Named daughter Saoirse - Seer- sha

[Kira22]

Wrote post earlier but had spelling errors! I put cha instead of sha. Many of you pointed this (quite rightly out) as being different sounds- I'd realised as soon as I wrote it I had got S and C muddled (I am dyslexic) but wasn't in time enough to edit. MNHQ kindly took original post down. Just spent awhile going through it and somehow lost entire original post, DOH!

In short, daughter is called Saoirse - named after the girl in the film Song of the Sea www.imdb.com/title/tt1865505/ We fell in love with the name, we pronounce it Seer-sha - the Irish people in the film also say it this way.

I know the actress, Saoirse Ronan (who I actually don't know at all/never seen her films/just get informed alot about her when I say my daughters name!) pronounces her name SUR-sha. She says herself Seer-sha is also another, very common way. Different accents, regions and all that jazz.

An older couple today were basically telling me I was saying my own daughters name wrong today and that they had Irish in their family and it is Sur- sha. Even when I said yes my dad's side are Irish (not that is blooming matters) they wouldn't have it - the woman even said how are you spelling it so I spelt 'Saoirse' and she said 'when you said her name (Seer-sha) I wouldn't have known her name was Saoirse unless you had spelt it for me because it is pronounced 'Sur-sha'

Am just amazed sometimes people ask her name I say it is 'Seer- sha' and they say 'Ohhh, SUR- sha' with huge emphasis on Sur. When someone tells me their name/ their childs name I make a huge effort to say it how they say it, because, well, that is their name!

I wasn't going to repost but many of you kindly had taken time to write replies before, so felt I should

In my opinion, i think some of the irish names that have three consecutive vowels, can look very clunky.

Anyway to get back to the OPs post, people are always going to mispronounce it, if you don't live in Ireland.

So it may be best - to just not care what they think about the pronunciation

Yeah...you've said that repeatedly despite op saying that her dd is called that already and there being someone on this thread called Saoirse. Jesus christ 😂

Who said every irish family....oh never mind. There's something up with you

She doesn't pronounce it with an R at the end of it. No Irish person would.

yes, definitely an ‘ah’ sound at the end.
Never, ever a ‘er’ sound.

Perhaps you should have called her Duckie..........

So what?

Are you that fragile? You'll never get 100 percent of people anywhere saying "oh yes that's a lovely name".

Thats not how real life works.

Look at the baby names forum on here.

If only anyone had asked if people like the name.

Your pronunciation is perfect

I'm not Irish, but I've known four people with the name Saoirse. And they all pronounced it seer-sha. The people you met were very rude, and wrong.

Irish speaker here too, you are correct Seer-sha is how it’s always pronounced where I’m from.

It's a beautiful name.
Both my parents were Irish so I expect I'm biased.

Well what does that make me then 🤨

sha/ shar is same difference, especially when you are asking English people to say an Irish name, I would know

They're very different in Ireland though as we have rhotic accents.

Saoirse is a gorgeous name. You shoild watch Brooklyn with Saoirse Ronan in the lead as its amazing..

I also have a dd with an Irish name and (shock horror we are not even Irish) I've learned to just respond. Well this is how we pronounce it so please stick with that
When people correct me. I know we say it right as I have plenty of Irish friends that have agreed w me.

A girl at DD’s school in called Saoirse and pronounces it Sirsha. Tbh my DD is called Sofia. We pronounce it Ssfeeya, dsil and dmil So-feeya and everyone else different ways. I wanted it to be Zofia but I thought it would be too much.

I don't know what nationality you are but I have never heard an Irish person pronounce a non existant r at the end of a word. What part of ireland are you from that you do?

Sha and shar are pronounced completely differently in every Irish accent I'm familiar with.

It depends on what Irish dialect you're using - see https://abair.ie/ga
Put the word 'Saoirse' in the box on the left and then click the different places on the map to hear the different pronunciations

That is complete nonsense. You don’t get to reinvent the phonetic laws of Irish.

Very true.

Just noticed "Saoirse Ronan pronounces hers as Sair-sher, and this is how I pronounce mine"

No she doesn't. She doesn't add a non existant r to the end of her name.

@SershaAdele clearly has a non rhotic accent, I'm sure we've all been on enough R threads to know what she means.

Yes but she appears to be claiming to be Irish. If she is Irish, there is no Irish accent I am aware of in which Sha and Shar are pronounced the same.

Fine if she is English and has a non rhotic accent but claiming Saoirse can be pronounced Seershar is absolutely incorrect for an Irish name in any Irish accent.

That is my mother’s name and it’s pronounced soar-sha. It’s an uncommon name and strange to see it come up here for some reason

It depends! I'm a Sorcha and it's pronounced Sor-sha

There are various ways of pronouncing it I've gathered