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Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Aoife?

137 replies

clairemiss79 · 26/06/2014 20:08

I love the name Aoife but living in England I'm worried that it will be constantly mis-pronounced. Does anyone know any aoifes?

OP posts:
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GarlicJunoWho · 27/06/2014 19:06

Yes, we understand that, Math. Difference is that, knowing the languages have different sounds, people change either the spelling or the pronunciation of their name to suit. Just as I did, when I went to live in a country whose language doesn't include the combination of sounds in my name. It is impossible to pronounce in that language. Changing the spelling wouldn't help, so I changed the pronunciation - my other alternative would have been to translate it into a local equivalent.

Your complaint would be reasonable if speaking about English people in Ireland & not bothering to try.

I take your point about the teacher, though - she seems to be absurdly passive aggressive about it.

GarlicJunoWho · 27/06/2014 19:14

Giving this a (very little) more thought: no other language, to my knowledge, uses the Latin alphabet in such a very different way. Isn't it due to some tortuous method of transposing a runic alphabet, which doesn't even operate with sequential letters, into some semblance of Latin? Not a great job done, in my opinion.

(Although the runic alphabets were used to pass coded messages between rebels, so perhaps that priest knew what he was doing after all Wink)

squoosh · 27/06/2014 19:21

'Not a great job done, in my opinion.'

I'm sure if you tried a bit harder you could be even more dismissive.

GarlicJunoWho · 27/06/2014 19:32

He transposed runes into Latin letters. It's convoluted. To write Niamh in Latin, a more effective transcription would be Newe.

Ogham

GarlicJunoWho · 27/06/2014 19:37

(sorry, it would be Niw. Had to check, I'm as rusty as an ancient Roman.)

Lesleythegiraffe · 27/06/2014 19:37

An Aoife started at our school a few years ago and nobody had any idea how to pronounce it.

I know these type of names are lovely, but I think they're better kept to the country of origin otherwise the poor child spends its life suffering mispronunciation or explaining how it's said to other people.

A shame, but that's my experience anyway.

Deverethemuzzler · 27/06/2014 19:43

Bloody hell.

I DO find a lot of new names difficult to get to grips with. Doesn't make me ignorant or uncaring.

I take the time to make sure I am pronouncing them properly but it takes me time. It doesn't come naturally to me.

If I have never heard a name before it might take me ages to get it embedded in my brain.

I have very few 'English' names on my caseload. The parents of the children often struggle with my name but after a while we all get it without any angst or recriminations.

WastingMyYoungYears · 27/06/2014 19:44

I have a name that is tricky to know how to pronounce from the spelling alone, and I don't currently live in the country that the name is from. People often can't say (or spell) my name, but I love it, and I often get positive comments about it.

WastingMyYoungYears · 27/06/2014 19:46

Also, I love Aoife (sp? Grin). Honestly, there are worse things in life than having to tell someone how to say or spell your name.

aquashiv · 27/06/2014 20:25

Very popular name here. Such a pretty name simple and classic.
I say E-fa.

ReindeerBollocks · 27/06/2014 20:41

I think Aoife is a lovely name and, having known a couple of English ones, it's easy enough to pronounce.

I wanted a Caiomhe for a girl if I had anymore but would probably go for the bastardised version of Keeva if in England. Beautiful name. I also have a European name which is quite rare in the UK (well quite rare worldwide). You eventually get used to people getting it wrong. Mostly get compliments though.

daheedsgirl · 27/06/2014 22:32

Love Aoife! My husband is Irish and we are deliberating between Aoife, Niamh or Aoibhinn for our pink bump. X

EnglishRose1320 · 27/06/2014 22:54

A friend had a little girl called Aiobh- she had the same problem with spelling and how to say it- she got over this by making up a jokey song to the tune of BINGO,

Anna had a baby girl and Aiobh was her name oh

A I O B H, A I O B H, A I O B H

and Aiobh was her name oh

Everyone got the hang of it pretty quickly after that

EnglishRose1320 · 27/06/2014 22:55

Oh and I think Aoife is a lovely name and perfectly fine to be used in England

Monmouth · 27/06/2014 22:58

I was in Eire a couple of years ago when a women called Grainne (can't put the acent in) was given a job on This Morning on ITV. A popular newspaper had an article on how the English were a bunch of eejits as they were unable to pronounce the name.

