Baby boy names Ruairidh

At our school we had both Ruari and Ruaridh and teachers who weren't Scottish had no idea how to pronounce it.
Saying that, I'd always said "Roo-ree" but my mother insisted it was the same as Rory.#

If you're not in Scotland I wouldn't use it.

I'm from the north east of England and wouldn't know where to start with pronouncing or spelling that name.

If that's not an issue wherever you're from then go for it but if they will be going to school in England then I personally wouldn't.

My husband is Turkish and suggested all kinds of names but it was important to me that DD had a name easy to write and pronounce in both countries/languages.

Ok @WhoppingBigBackside well Claire, Sara, Steven, Lindsey, Louis, Philippa, Catherine, Rachel, Jane and John (to name just a few) will also be misspelt and I have never seen anyone suggest that they shouldn’t be used for this reason.

But pretty much every time an Irish or Scottish name is suggested that is the response.

Yes Ruairidh will likely be misspelled but it’s not a serious problem. And it’s a beautiful name.

I'd go with Rory or Rudi.

You are condemning the boy to having to spell his name out for the rest of his life.

i'm not being "so aggro" about it. I'm only pointing out that it will be misspelt.

I'm not suggesting that someone shouldn't use it or any other name.

@WhoppingBigBackside I’m not sure why you are being so aggro about this.

My point is that it’s not really a hardship to have to spell your name out over the phone. I have a standard name with different possible spellings so I do this often. It is not a big deal and it doesn’t take materially longer to spell Ruairidh/Ruaidhri/Ruairi etc than it does to say “Claire with an i” or spell out “Katheryn”.

I also doubt you would be saying any of this stuff to eg Indian parents planning to give their child an Indian name, where the spelling and pronunciation might be equally unfamiliar to many people in the U.K.

No, that's not right.

As pp have said, there is a distinctive Roo sound in Irish.

There are also 3 syllables, Roo-uh-ree.
The middle one is often skipped over (often by those not so fluent in Irish) or there's just a hint of it sometimes, so the name then sounds like Roo-ree. You'll hear both.

The link below has some Irish speakers saying the name.

https://forvo.com/word/ruair%C3%AD/

It's spelt Ruairí in Irish, there's an accent on the final i.

We have a Ruairí, it's pronounced Roo-ree. It has a fadá over the last 'I'
We've not had any problems really, some people can't say it first time. School have never got it wrong.

My name is a classical English name with four letters and two syllables. It's been mispronounced and misspelled. I don't think you can avoid it whichever name you have so it's not really a reason to avoid a name you like.

@Mikunia , I'm not saying 'it's too hard', I'm saying 'it will be misspelt and mispronounced'.

I know one, he says it Rury to rhyme with Fury. I only had to be told once and I've never got it wrong in terms of pronouncing it. I don't love it but I don't get all the "ooh it's too hard" comments.

It's a great name! Go for it! People all over the world have had to learn how to pronounce names like 'Elizabeth' and 'Marlborough'. If they can do that, Gaelic names chosen for musicality and meaning really are not hard for humans to learn.

But @JumpinJellyfish , OP isn't asking about your friend's DS's name, she's asking about Ruairidh. It's in the thread title.

I used the spelling of my friend’s child - I wasn’t aware I was meant to have copied yours. There are different spellings of the name as is clear on this thread. And my point stands - it’s not a big deal to spell it aloud where necessary.

Call him Rory.

It's just one of those names that once you know it, you know it. I wouldn't let pronunciation problems put you off

My little girl has a Rory and a Ruairidh in her class and she says them differently (and corrects me if I get them mixed up) 😂

@JumpinJellyfish , check your post. I carefully spelt the name then you wrote it with a different spelling.

@Berlinlover , it's a Scottish spelling. Might be an Irish spelling too, but Ruairi is used there.

Unless you’re in Ireland nobody will know how to pronounce it.

The difference between saying “Jon with no h” and spelling out “ruaridh” is a matter of about 2 seconds - hardly a big deal.

I know a Ruairidh. He's English and his family pronounced it Rory.
He absolutely hated this spelling, no one knew how to either pronounce it or spell it. He changed it to Rory by deed pole once he was 18.

@JumpinJellyfish , but your examples are common names where the other person won't need to listen as carefully to the spelling. 'Jon no h' vs 'Roo-uh-ree, R-U-A-I-R-I-D-H'.

Only if the person he is speaking to needs to write it down, surely?

And there are loads of common names in English where you’d need to do that anyway due to variant spellings anyway - Stephen/Steven, John/Jon, Catherine/Katherine/Kathryn (etc) to name just a few.

I agree. The 14 year old Ruairi in my extended family is pronounced Roo-ree. He was born and lives in Scotland with his Irish mum and Scottish dad. I’ve been in his company in Ireland, Scotland and England over the years and never heard it mispronounced. Always Roo-ree.

I have an uncle Rory. An Irishman living in England for 40 years. Always pronounced Roary.

You are exaggerating @Duparsisoverrated , but it will get mispronounced and misspelt a lot.

@MaJoady , Ruairi comes up on The Archers threads in Radio/Podcast addicts often. Ruairi is by now nearly 22 and posters still get his name wrong.