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?!

[Bandwithering]

I like Clodagh Maeve /Roisin Anya (Aine) ?? and I think most English men could cope with those.

Caoimhe is too much for a 'forriner' imo. You're pushing too much there imo. Caoimhe is nice enough but there are so many in Ireland now. When you come back to Ireland and shout out "Caoimhe, time to go home now" in the park, about 5 girls' heads will all turn round.

I'm Irish myself by the way and I'm going to shove you out of the way, jump in front of the camera and say i'm the poster girl for Ireland with my moussey brown hair and blue eyes. [ponders] I hardly know anybody with red hair and green eyes and freckles...

[Bandwithering]

Another issue with Caoimhe is that it is sometimes pronounced Kweeva and sometimes Keeva.

[sparkle12mar08]

Clodagh, whilst beautiful, will be pronounced Clod-ag by most english people on a first try I'd have thought. Caiomhe is gorgeous. I'd definitely go with that.

[Bunbaker]

"Clodagh, whilst beautiful, will be pronounced Clod-ag"

I don't think so. We are used to words ending -gh. Anyway, when I saw the name my first thought was of Clodagh Rogers.

I agree that it would be a shame to mangle the spelling of a name so that us ignorant forriners can pronounce it correctly. The consensus seems to be that many Irish names are just not phonetic enough for English speakers.

[Bandwithering]

Sparkle, you have managed to spell Clodagh correctly but not Caoimhe!! so imo, that is a vote for clodagh.

[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!

[Takingbabysteps]

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

[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

[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.....

[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!

[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

[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.

[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!

[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?"

[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.

[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

[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.

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

Cawwwwtchleen?

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

[encyclogirl]

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

That should do it :)

[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!

[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]

ooh sorry OP

must read more carefully

[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.