Irish Baby Names- it doesnt spell right!

[Takingbabysteps]

Recently, my fiancé and I were discussing baby names, due to alot of our friends being pregnant and beginning to have babies.
When the topic came up of what we would name our babies, I suggested a couple of Irish names for a girl. Being Very proud of my Irishness (I should be the poster girl of Dublin- bright red hair, pale skin, cute freckles on the nose) I realised that when I moved to Surrey for my English partner, my Irishness came out multiplied by 100!
So I suggested Caoimhe. My fiancé liked it......until he asked the spelling. Unfortunately I dashed his idea that it was spelt K E E V A. It didnt go down well. He believes that his (english) friends would find our name very bizaare, especially because we would have to spell it phonetically.

Has anyone else gone through this dilemma. If so, who gives in?!

[cumbria81]

I think you're all being snobs.

Names and words are anglicised all the time - and other cultures do the same with our words and names.

[MissHonkover]

I can understand how someone may see an unfamiliar word and then mispronounce it, but seriously, there are people who hear a name of two syllables and still mispronounce it?

[sorchatallulah]

To be honest I've only heard Caitlín pronounced "kate-lin" once, and I spend 99% of my time in Belfast. Granted it's an Irish-speaking area of West Belfast but still. I imagine "kate-lin" spelt Katelyn or something. Don't think it's a great-sounding name.

Caoimhe is once that I like but I don't really like the anglicised "keeeeva". The first Caoimhe I ever met was from "down south" somewhere and she said it the proper way and I thought it was SO lovely, it was so disappointing to hear it the "kee" way every time since.

My name is Sorcha and even the people in the aforementioned area of Belfast don't often get it right. "Sorka" is generally what I'm called but it still feels like a nickname, I feel absolutely elated when people get it right. I don't really care what people call me as long as it isn't Seoirse, that's a pet-peeve as it's on my list for a future DS :P Getting back to my point, I don't think you need Irish ancestry or to be born in Ireland or whatever just to use an Irish name on your kid. Caoimhe is going to be mispronounced but there are probably areas anywhere that aren't going to say it. I don't think my name is anywhere near as popular as Caoimhe and people do still occasionally manage to get it right, so Caoimhe is probably one you're okay with. It also has the added bonus of "looking foreign", so people are more likely to ask how to say it. They're not likely to forget how to say it either, or insist on calling her some English phonetic version of her name. I say go for it. Just send out a text when she's born telling people her name is Caoimhe with "queeva" in brackets or something. I'm not sure how I'd spell it phonetically actually.

And to whoever said about their DH not being about to say/spell Maeve - you should have told him that's the easy way, he would have cried at Meadhbh :P

Okay, now I'm rambling, going to finish this off before I start up on something else.

[KenDoddsDadsDog]

bunbaker my comment was totally tongue in cheek.
But if you don't know how to pronounce a name, you can always learn.

[Bandwithering]

True JosieRosie. this OP is fishy to me. I don't think she's actually Irish at all. I think she is polling for opinions, and there's nothing wrong with that but she's being a bit disingenuous along the line.

I am Irish and had my children in the UK so these issues are things I have thought about and things I understood. But OP dismisses my opinion with a wave of her freckled paw, telling me I'm not Irish lol.

Listen OP, good luck to you wherever you're from!! I hope your child gets a name that works in the uk and Ireland (for when you visit your grandparents and second cousins )

[JosieRosie]

OP, I agree with other posters who say you need to think about where you will live - UK or Ireland. I grew up in Ireland, 2 Irish parents and have a very Irish name but have lived in UK for 10 years and consider myself a Brit. I blinkin' hate my name - no bugger can pronounce it and even people I have known for years get it wrong! As a result, I encourage people to use use a shorter, nickname-version, which is much less stressful all round. I'm thinking of adopting the shorter version permanently

Don't think you 'just have to tell people once' how it's pronounced - your child will be constantly meeting new people as they grow up and it gets O.L.D. having to have the same conversation over and over again.

'i'm the poster girl for Ireland with my moussey brown hair and blue eyes'

Soooooo true - there are hardly any naturally red-haired people in Ireland! Most people have dark hair, pale skin and light coloured eyes. Where this red haired myth came from I do not know!

[Bandwithering]

Takingbabysteps, you're not like The embassador for Ireland you know.

I know the original pronounciation of Caitlin thank you. Did you not pick up on my Peig Sayers reference there a few posts back? Are you really Irish? You seem to protest too much with your 'I'm the poster girl for Ireland' intro. Are you by any chance....... a plastic ??

Caitlin is a name I hear fairly regularly. It's NOT a name I'd choose myself as now it seems to have an New-American vibe. Like Paige, Brooke or Shannon. I would seriously eat my hat if I heard it being pronounced cawtchleen. KNOWING how it was once pronounced in the west of Ireland does not make it so in 2011.

[ShoutyHamster]

ooh sorry OP

must read more carefully

[Takingbabysteps]

DH never suggested mispelling to Keeva, he just assumed it was spelt like that until I corrected hime ( wish I took a photo of his face when trying to sound out the letters together!)

Im from Dublin but have a Caitlín in Athlone AND Kerry that pronounce it Cawtchleen.Bandwithering you obviously dont know many Caitlíns or just havent been to Ireland enough to hear the correct pronounciation!!

