Saoirse pronouncing

@squoosh That's yet another thing I've asked in response to getting called "sorsha" - why don't they also say "dorsha" instead of dorcha?! There's also Donncha(dh), Fiachra, Lochlann etc, plenty of names that don't get the shushy treatment but mine inexplicably does...

I think it’s just classic old Irish begrudgery

Whoops I don't mean to add to that. I didn't realise she gets criticised for her accent a lot.

Sorcha, which is saw-ra-ka.

Good lord, I had no idea!

If I came across Saoirse blind I would go for “sear sha”

I’m sure the BBC announcer went for “Sar sha” when Brooklyn was on a short while ago. I didn’t think it was right.

Sorcha pronounced sore-sha makes me do an inward 'Grrrr' (possibly an outward one too). No Irish person would pronounce dorcha like dore-sha so I have no idea why some people insist on doing this to poor old Sorcha!

I feel sorry for Saoirse Ronan and the slagging she comes in for over her accent. If you listen to clips of her as a little kid she sounds exactly the same. She grew up in Carlow, but aren’t her parents Dubs? Makes sense to me she sounds like she does.

I think it’s just classic old Irish begrudgery, she’s so amazingly successful that we must find something to chastise her over. And this is it!

As for the name itself, I’d pronounce it seer-sha.

I think it can depend where from Ireland you are as to sair-sha or sur-sha. Like caoimhe which can be kee-va or quee-va

harriet I was referring (quite obviously) to the part where you said that

in a Dublin accent the "eer" sound comes out more like an "air" sound.

which is incorrect.

badb I agree that SR has a weird accent, no one else I know of her age group speaks like that. It does come across as a bit affected, to my ears.

Should add - I love the name, would like to call a child it, but DH won't as he sees it as having overly strong republican connections. So, even in Ireland with Irish parents there are some people who have that view, so that is a factor worth considering.

I am from Dublin, and also think Saoirse Ronan pronounces her own name wrong.

Would agree that Seersha, or more accurately Searsha is closest. As a PP said, Saoirse Ronan has a v strange accent herself (possibly unsurprising given how long she spent as a child mimicking other accents, but given she grew up in Carlow its v odd) and I have never heard a single other Irish person pronounce her name the way she does.

It's the kind of name I see in the register and think "oh shit I have no idea".

@MayFayner I know that, I was (fairly obviously) talking about Saoirse Roman's accent.

In the Republic tends to be pronounced Sur-Sha

There are loads of accents in Ireland and Seer-sha is common to many of them.

harriet there's more than one accent in Dublin.

Saoirse Ronan pronounces is Sur-sha. In general, Irish people think she’s pronouncing it wrong - should be Seer-sha!!! But you do have Saoirse Ronan on your side!!!!

Just the different accents. Do you have Irish roots, might help which pronunciation you will go for

In the Republic tends to be pronounced Sur-Sha. In the north of Ireland it is SEER-Sha. Both correct imo

I said that exact thing on another thread recently - Saoirse Ronan confused things even more with her "inertia" example, because in her accent, inertia sounds like "in-air-sha", so DOES rhyme with her name when she says it. This has led to people calling their kids Saoirse but pronouncing it surr-sha, rhyming with fur-sha (I know that's not a word), since they would pronounce "inertia" in that way. Correctly though it can only be "seer", or sometimes "sayer", there's absolutely no way to get "sur" from the letters "saoi". It'd be just like saying "Jean" is pronounced "June".

(The "r" in Saoirse should absolutely always be pronounced too, which might make it difficult in areas where a non-rhotic accent is dominant, such is the case in most of England)

PS Sorcha is pronounced Surraka, there is no "sh" in it.

I don't know. Where I'm from (not Dublin), Sorcha would indeed be pronounced that way: Surraka. However, I live and in Dublin now, and over the last few years I've had three or four Sorchas in my classes (I'm a teacher), and they've all pronounced it Sore-sha. I always ask, since I was corrected by the first one. It's not a particularly common name, but younger Dublin people anyway seem to prefer the Sore-cha pronunciation.

But anyway, that's an aside. Saoirse is Sear-sha to me and to most Saoirses I've come across (not that many actually, surprisingly).

Regarding Saoirse Ronan's pronunciation of her own name: she has such an odd accent to my ears - a kind of exaggerated but also strangely moderated Dublin accent that reminds me a bit of Jimmy Rabbitte in The Commitments film. She herself has acknowledged that her own pronunciation of her name is not typical in Ireland, and is down to her particular accent. But if that's how she pronounces it, then fair enough.

@BHillary see my post below re Dublin accents/inertia...

All this it rhymes with inertia?
Whit?no when I say it.
FWIW I’d say sair-sha

OP there has been so much crap on this thread. The correct pronunciation is Seersha (or seershuh).

Aoi is pronounced "ee" in Irish - think of the other common Irish names Aoife (ee-fa) and Caoimhe (kwee-va or Kee-va).

Saoirse Ronan is from Dublin and in a Dublin accent the "eer" sound comes out more like an "air" sound. She pronounces "inertia" as if it is "in-air-sha", so her comparison is only helpful if you also have a Dublin accent.

Assuming you don't, and are English, and the baby is going to be English, the only correct pronunciation is Seersha.

Hope that makes sense.

PS Sorcha is pronounced Surraka, there is no "sh" in it.

I know someone used a Gaelic name and they and extended family all say it wrong
They say it phonetically,which bears no resemblance to the actual name