Aoife?

Aoife is really pretty

monmouth I remember that article! I did think they were being unnecessarily sneery given that her name was Grainne Seoighe. I wouldn't have expected English-only speakers to be able to reading pronounce without practise.

I think the thing that strikes me in the UK is that nobody would ever suggest that an Iraqi person, or Spanish person, or who-ever-the-hell-else should keep their name in their country of origin. But for Irish people and Welsh people it seems a reasonable suggestion to anglicise their name to suit the majority language.

Oh, and I love the name Aoife.

On the other hand, my daughter's name is Megan and it gets mispronounced all the time...

Which is why she prefers to go by Siobhán.

Makes no sense to me.

I wish it was more popular here for her sake tbh

Not popular where i am. In 12 year i have come across one other Neve and that was this year when she started senior school. Never seen or met another one. Dd2 name was in the 900s. Never met or know of any others but hers is fine as reads as it ks written

I had a similar situation with the place name 'Loughborough'. In NI, lough is pronounced 'lock'. A colleague of Exp's referred to his home town of "Luffburra". Not that i gave it much though but i assumed it was spelled something like how it sounded and when i saw "Loughborough" on maps i mentally called it "lock burrow". I said it aloud one day and exp gave me the face then burst into hysterics at me not realising Luffburra was actually Loughborough.

Niamh is in the top 100 names in the UK now, and has been for years. People can say Freyja and that's new to the uk, so they should be able to get to grips with Aoife and Niamh, it's not that hard.

Needaholiday why did you keep pronouncing Niamh wrong? Had you never heard it said?

MostWicked, if you've heard it pronounced before and you still get it wrong you have to ask yourself why. If people manage to get the word 'pizza' right then they can manage Aoife.

I think it really is thick and rude to get the name of a 12 year old classmate wrong.

During the times we lived in England as a schoolgirl I went to Catholic schools. There were a lot of Irish, Italian, Polish and Ukrainian names floating around, as well as a few of the lesser known saints names. It did give a good grounding in pronunciations.
and a damn good mix of food at friends homes

Then at xmas in primary all the cards from school are wrong as well, as people know she is Niamh she gets cards with Neave or Neve or Neeve on.

Thats what happens Becca, they will look at it written down, look up, look at tge paper again and go Nyamph is it. This is when dd rolls her eyes as she' had it all her life and it annoys the hell out of her. It no ones fault as they read it out as its written and i wouldn't expect them to know how to say it as it looks totally different. I just didnt think it would be quite as bad as it is when i named her. It is literally almost everyone and over 12 years (well from her being 7 when she noticed and said she hated her name). Up till she was 7ish i would correct people.

I would pronounce it ee-fa/ee-fer (another one to whom that sounds exactly the same), but I only know that because I know an Aoife and that's how she pronounces it.

Most people, though, confronted with a name or word they don't know, will have a stab at pronouncing it as best they can. Usually it comes out phonetically.

I can't really hear the difference between eefer and eefa, so it's probably for the best that DD didn't end up as an Aoife.

Doctors' receptionists and club employees are not noted for their manners or intelligence.
So you must be rude and thick if you can't pronounce names that are unfamiliar to you, don't originate in this country, and can't be sounded out phonetically?

When I first heard the name pronounced by an Irish person (it was the mother of the named girl), it sounded like "ether", which I thought was a little trippy. In my mind, I put her in the guardian-reading box.

I had no idea it was spelt "Aoife" or it was an Irish name.

English people often call me eefer which I hate
oops! that's how I thought it was pronounced!
Can't really tell much difference between Eefa and Eefer

It will get mispronounced and misspelt constantly. Call her something else if that will annoy you (It would drive me mad if it was me)

An Irish one.

Ok edu-wotsit (I forgot your name). Can you further explain the difference between Eefa and Eefer? Because in my 'shires', southern England accent they sound exactly the same. Which accent should I say them in to make them sound different?

math loving your very informative posts on this thread.

I know these type of names are lovely, but I think they're better kept to the country of origin

So- only english names allowed in England then? no french, chinese, polish, romanian, indian names? People shouldnt name their child for their heritage or give family names because some people will take a few minutes to get the pronunciation right?

Or Ni - amph