Mhairi

I only know a Ma-ree and had no idea it was pronounced Va-ree- I also know a Vhairi

@FranklyMyDears , ah yes, I've heard Siobhan without the V sound but with a W sound.

@Bbq1 the gaelic alphabet has a lot less letters (18) the sound ph in english is not pronouced peehuh but more like "F" so the mh in gaelic is pronouced v , dh has a y sound like in ceilidh or Eilidh etc, you can't expect foreign languages to follow English grammar and phonetics

Apart from when it's pronounced 'w'!

(My 12 year old is currently rolling his eyes because I speak Muskerry Irish (I mean, at the Gaeilge scoile level) and his teacher is a Donegal woman. This means we have entirely different pronunciations of 'mh', among other things.

@Bbq1 , Do you struggle with Niamh?

Yes, it was only Irish class in school and Irish college that I heard Rósmháire used!😀

So I’m not sure how accurate it was either, never thought about it before. I do know one of their dads was a native speaker, but then it wasn’t used at home I guess.

Rosemary the plant is Rós Mhuire or marós.

Mh is pronounced in Gaelic like a v is in English @Bbq1.

I always thought that name was pronounced Mary or Marie. Why is a name beginning with Mh pronounced as a Va? Not a hope, Op about 99%of pain will spell and pronounce the name wrongly all child's life. That saud, I do like Ma-ree.

Agreed on Pádraig Sheáin, where it means 'Sean's Padraig'. I admit I've never come across anyone who went by Rosmháire in her daily life, though -- the only couple of times I've come across it, it was that ' we'll invent you an Irish name' stuff that Irish teachers seemed to go in for in the past, and I wouldn't think that was likely to be particularly correct.

I've always known the herb as Ros Mhuire in Irish.

I had a uni friend Mhairi pronounced varee
Fascinating discussion, it had never occurred to me that proper names could depend on case.

I just looked up Mhairi Black, her wiki page has a note explaining pronunciation of the name but that she pronounces it as 'Marry'.

All the Mhairi’s I know pronounce it Vah-ree

those called Marie pronounce that Mah-reg

ans also know a Maire who pronounces it mah-reh

@PuddingAunt Irish, not Scottish, here but that makes sense for names like Pádraig Sheáin where Seán was the dad (so Seán’s Pádraig in other words). It is the genitive then.

I’ve known a few Rosemarys or Rosemaries who always were Rósmháire in Irish though 🤔 Never thought about it before, but not sure what’s going on there. They weren’t named for any Mary in the family. The herb is named differently. Looked it up and Rósmáire is also used.

It’s quite possible that the genitive form did add to the confusion I’d say.

@Oceangreyscale Oh no!😁🫣

I'm not Scottish but know one who says Varee.

Listened to an audiobook with a main character Mhairi recently and the bloody narrator pronounced it Ma-hairy every single time. Omg drove me up the wall. Why would you not check?!

Wouldn't that be Ros Mairi? (i.e. Ros Mhairi being the vocative form being used when it should be the genitive Ros Mairi)

is it people being told their grandmother was always known as, say "Ros Mhairi" etc and they didn't realise it was the genitive case? Rather than the vocative?

I’m from NI and really wanted to call my DD Marie, which is pronounced Mari/marry in NI, but we live in England and I just knew she would get MaREE (French pronunciation), so we tried out Mairi, but then had people calling her May-ree and Varry so we gave up and called her something else!

I think if you call her Mhairi she will get Varry so Mairi is probably safer, but not foolproof!

Step the ceilidh on we go, heel for heel and toe for to-oe... Makes me think of ceilidhs and weddings 💒

Brought back memories of "all for marees wedding" at music lessons 70s kids will know it well.

I am joking of course, and at least on here the possible teasing gets mentioned.
I got teased about my name but didn't rise to it.

The pronunciation would be an issue in England. The spelling and use of vocative in Scotland, maybe.

I've known a couple of Mhairi's but only ever pronounced it Mar- ree. I'm in england though so maybe thats the reason.

Nonsense, in Mumsnet school playgrounds absolutely no teasing whatsoever about names ever ever happens, and people will only need to be corrected about pronunciation or spelling once.

Certainly in Ireland the vocative case is absolutely how a name would be said but only in the Irish spoken language.

If the same two speakers were speaking to Máire in Irish or English that would determine whether A Mhaire (A voy ra) or Maire (Moira) were said. The same two people could use either depending which language they were speaking.

I've heard this, about the vocative case being pronounced differently, but have never come across it in practice, and I lived in the north of Scotland for around 5 years.

I know a few people with this spelling - most produced Va-ree, a couple (like the MP) pronged it Ma-ree. Didn't know anybody who just used Va-ree when addressing directly.

As I am English I was taken aback by the v pronunciation at first, but the lady told me "it's just like the Mh in Niamh" and it made perfect sense.

OP, I prefer the Va-ree pronunciation, but I would probably want definitive explanation of the whole vocative thing first.

As the mother of a long suffering teenage Mairi, this thread has been very interesting!

That depends on dialect too though.
The mh in ‘A Mháire’ has a v sound at the start where I am in Ireland.

That’s interesting actually.

I knew a Mhairi called MAH- ree who would be 90 now (only she passed away). No idea of her background but that was the pronunciation she used. She used to get irritated if people said Mah-REE ( like Marie).