AIBU to give my child an Irish name in the UK?

[FolkSongSweet]

Posting here for traffic. I’ve seen a few heated debates on this on baby name threads recently. I’m considering giving my child an Irish name where the pronunciation isn’t obvious from the spelling. We live in London. Will this be a huge burden to the child when they grow up/a mild annoyance, or not an issue?

(NB this issue could obviously theoretically apply to lots of names, not just Irish ones, but Irish ones are what I’m considering)

YABU - don’t give your child a tricky name
YANBU - it’s not a big deal, people will learn

@DanDean, no of course they aren’t, and no one is obliged to learn/teach anyway! I was simply pointing out that it is possible and isn’t a problem of not hearing the sound which absolutely IS a recognised phenomenon (it’s where the stereotype of Chinese people saying ‘egg flied lice’ comes from because there is no difference in their dialect between the L and R so they don’t hear the distinction). I know there are always going to be people who mispronounce her name and those people just tend to call her Gwen and that’s it, problem solved and she’s happy.

This reminds me of a story Donal McGuire tells about trying to explain his name to some Americans. He said "it's like Donald without the d." To which the reply came "Onald?"

And Domhnall Gleeson, who says the 'm' is there just to confuse Americans

@Mumof3almost4, We have a Tadhg in the family. It's one of the easier names to pronounce. If I had a boy I'd got for Oisín, I love that name, although if I actually lived in Ireland I'd probably avoid it as too popular.

I also like Fiach and Fiachra.

@jewel1968

This reminds me of a story Donal McGuire tells about trying to explain his name to some Americans. He said "it's like Donald without the d." To which the reply came "Onald?"

Ha ha!

I love Domhnall - if this baby was a boy I would probably have gone with that, or Donnchadh, which is also great. Same spelling/pronunciation issues though!

My kids have welsh names and I avoided any that look different to how they are said. It limited the choice, but I don't live in Wales now so they are English with an Welsh name and English surname.

If I saw Ailbhe/Caoimhe I would of suspected they might be Irish and I wouldn't even try to guess how to say them. I would be really stuck and google if I had the chance. The first one looks like it would be Marie Ann at my best guess.

Keep your beautiful heritage alive!

It's fine, give her an Irish name people will get used to it.
Aiofe Niamh. Saoirse. Roisin. Ciara. Aisling. Are all lovely names and she will soon correct people when she is old enough. X

My ex-H is Irish and mine both have it Irish names

At 11 and 17 my Caoimhe and Maebh are now Eva and May

Caoimhe, particularly, got sick of her name being pronounced/spelt incorrectly

OP, I’ve done this myself - twin boys, DH is Irish, my father is Irish - lots and lots of Irish family. Surname also Irish. One of my boys is Ruairí - we loved the name and once it was on ‘the list’ we couldn’t find another we liked (well, other than my other sons name!)

I grew up with an Irish surname that’s very tricky to pronounce, so had personal experience, even though I was born in England and always lived here. In short, it’ll be mispronounced in many a waiting room, her name will be wrong on a few letters, she’ll have to spell it out in the bank, and so on. For me it was a minor issue and never really bothered me at all. Friends, family, colleagues - as soon as they know it, they know it.
I noticed this recently when enrolling the boys at nursery the staff were very keen to understand how we pronounce Ruairí and even wrote it on his file phonetically as a reminder.

I say, go for it :) we did and I can’t imagine him with any other name now he’s here!

@MadamBatty

Fair enough TheKeatingFive Declan & Kevin are anglicised. However they are Irish names not just names that are popular in Ireland.

They certainly are. Many Irish men with the name Kevin, will have Barry as their middle name and there is a very good reason for keeping that tradition alive.

@OwlBeThere, that's a cop out though. The traditional short form of Gwenllian is Llio, and Gwen is a different name. I can think of people who don't like having their name shortened.
Why bother calling her Gwenllian if she uses Gwen?
I'm not convinced that you even say the full name properly, given that you questioned the diaeresis.