Irish spellings for names

Thanks for clarification. I pronounce Chiffone and ShivAUN almost identically so maybe my London accent is really showing me up!

I am half English, half Irish, born in the states, but lived for a long time in NI. Now living in Merry Olde England.

My Irish language knowledge is crap! What I do know, I more or less taught myself, as I love languages, and wanted to learn.

We gave our dd a name of German origin, but well known worldwide. Ds has a name from the Irish part of my family. It is an anglicised old Irish name. I have never met anyone in my life with the old Irish spelling! So he has the anglicised version...although I think it was also the original version in Scotland... Anyway, the old Irish version would have felt wrong, especially as it is an old family name and they were always the anglicised version too.

Anyway, I would feel a bit strange maybe, using something like Blathnaid or Ciarán and insisting he be called kee-RAWN. Because I am not a native Irish speaker. I don't care if anyone else does this, but it wouldn't feel right to me.

My Irish parent speaks Irish almost fluently btw. I have no idea why they never thought I'd like to speak it too! But there you are. They love my DS name.

The only thing which annoys me a little bit, and it isn't a big thing or a rage or anything, just a "hmmm why?", is when names are touted as being Irish when they aren't. I blame baby name sites!

@TuesdayBluesday
forvo.com/word/siobh%c3%a1n/

Afaik the Shiv-awn pronunciation is better known - both in Ireland and worldwide - than the Shoo-awn pronunciation also used in this link. Both are correct though, they're just dialectal variants.

Somewhere between ShivAUN and ShuvAUN. The first syllable is a schwa.

How should Siobhan be pronounced? It sounds like Chiffone in my accent! (SE England, Irish parents!)

I will attempt to think of Siobhan pronounced Chiffonne as part of a girl band consisting of Chenille, Georgette, Satine and Devoré.

Devoré is fabulous! They all sound like 1940s showgirls.

And of course Devoré

Definitely! Chenille sounds very elegant indeed

I don't like Irishifying names either @RubysArms.
If I met a Conchobar I'd assume it was pronounced differently to Conor, so yes, definitely confusing. Can I add Chenille as a fabric name?

My daughter has an unusual Irish name. We loved the name. That's why we chose it.We are not Irish.

@Bainne fabric names should be more widely used. As well as your colleague Chiffone I also like Georgette and Satine! They sound like a very glamorous trio.

I have a daughter with an Irish name. She has two Irish great-grandparents, so in a way it's quite distant. But there's lots of Irish names among her grandparents, aunties and uncles, so her name fits in well.

The names in the family are all Irish spellings, but among the better-known ones in England.

Anyway, I'm not Irish at all and I don't speak Irish. But I think they're great names, and I would only want to spell them the Irish way, I think. (I did specify that we'd be using relatively short names, though, to make any future spelling-out a bit quicker...)

All good points @LizzieAnt. I don't like the makey-uppy spelling of Neve for Niamh because to my ear Niamh is a two syllable word, but I think maybe English people don't hear that quiet second syllable? I like Irish spellings too but I'm not a purist. I know a Conor whose name is spelt Conchobar and I just think 'why bother?'. Conor is legit enough for me!

And on the flip side I'm not a massive fan of Irishifying English names. Like Nansí for Nancy or Maillí for Molly. Feels a bit twee to me.

Not Irish and no connection but one of my children has an Irish name with an Irish spelling just because I liked the name. People get used to the spelling eventually. I could have anglicised it but didn't see the point.

RubyArms I think I'm one of the people on here who'd say 'there's no k in the Irish alphabet'
Just to say that I'm doing it in a spirit of helpfulness, rather than one of criticism. Taking your example of Killian...I think it's useful for parents to know the history/background of a name before making their decision. So then if they choose to use Killian/Kilian rather than the original Cillian - because they believe it might be easier outside Ireland, or just because they prefer it - they're doing it from a place of (a wee bit more) knowledge.They're more equipped to make an informed choice and make the best decision for their family. I have to admit, though, that I'm with Bobojangles in that I have a lot more time for established anglicisations than I do for 'makey-uppy' spellings.

From a personal point of view, I tend to prefer Irish spellings rather than the anglicised alternative, but then it's easy for me, living in Ireland as I do. I'm also a big fan of the Irish language. Only one of my children has an Irish first name though (the others have Irish middle names) because I like other names too .

I know an English Siobhan (no fada) in her 40s who both mis-spells it and mispronounces it. I worked with her in a former job, and had to doublecheck emails as I have other Siobháns in my life (incouding a sister), and my autocorrect inserted fadas in the correct place, although that wasn't, strictly speaking, her name.

And I really struggled with her mispronunciation (Chiffonne) -- but again, the name she had been given by her parents was 'Siobhan' pronounced 'Chiffonne.' I had to think of her in my head as having a completely different name.

I mean, it's not quite 'Yvonne' pronounced 'Wye-VONN-y' or 'Guy' pronounced 'Gooey', but every time I went into her office past her nameplate I had to say 'Chiffonne, Chiffonne' to myself so as not to address her as 'Siobhán.'

Oh yes! Siobhan Fahy, of course

She always seemed very cool so I can see why her unusual name must have seemed cool to people too.

I don't think you can talk about the "Irish spelling" of an Irish name. It's just "the spelling" though others may wish to use an anglecised spelling for lots of reasons.

This. Some anglecised spellings are more popular/well recognised than the Irish spelling in Ireland and I don't have much of a problem with these, but using an alternative spelling just because the traditional spelling is too 'hard" doesn't sit right. Really don't like ones like "Neve" or "Kira"

Although I think they usually spell it Siobhan.

I would say Caoimhe is a funny name to give a child without any Irish heritage but then I suppose the same could have been said of Siobháin 40 or so years ago when that name became suddenly became really mainstream in the UK.

Not sure why Siobháin took off actually. There must have been a TV character.