Irish spelling in U.K

[daheedsgirl]

My husband is from Ireland and we live in Wales. We both love the name Aoibhinn Frances for a girl (Ay-veen) but I'm worried that she will spend the rest of her life spelling and having her name mispronounced! We also like Elin Frances. Any opinions and other name suggestions are appreciated! :-)

Should point out that my niece lives in England

I'm not sure what 'biffy' is actually! I just think that arrangement of letters looks a bit unattractive.

'Eavan' is an estabished Anglicisation which is used in Ireland - so more like Finola or Maeve than Shevaun or Keeva.

There is a pretty well-known Irish poet called Eavan Boland.

Ahh I see!

How would you pronounce Sabdh? Savy?

Oh my gosh, is it Saovy i.e. Sophie?

It's pronounced Sive (rhymes with five)

It's spelt Sadhbh.

One of mine has Ruaidri in his name. No one can spell it or pronounce it (I have to look the spelling up myself at times) in hindsight I should've just gone with the English spelling!

Etain is lovely, I've not heard it before.

My niece is Aoibhinn - pronounced Ee-vin. I like it.

Thanks Squoosh, I have seen it spelt in several different ways I deliberately chose an odd one but your spelling seems to make even less sense . It is a name I love though.

Étaín is an Irish heroine :-). Thank you for all your advice, husband likes sabdh and maeve too. My mum is Elisabeth so quite like Eilish too x

Sadhbh is always spelled Sadhbh.
The reason being that this is how you render the sound 'sive' (rhyming with five) in Irish. If it's spelled differently it is not Sadhbh/Sive.

Sadh = 'sigh', and bh = v. Together they make si(gh)ve.

Think of it this way - if 'Margaret' were spelled 'Mabgadet' it would not be Margaret.

The Sadhbh spelling makes complete sense in Irish, which is the language of the name, just as French spellings and pronunciations make sense according to the orthographic rules of French, ditto Welsh, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian names, etc.

'Sabdh' would be 'Sab' with a redundant dh at the end.

My bad I spelt it wrong :-) x it's not a name I would pick even if other half likes it x

Eilis is nice. Eilish would be a mixed English/Irish spelling. The problem in Britain is the pronunciation 'eyelash'.

Maeve is a lovely name and easy to pronounce.

Aoibheann or Aoibhinn would definitely be pronounced with the long E at the start.

Please don't spell Sadhbh 'Sabdh' if you choose it. It is completely wrong.

Elin is gorgeous imo.

x-post

Other Irish names that are relatively easy to pronounce:
Enda (a unisex name)
Dara (unisex)
Orla

@mathanxiety don't you mean 'sorshagate'?

We live in England and every year at school has a couple of irish girl names in. It is annoying for to have a name you have to spell and pronunce all the time (I have one!)

I have a caoimhe and whilst it is becoming more popular - it hadn't been a problem or "disaster". It was one of the first things she would spell out for people.

When we once went for a nursery viewing, the ever so open minded manager said something along the lines of - you people and yr foreign names.. Why cant you just pick a nice simple name like Sophie or Emma?

Indeed. Could be because i am heaven forbid " foreign" a.k.a. Irish?

Yes Dara is unisex.

Can also be spelt Daire/Darragh