[ShoutyHamster]

It isn't a dilemma at all - 'who gives in'? No - it's simply the case that the name is not spelled Keeva!

Fine for him to say that he dosn't like it because of the spelling issue - utterly bizarre to say let's use it but spell it completely incorrectly

As said above, it's like saying you like Phoebe but think it's far better to spell it Feebee. Or that Michael is good, but let's make it Mycull just incase there's an issue.

The fact that Caoimhe is rarer in England than these two not-phonetically-spelled-names makes no difference, as we live in a very multicultural society - has he not noticed?

How odd!

[encyclogirl]

Eric think of Couch, and then replace it with Cauch, then go Cauchleen.

That should do it :)

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

Cawwwwtchleen?

I know that's supposed to be a phonetic spelling but I'm none the wiser!

[superjobee]

a friend of a friend has a wee girl called and spelt keeva, it wasnt till i joined here i realised she had bastardised a real name i thought she had made it up she or her ex have no irish family i think she must have heard it once and went ''oooh pretty'' which is a shame as if they did maybe they'd have spelt it right.

[wigglesrock]

I agree with Maryz , people cope with Chloe for example, I always get Esme wrong . If you use it, people will only need to be corrected once, if they get it wrong. I have a Sofia, people always spell it Sophia, even when I send out, for example a birthday invite with Sofia on it I get texts/invites back saying xxxxxx would love to come to Sophias' party

[stenogirl]

I had the same problem, OP. I was dead set on Maeve. I had all possible names written on a list and when I showed friends, they struggled to pronounce it and often said May-vee. My DP couldn't spell it either so it's now DD's middle name :(
I know a girl in Ireland called Keva...
How about names with an irish flavour - Erin, Kerry, Kelly or Shannon?
Orla is lovely too.

[Bunbaker]

"There was a Caoimhe on Big Brother last year so there will be millions who know how to spell / pronounce it"

And even more millions like me who don't watch Big Brother or have never heard of the name before. I love the Irish accent and the way Irish names are pronounced, but given that there is a pretty high chance that the pronunciation will be mangled to such an extent that a child with the name might not even know someone is trying to grab her attention it might not be such a good idea unless the name becomes more widely known.

I have friends with children who have well known names with unusual spellings and always make a point of getting it right on birthday cards etc, but I admit that when I first saw Caoimhe I thought "how on earth do you pronounce that? Cayoim?"

[KenDoddsDadsDog]

There was a Caoimhe on Big Brother last year so there will be millions who know how to spell / pronounce it .
Lots of Aoifes, Niamhs etc where I am.
I have gone through life having to spell my first name and now my married name. It's not a problem for me!

[fraktious]

I'm going to weigh in and say that don't just consider the UK. Unfortunately Caoimhe will be met with blank faces or mangled the world over. More mainstream Irish names are more familiar - I met a French Roisin the other day, pronounced fairly correctly even accounting for the French r!

Of course you won't find a name which works in every language, although Anna comes close, but why make life doubly difficult?

So Caoimhe, whilst a lovely name, would be a no for me.

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

Cawtchleen in Meath and Mayo too.

As for the misspelling common names, my name is Sarah ffs. You wouldnt believe how many people misspell that, including my Irish bloody family who frequently spell it Saragh! Having an easy spelling is no protection against eejits

[InMyPrime]

Whether you go for the right spelling of an Irish name or the wrong but 'easier' spelling is really down to how much it's going to grate on you when you hear the name being mangled. And believe me, if you choose a name like Caoimhe, it will be mangled regularly, as my own (unusual) Irish name is.

We're looking at Irish / Gaelic names (since DH is Scottish and we live in Scotland) for our son due in October and the annoyance of having his name mangled all the time is what's motivating me to go for a Gaelic name that people know rather than the less usual ones.

For example, my grandfather's name was Senan and I love the name and would love to use it but couldn't cope with it being mangled into 'See-nan' by everyone (it should be pronounced 'Sinnen'). Spelling it phonetically as 'Sinnen' would also annoy me because it's just wrong so I might just have to keep it as a middle name. When my grandfather lived in the USA, he had to anglicise his name to 'Simon' so he could blend in more. At least the English-speaking world has made progress since then!

[hotandsticky]

I had only heard Americans pronouncing Caitlin, Kate-lyn until I came to the UK 20 yrs ago.
It was always Cawtchleen to me, brought up in Donegal and Galway.....

[Bandwithering]

Where are you from in Ireland? Aran Islands? never heard any Caitlins pronounced caughtchleeen. NOT since I had my head in my hands 'reading' peig sayers in 1989

[Takingbabysteps]

Oh, and Maryz , i like your point about George and pheobe. Makes sense!

[Takingbabysteps]

Thank you for the replies. I understand that niamh and siobhan are more known over here, but im not a huge fan of both of those names. Im thinking it might be a good idea for a middle name.
I would love Caoimhe as a first name, but the thought of people at school questioning how to pronounce it esp. During role call breaks my heart ( have a friend with very unusual second name, and remember her suffering and becoming very frustrated!)

Ps i like the name "Caitlín", but because Im irish, i get irritable when people pronounce it like kate-lin. Cawwwwtch leen!