! Silly man has welsh ancestry, he has no rights to be giving out about Irish spellings

There are children with Irish names at the toddler group I go to and last my boys school. Its not an issue children quickly learn their friends names and if I ask not sure re spelling I simply ask.

There was a little aoife at toddlers today, its a lovely name :)

Oooh...you're a Siobhan!

totally fair enough mummyburrows. As i said before I'd live with that for the sake of the nice name with meaning, heritage etc etc, but everything you've said there is fair.