Irish girls' names - inspiration needed!

It would be like calling an English child 'Chair'. As you point out, no problem necessarily unless people wanted to make an issue of it, and actually I did not say people would do that, just that it means something else. Why give a child a name that means something else in a language that will probably be the majority language in the US within this child's lifetime? It could be worse, I suppose, and it could mean something rude... This is not the same problem as Irish or Polish or Norwegian or Kenyan or Guatemalan names being allegedly intrinsically more difficult than Anglo names to hear and then pronounce.

If you don't get the opportunity to hear a name before you use it, then you try the surname. If no luck there, you have to do your best, but your best means not making any sort of a face or showing obvious difficulty as you say it, not saying it with an obvious question mark at the end of your utterance, and apologising for mangling the name when the person corrects you. Then you listen carefully for the correct pronunciation and you do not make the mistake again. Any further remarks on the name should be limited to more apologies from you for your own limitations. No patronising patter.

However, you described difficulty in the context of introductions. You also described repeated butchering of names. After a certain point it is not unreasonable for the person to wonder if you are doing it on purpose or not trying very hard, and to conclude that it is disrespectful.

(I also have a name that sounds like an English word but with an M at the beginning instead of the consonant it has in English, AveryJessup.)

I personally think Niamh might be a little too close to Maeve and could get confusing when you're bellowing up the stairs for one or the other of them.

My (Polish/Jewish/American) last name, despite being completely phonetic, has a letter combination that most English speakers apparently can't navigate at all. Most people will give it a try, I've also had more than a few "Have a nice day, Mrs... uh... Have a nice day," but if they ask first they still usually get it wrong - I expect it, they expect it, and nobody gets upset about it.

Essel, you are suggesting that names should be in English, at least in spelling. Apparently just because it's easier for you.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with using anglicized spelling, as noted some of them are almost as traditional as the Irish spellings, but because you want to not because somebody else says you have to or should.
I deal with entirely too many "this is America, speak English" types in real life, and it's really not an attractive attitude.

I've just spent several minutes trying to figure out what river that woman, or whomever she got her information from, could have mistaken for 'Ryland' and I'm completely baffled. And a bit fascinated.

In my experience, as someone living in the US with an Irish name that is not common outside of Ireland, most Americans are polite and make an effort when they learn your name. In contrast to living in the UK there isn't this prejudice that Irish names are 'crazy' (thanks, Essel - your mind must be really blown by the notion of those crazy foreigners who write in Cyrillic or Arabic etc...) or deliberately awkward.

I have found an English word that sounds like my name and so I usually help people pronounce it by saying 'it's like [word] but with an 'M' at the beginning'. That usually helps people get it down. Also Americans are pretty free-wheeling about what is a valid name for a child so they rarely pass comment on unusual names. At the park today I overheard a woman explaining her baby's name to a friend saying 'It's Ryland, it's an Irish name. There's a River Ryland in Ireland apparently. We're not Irish but we just liked it' .

I was kind of smiling to myself because there is no river by that name that I know of in Ireland and the name is completely unknown there. So, yeah, names in the US can be as 'crazy' as you like usually.

We are also expecting at the moment and will be going with Irish names like my DS. These are my current girl favorites:

Maeve (you have that already but anyway....)
Sadbh
Aoife
Niamh
Aoibhinn

but some of these are on your taken list, I see. I like Nora. It is a classic name and becoming more popular again. Or Honora would work too. What about Honor?

But mathanxiety, there are a million instances where someone doesnt get the opportunity to hear a name before they use it. Sometimes they dont even have the opportunity to ask before they say it.

And i only went back to Una because you did such a good job of convincing me that Americans were the very embodyment of diplomacy, politeness, effort and memorisation. Surely after all the examples you gave, americans wouldnt blink at Una?

Uno/Una means One in Spanish, so possibly not fine in the US where a significant number of people speak Spanish and might be puzzled about the word One as a name choice.

Again, I think your difficulty with Irish names stems from a habit of looking at a spelling instead of listening while making introductions. If you listen to the sound instead, you will often find the names are quite mellifluous.

You don't have to understand them, so 'incomprehensible' doesn't really come into it. Do you understand the names John, Mary, Fiona, Dennis, Trevor or William? You have heard them and you are familiar with them but understanding is a different matter. You don't have to know anything about their spellings or meanings to repeat them. If you heard the names 'Eefa' or 'Keelin', 'Marade' or 'Neev', 'Meehaul' or 'Pawrick' or 'Keyun' or 'Owen' you might find them just as easy.

