Should I call my daughter Aoibhín in England?

Yep, my thoughts exactly!

I love it!

isitreally - that’s not true either, many people have a couple of attempts, laugh (not unkindly) and give up. Most just go either what they think or ask once. I have very rarely met people who make a massive effort - and most people who have traveled widely don’t expect them to, they understand that pronunciation varies and that their name will be pronounced differently with different accents and don’t mind. I know that many people can’t pronounce my name, but I’m not offended if they go with an adaptation- I don’t expect them to be able to spend ages trying to get it right.

No of course they won't automatically know, I'm saying other people make an effort

It’s a lovely name but I think people in England will struggle to pronounce it.

I struggled with the name Siobhan for years when I was younger! I was only late teens early 20s at the time and used to pronounce it as Sy-o-ban. It was only when a friend of mine had a baby and named her Siobhan did I realise that it was actually pronounced as Shavonne 🤣

Eh. If a child was born in England to two Indian parents, and you referred to that child as Indian rather than British, I think you would find yourself in quite a tight spot

That’s up to the child really. She’ll have a British birth certificate, and will grow up culturally English. It’ll be up to her as to what country she identifies with.

My husband & his sister had 3 passports from birth. Neither have any cultural affinity for their parents birth countries despite visiting plenty as children. His best friend has a US passport by descent. He doesn’t remotely consider himself American.

it really isn’t true that every other person in the world would know how to pronounce this name. I’ve got a pretty standard name and it’s very common when spending time in an other country to have to get used to your name being pronounced in a different way - not everyone is able to pronounce everything. It’s not wrong, it’s just that we all have a different accent! And that’s not rude or a lack of trying, it’s just a fact whatever accent you've grown up with means that certain sounds are really hard or almost impossible for you to master - or even hear to be able to identify the subtle emphases and sounds. It’s not racist to understand this! Sometimes you get given an entirely new nickname if your own name is too tricky to pronounce with a particular accent.
Irish isn’t spoken by many in England and we don’t learn it at school so don’t know how the phonics work and thus can’t pronounce the words when written - that’s not racist!! How arrogant to think that if people find it hard means they are ignorant.

Certainly not limited to the English, which is why you come across quite a few Aislinn (pronounced Ayz-Lynn), Ashlynn, Shevaune, Neve, Caitlin/Catelyn/Katelyn, Shawn, Aidan, Declan, Kieran etc in Australia/Canada/US

That's not true.

As someone with an impossible to pronounce Irish name with too many consonants, the comments here don't surprise me at all. Most people ask how to pronounce my name and only need to hear it once to be able to pronounce it themselves. A small minority seem to gain some satisfaction from playing the fool - "I still don't get it, looks like HIJKLMNOP to me hahaha".

Honestly, after living with what has always felt like a difficult name, I went the opposite direction with my own children. I don't think you should be put off if you love the name though.

So do the English, every time. But if you're happy to set them up to get it wrong, you can't blame the hapless person trying to make sense of little-known foreign spellings.

I think the difference is, other people try and make an effort, ime

I'm one of those people too, and it is a problem with or without my permission. 😄

But clearly some people never tire of the same dreary ritual whenever a new doomed attempt is made to pronounce their names.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't think it's a big deal. I'd rather have a traditional name that means something and put up with any hassle. I think that's more important.

Not true at all, such problems are common in any country where the name is spelt in a little-known language with different pronunciation rules to the main language of the country.

It is in fact a typical "little-Englander" attitude to believe these problems are unique to the English. 😂

Or as one of those people with a name that makes no sense in English phonetics, I realise that’s only a problem if you allow it to be a problem.

It’s fine! People can learn to say a name ffs.
I have a friend called Gráinne, she’s a teacher. All her kids and their parents can pronounce her name. No problem.
Call your baby the name you love.

You're missing my point - I'm all in favour of people having names from any ethnic tradition, the bigger variety the better.

It's just sensible to spell those names in a way that makes phonetic sense in the main language of the country in which you live, if people commonly have difficulty pronouncing them correctly in the original spelling.

For example, the Irish-French name Aveline (from which Eileen is derived) is easy enough for English speakers to pronounce when written as Aveline or Aveleen, but will encounter problems when spelt in Gaelic as Eibhlín or Aibhilín.

Some people are happy to put with a lifetime of such problems, but it's not really fair to foist them on your children.

Difficult Irish name here (not a common one) and have spent my life spelling it out. I LOVE it.

Names are a celebration of culture and a way to connect new children to old family traditions.

It’s a beautiful name, I know several (in England AND Ireland). It’s a great choice!

You might be Irish and your daughter might be born to Irish parents, but she'll grow up English in England. I am Irish myself, by the way. Most of the young girls I know in Ireland have more international names now.

It's only ever English people who complain about these kinds of things, literally every* *other person in the world can manage 🤣

You miss the point, they still have to spell their names many, many times in their lives. And yet they survive.

Oh and I’ll change the spellings of names that hold meaning and tradition to a more English-centric version in order to appeal to monoglots over my dead body. The English attempted to eradicate my language for a long time, there’s no way I’m going to help that along.

People will always get names wrong. Dh and I tried to give dc names which would be pronounceable in all 3 main languages relevant to us (both our mothertongues and the country we lived in). It was almost impossible, but in the end we settled on names we thought no one could possibly get wrong, and yet people constantly do.

And that is without even starting on the possibility that they will end up in a different country in the future. I have a name which is simple and perfectly phonetic in loads of different countries. English speakers constantly get it wrong and complain that 'it's not how I would expect to spell it'. Well, no, it's not an English name!