Think very hard about giving your baby an Irish name unless you live in Ireland!

my ds has an irish name but we live in ireland so its grand

It reminds me of that Celebrity Big Brother when Jade's Mum didn't even seem to be trying to pronounce Shilpa's name! Just rude!

I used to work for a well-known examining board, and the guy who ran the Northern Ireland regional exams sensibly had a chart tacked up on the wall of Irish names alongside their correct pronounciation

It's understandable to get a name wrong when you're unfamiliar with it, but I do find it very rude when people who've been told over and over what the correct sound is still insist on getting it wrong. Then again I am notably intolerant and unreasonable when it comes to people getting names wrong. I am a Suzanna, called Suzi for short. These are not uncommon names or spellings, yet all the time I get Sue, Susan, Suzanne , or Suzy/Suzie/Suzey, or Susannah. The time it bugs me out the most is when people reply to emails - my email address clearly states the right spelling, I will have signed off with the right spelling, and there will be an automatic signature with the right spelling, and still people will reply with something wrong. That's just lazy.

So there you go - even the most 'normally' named face the pronounciation/spelling blocks. There's a great group on Facebook actually, called "People who always have to spell their name for other people". As well as being a great source for baby names, it's quite amazing how many Jane Smiths and Tom Browns seem to be met with misspellings and wrongness!

I had never thought of that. Finn/Thin....

I actually considered Thea for my daughter. She had a great aunt Thea. I'm so glad I didn't now! Can you imagine? About 35% of Irish people can't say their Tee Aiches!

Madame Cholet, I would go for Lorcan, Vulcan or not (? what) everyone who hears it loves it. there's another Lorcan living nearby (his mum heard my Lorcan being called at baby-clinic and we met up that way) among what seems like tons of Finns, Caitlins etc. although another London-Irish friend said he couldn't understand people in London calling their sons Finn, given the way it sounds like "thin" in a London accent - just inviting a boy called Finn to be fat and have the mickey taken out of him...

ah - read post further down wrong - poster was criticising the re-spelling, not the pronunciation

thanks for that though

siobhan = shivawn
sinead = Shin-aide

Citroen - siobhan is pronounced 'shuvaun' and Sinead is pronounced 'shinaid'.

so how would you pronounce siobhan and sinead then? i really like those names and thought the english "typical" proununciation was correct?

I have known 2 Colleens in my entire life.

Timefortea, Anne Enright's children are Lorcan and Rachel. I really love the name Lorcan. But on the US boards I was told it was too like Vulcan. (That well known name, Vulcan! ??)

Funny about the London-Irish names! As I have a London-Irish friend who came up with Senan and told us all back home that it was Irish! (We wouldn't have known, in our ignorance).

Colleen is very unusual in Ireland isn't it? I don't know a single one. Perhaps it's because it means girl. So it seems a bit too generic for us. Like the Spanish would probably not use Nina as a given name for the same reason.

Have to say, Torin is a new one on me, time4tea but it is a lovely name!

my DSs are called Lorcan and Torin, chosen because we wanted Irish names (my whole family is Irish, although I was born here and have always lived here..) but wanted reasonably phonetic to avoid the problems outlined here.

although my cousin in Ireland teased me that Torin was a typical London-Irish name, found in a book (allegedly common in ireland, cornwall) and a name that no born and bred Irish person would ever have heard of

i love both the names though. there's an Anne Enright short story about a chap called Fintan and at the end the narrator character says how she always thinks about him, just because the name is so lovely... I hope people will think about my lovely boys like that

Thanks St Leger but no, it wasn't Colm. It was pronounced Co-Leen? Very unusual I think?

Colm? Used a lot in Donegal/Derry. (Local boy, became a saint).

Does the Irish male name that sounds like Coleen get used any more? The emphasis is on the first syllable unlike the female name. Thought this was a gaelic name but only knew one person with the name - Aran Islands?

My middle name is Siobhan and my Mum told me off hundreds of times whilst I was growing up for saying it wrong.
My mumsnet name is derived from nn I was called when younger Queenie and Bhannae (pronounced Vonnay)

I had my first dd by an Irish man and did not choose an Irish name as I am haunted by my own lack of ability to pronounce my own

I went on to marry an Italian and gave my children names which reflected their heritage on his side as, a) I could say and spell them and b) dh is Italian speaking.

I am not Irish and find having an Irish name a bit silly given that. In fact my father is Jamaican but from Spanish roots(my great grandparents) and my mums side comes from french romany descent.
Given that my dd1 has aquired a Thai stepmum we are true multi-cultural bunch here lol.

My dd1 has learned all her Irish in Cork, but insists on speaking it with a Belfast accent. Her current teacher is from Kerry and VERY dishy...drifts into daydream....he's called Martin.

my little boy is called Niall he gets called Neil all the time...

I have that one. For a while my daughter was speaking gaelic with an English accent. Awrigh' mum, can we do my homework na'?
Only joking she had a lovely English accent. Very posh. Sad to see it merge into a Graham Norton accent!!

i am irish, from the north of ireland but live in scotland. it was very important to me that dd had an iriah name. she still would have no matter where i lived. like keevamum and ninja - i have a caoimhe. some people have a problem with it but to be honest - how difficult is it to repeat "keeva", even if you never see it written?!
i have been asked why i called her a "foreign" name. when i explained that i was irish, therefore it was not foreign, i was told that it would be better if everyone was just called something english! I was astounded at the arrogance of it!

i did think very hard about giving my baby an irish name even though i dont currently live in ireland. I am irish, as is she so why not have a name that reflects that?

WatsTheStory, when did phonics ever come into it with Irish names!