Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Naming my mixed race child and Irish name?

152 replies

ihateyousarahm · 01/05/2026 10:52

I'm pregnant with a child who will be mixed race. My family are Irish but we've lived in England for a couple of generations.

We want to respect the heritage and name our child a traditional Irish name. Some people have said it will be hard to pronoumce as it's an Irish name and we don't usually see the name and others have said it's a mixed race baby so don't. However when I said what name we should use, they don't know.

A girls name like Charlotte etc is English and although we have both lived in England for a couple of generations I'm torn.

Ideas please?

OP posts:
Abhannmor · Yesterday 07:22

mathanxiety · Yesterday 05:22

This!
I'm Irish too, not living in Ireland. I have an Irish name and find most people are intelligent enough and polite enough to make a solid stab at it once I've introduced myself.

Just don't look up names on dodgy 'Irish Baby Names' or 'Names for your Celtic Prince/ss' sites.

And avoid Gobnait.

I should hate to avoid Gobnait , patron saint of 🐝 bees. Anyway I'm surrounded with them hereabouts.

My sons went to school with an Iranian Kurdish girl who was brilliant at Irish. If she ever encounters a racist she can just say ' inis dom as Gaeilge' , which was the response my English born lads used. It's a great way to unite people ,given goodwill.

On the name question, I suppose you could pick one that's become better know through tv and film. Like Ardal or Aisling. My friend attended secondary in England as did I. He gave up using Dara and settled for his other name. That wouldn't be an issue now because of Daire O Briain.

harrietm87 · Yesterday 08:12

mathanxiety · Yesterday 05:40

Almost half the population of Northern Ireland identifies as Irish despite over 100 years of living in the UK.

Sorry, but people in Northern Ireland are Irish. This is a completely inappropriate analogy.

You could equally say that the majority of people in Ireland identify as Irish despite their ancestors all living in Britain pre-1922. Absolute rubbish.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page