Shortlist of names for baby girl

[dangalf]

Hi all

Just thought I would canvas opinions on my shortlist of names for baby girl due in july:

Aela
Saoirse
Aoife
Ciara
Roisin

I'm a little worried about the Irish names due to diffiulties of spelling, others pronunciation. I'm Irish but live in London and don't want to set her up for a life of annoyance.

Thanks

How do you say Aela? (Sorry, proving your point). I wouldn't have thought an Irish (or any other non-English) name in London would be a big deal.

If you want the perspective of someone that doesn't have an Irish bone in their body then I'll give you mine

I can't pronounce the first one, not sure on Saoirse (Sorsha?) or Aoife (Eva?), but I can definitely pronounce the last 2, although there was one at toddler group yesterday whose mother was pronouncing it 'key AH ra', is there a singer called Ciara or something?

If I had to pick then I'd choose Roisin.

Wasn't anticipating a problem with Aela! It's pretty much pronounced as you see it (Ay-la). It's actually a Breton gaelic name rather than Irish.

The problem is that even in different parts of Ireland there can be slightly difference pronunciation of Saoirse (I say Seersha). Aoife is (Ee-fa)

Sorry! Haven't seen that one before - wondered if it was similar to Isla.

My niece is Roisin, and is sometimes called Raisin, but I don't think it's blighted her life.

i love Aoife - but you may need to accept a lifetime of people not having a clue how to say it

I happen to have two neices called Roisin - one is ROW-sheen and the other is roh-SHEEN!

I honestly wouldn't. It is SUCH a pain in the neck having to explain your name every time - and I speak as someone who has a very slighly unusual spelling (the Irish version) of a quite common name.

Love Saoirse though - and nearly had a Niamh myself!

Aela's the only one I'm not familiar with but would take a stab in the dark with Ay-la so it does seem pretty obvious.

I love Saoirse (I pronounce it the same way as you). Aoife is fairly popular, even in this country. I do like Roisin too. A friend has an Orlaith, I like that.

Ciara or Roisin for me.

I love all those names and know how to pronounce all of them apart from Saoirse, which for some reason I thought was pronounced Sorsha .

All nice as I said but if I had to pick a favourite it would be Saoirse (closely followed by Roisin)

(oh, and am not Irish nor do I live in Ireland

It wuold be great to hear from anyone who has given their children Irish names in England - has it caused a lot of difficulties? What was it like when you were teaching them how to spell it as it wouldn't work with standard English phonetics etc.?

Lovely names. We have Aoife, Roisin (Row-sheen) and Saoirse (Sare-sha; think it is a SE Ireland thing as everyone else seems to pronounce the name Seer-sha) in our family. All live in London and none have any major problems. yes, they will have to explain the pronunciation to people now and then, but then, there are still some eejits who call Siobhans Sye-oh-ban and Sians Sy-anne. You can't base your baby name choices on that!

hi my DD1 is called Siobhan ( with the fada but i don't know how to do it on my laptop ) It has never been a problem. She often gets the fada missed off but apart from that no issues. When she first learnt to write her name she just copied it without questioning it, and as she got older we disscused how it sounded with Irish phonetics.

Love Aoife and Saoirse BTW
DS1 would have been Aoife if he had been a DD
Instead he is Conal

I love Aela, Aoife and Róisín.