What makes it unnecessarily complicated is the habit of relying on help from nametags when you try to memorise the names upon first hearing them or afterwards when trying to put a name to a face. Listening is key when being introduced. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Goodness, 'crazy' was shorthand for 'incomprehensible for non gaelic speekers'. Yes a little flippant, but i would expect adults to cope in this context.

And no i dont think everyone should have an english name? Take your time and read my posts again.

irish spellings are more difficult to pronounce than most for english speakers. The only example from PPs that seems comparable is Xochitl. Most other examples of other cultures given above are phonetic or mostly phonetic.

Back to the OP; it seems like Una might be absolutley fine in the US.

Áine is Awn-yeh.

My dd's have crazy Irish names, which I won't list here for fear of outing myself (and being accused of child cruelty) but one Irish name I adore, and really regret not using is Caitríona. Easy to pronounce, as there is a similar version in many other cultures.
Of the other suggestions, I also really love Ailbhe.

Crazy Irish spellings??? Really??? Did you mean to be so rude?? How very dare another language not be English.

As I said, Essel, people in the US tend to make a real effort. This is because Americans in general tend to be polite and also because there are many, many people there with names that most people would never have heard before and in some cases, never will again. The African American community tends to use completely made up names, many Mexican or Central American name spellings don't suggest any particular pronunciation (Xochitl for instance, the name of my DD2's university roommate), Polish or Baltic names are often not pronounced as they look, and you run the risk of deeply offending people who are every bit as American as you are when you repeatedly butcher a name and thus call attention to the fact that it is not one from your particular culture. Each individual culture would be one of many all existing side by side in the US, and thus in the US workplace it is important to acknowledge the equality of all the ethnicities you might run into there.

A lot of workplaces in the US would see a mental block with names that are unfamiliar as a red flag that would mean that person wouldn't have the opportunity to work in a multi-cultural setting and if they were already in such an environment they would be sent for some sensitivity training.

When I first went to the US I worked in a prestigious hotel in a major US city where asking people to give their name again or making any remark on a name would be grounds for termination. If you think it's important to get names right then you get names right, first time. In the hotel we were trained to listen, listen, listen listen... This is the only way to do it. You give your entire attention to listening to the name. You don't perform any mental gymnastics or re-translations of what you heard. You accept it fully. You don't need a crash course in a foreign language. You need to be polite, and listen.

If you try to put yourself in someone else's shoes you will find your anxiety and embarrassment at introductions will dissipate -- putting your own discomfort aside, making a huge effort and getting a name right makes everyone feel more comfortable. Getting a name right means listening and resisting completely the impulse to check what you heard by reference to the nametag.

Lasairfhiona (fada on last I, and pronounced 'Lass-a-reena') would have few problems. 'Isn't that pretty/I'm Irish on my mother's side' would be the response if there was one at all..

Red hair in the US is equally seen as charming. There is less of an issue in the US about all things Irish.

I would think hard about it if you are in England, Niamh's one of the more well known ones used and shes 12. She hates her name, gets embarrassesd at kids clubs when they come out with various variations and when this happens she always looks very uncomfortable. Ny am is what she is usually called or Ny amph

These names are gorgeous! How do you pronounce Aine?

I love the idea of reviving Hanora/Nora!

Essel, please understand that referring to stuff from another culture as 'crazy' is offensive.

Should the names of all children who may live on English shores at some point in their lives be chosen in a way that fits English norms?

Whose life does that make easier, and why does their ease take priority? As math points out, it's English that's probably the least phonetic language in the world.

Someone I knew grew up in England as an Isla and people always complained that Iss-la was too hard to pronounce. Many English people seem to have got over that problem.

Anyway, repeating 'like the one from Bananarama' after my own name for many years did me no harm.

Back to the game in hand, I know a gorgeous Reiltín (Rayleen - little star);
Alannah is popular and accessible
Nuala is one of my all-time favourite names.

They're not 'crazy' Irish spellings, they're just Irish spellings. As opposed to English spellings. Because they're not English names.

As somebody whose last name is impossible for anybody to pronounce, trust me, having people get it wrong isn't the end of the world. It's not even a big deal as long as I can tell you're talking to me and not somebody else.

Sorry to hijack your thread OP.

I hope for Lasairfhiona's ( fada on last i) sake that all the people in the US make 'a huge effort' while remaining 'diplomatic'.

Alternatively, her parents could choose a name that doesnt require a crash course in a foreign language just to pronounce.

Mathanxiety - im not sure why you think im not making much of an effort. As i said, i ask, apologise if i get it wrong, try again and encourage the person to correct me if i say it wrong again. I might even throw in some complements and ask about the name. And Im not talking about spelling, this is just pronounciation . I wouldnt bother if i didnt think it was important. what more could i do?

Im just being honest that it is an effort and my initial anxiety or embarrasment sometimes detracts from the interaction. I have emphasised this point because i think its a separate and more difficult issue to having a name thats difficult to spell.

I wondered about the popularity of crazy irish spellings in ireland because i dont see it much in my family's names. Maybe traditional names are more fashionable now? Or maybe not. I dont know.

How about Lasairfhiona? (fada on last I) There probably wouldn't be two of them in the same class...

And, as I said before it's not an issue of spelling the name, but people not even wanting to say it. I work with a very multi-cultural client group, and it can be laborious and awkward to start so many conversations with 'sorry, how do you pronounce that? ' or 'did I say thAt right?' Or 'sorry, keep reminding/correcting me, I will get it eventually' or even 'that's a lovely name, where's it from?' After I've butchered it and been corrected.

I hope you don't mind my saying so, but for someone who works with a multi cultural group, Essel, you don't seem to be making much of an effort. Names are important to their owners and it really pays to get them right no matter how much work this may entail. Sometimes it's a good idea to just listen to the name rather than check the spelling. Putting people on the spot by calling attention to their 'different' names is the opposite of diplomatic.

The Irish tend not to have an objection to 'crazy Irish spellings' because they are not crazy spellings, just Irish language orthography, which is actually a lot more regular and easier to pronounce than the really crazy spelling you find in English.

People in the US tend to make a huge effort to either get names right or not make a holy show of themselves by continually butchering them.

Essel You reminded me, my daughter has a friend named Jaime, with the Spanish J/H, but she started calling him Séamus as a joke a few years ago, and all his friends started calling him that and he answers to it. So now there's a Mexican kid named Séamus running around confusing people.

Sorry, off topic.

You might recognize more of the names here if you heard them, and quite a few have anglicized versions as well (for instance, Maeve v. Maebh). But then you get into whether names in a minority language - which Irish obviously is in the US or the UK or Ireland - should have to be translated to make it easier for the dominant language-culture. And that's a fraught conversation no matter which direction you go at it from.

I live in the west of Ireland and the names here are almost all familiar to me, belonging to young girls. I didn't see Caoimhe mentioned, but that's popular too. Aoife is the most common baby name locally at the moment.

Ailbhe is fab.
Maebh
Eibhlín - we say ev-Lin though in Cork people read it as Eileen
Maire
Moya
Muireann
Treasa
Greta

Maggie and Anna are popular names too hereabouts

I grew up with a lot of Irish culture and I have no idea how to pronounce the names in this thread. I just don't understand the general enthusiasm for giving a child a name that will induce a confused and anxious reaction in everyone for the first time. It can't be a good start to any relationship or conversation.( With the exception of Irish names that are widely recognised).

And, as I said before it's not an issue of spelling the name, but people not even wanting to say it. I work with a very multi-cultural client group, and it can be laborious and awkward to start so many conversations with 'sorry, how do you pronounce that? ' or 'did I say thAt right?' Or 'sorry, keep reminding/correcting me, I will get it eventually' or even 'that's a lovely name, where's it from?' After I've butchered it and been corrected. I also have to remember lots of 'preferred' names that are different to the names on official docs because the person has given up and gone for a more Anglo name a few years ago. I work with someone whose official name is Jesus, and I would love to call him that, but he decided a long time ago to go by another name, so every time I see his name written down I mentally go Jesus -heyzuse - Augustine. In the same group there is an (Asian) Juan that wants to be called Ju-an so mentally I think -ju-an - hwan - ju -an.

Having said that, once people are familiar with a name I think it sounds completely normal very quickly. Unusual names are only unusual for first impressions.

How do Americans go with irish spellings and pronunciations?
I suppose it depends where you are, and I'm generalizing, but in my experience Americans and the English tend to assume English-phonetic pronunciation when not otherwise indicated. Especially those not cognizant of the fact that Irish is a separate language. Which is why you get Cáitlín as Katelyn, Ciara as Sierra, Aislinn as Ayzlin, etc.
But, then, daughter came home from school recently very and commented that her physics teacher had called her "Meegan" after having had her in his class for 2 years and that never having been her name before. So even really simple obvious spellings are no guarantee.

Flip People apparently tend to think of Megan/Meagan/et al as Irish because of the Irish-Australian character in The Thornbirds.
I've also had several people insist that it's English, but the en or in/ín diminutive name ending is Celtic, and not generally used in English unless borrowed.
But, if my 1/4 Welsh, English-born grandmother can be called (decidedly Irish) Peggy, then her slightly-more-than-1/4 Irish, American-born great-granddaughter can be (less obviously Welsh) Megan.
Or, if she prefers, Siobhán.