If you are English I don't see how you would be expected to be able to pronounce Irish names such as Grainne or Aoife.

I do like Aoife.

Eatriskier · 27/06/2014 23:07

I love the name Aoife! I understand the mispronunciation after explanation thing. I've Irish heritage and can pronounce aoife fine but can't pronouce roisin to my family's approval though. Which could have been bad given I was nearly called that...

mathanxiety · 27/06/2014 23:58

The problem with what you say is that you use English as the standard of how to use the Latin alphabet, and label Irish as 'different'.

How about looking at from the pov of Irish (or German, Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Norwegian, etc) being the standard? English would come out as a monumentally mongrelised language with an insane orthographic 'system'.

'no other language, to my knowledge, uses the Latin alphabet in such a very different way.'

That is a completely subjective notion of another language based on an insular, anglocentric world view. Look at the ISO 8859 Latin 1 to Latin 4 character sets -- they exist because the 'Latin alphabet' has major limitations where European languages are concerned.

Those letters of the Latin alphabet that are used in Irish do the job in a highly systematised and regular way. J,K,Q,V,W,X,Y and Z are not used as there are no corresponding sounds. There is one diacritical mark, the fada. If you think the letter combinations are weird looking you have misheard the sounds and you are ignorant of the grammar. The combinations that exist are all there for a solid reason related to grammar and phonetics (the representation of the actual sound of the language). Newe would not be an accurate Latin alphabet rendition of Niamh because Niamh is pronounced Nee-?v. If you have heard Neev you have heard a mispronunciation. There is a schwa in there [?].

By way of contrast, English spelling is not by any stretch of the imagination related to the sounds of English. On the one hand, it lacks a huge number of modifying marks above and bisecting letters that are found in Czeck or Norwegian for example, but it makes up for that in spellings that still cling unnecessarily to the language of origin of many of the words although it has divested itself of most of the original sounds hundreds of years ago. English is one of the most difficult languages to learn if it's not your first language, thanks to the unsystematised spelling.

Runes were predominantly the earliest forms of Latin and Italic languages and were also used in very early Germanic languages, including the language of the Anglo Saxons. Maybe we can therefore say patronisingly that the scribes who laboured to alphabetise most Germanic languages did their best, and shake our heads?

Ogham isn't strictly speaking a runic language, and as your link explains, its origins and uses are still being debated. You can't really claim it was used by rebels, as there was nobody to rebel against at the time Ogham was in use..

'Your complaint would be reasonable if speaking about English people in Ireland & not bothering to try.'

Not really. Britain is now a multi-ethnic society and people who consider themselves British rejoice in a huge variety of names from a huge variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. Furthermore, Britain has a long history going back several hundred years of incorporating the entire island of Ireland into its body politic. Until 1922 your ancestors and mine lived in The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Mine learned English in acknowledgement of the fact of close proximity.

mathanxiety · 28/06/2014 00:14

How you pronounce names like Grainne and Aoife is you listen to them and say Grawn-ya and Ee-fa...

How hard is it really?
Can you say Sinead O'Connor?

Can you say the following:
Fjord
Czech
Cheque
Cafe
Aperitif
Crepe
Naive
Skiing
Cello
Concerto
Ballet
Duvet
Fiance/e
Creme brulee
Through
Though
Rough
OVEr
OVEn
mOVE
Ptolemy
Foreign
?

WhereHas1999DissappearedToo · 28/06/2014 00:42

Aoife is a gorgeous name and I think it's getting popular enough for people to recognise how to pronounce and spell it. Niamh is lovely too.

ILoveCoreyHaim · 28/06/2014 00:50

I have the Irish name beginning with an N for my dd 12. She hates it, constantly has to correct it. Is always being called stupid names as they read it the way it looks. I wouldnt do it again. Started to hate it about age 7 when she was going to cluba and didnt have me to correct people. I see her cringe when they say a name which is not hers. Dd2 and 3 have names which read as they are written

LucyBabs · 28/06/2014 01:05

Eefa is the same as eefer? Huh? Where did the rogue r come from Confused

mathanxiety · 28/06/2014 02:22

And pizza...

ILoveCoreyHaim · 28/06/2014 02:34

Math i see people look at it written on paper when they have to call her name say at a club or even the doctors. They then say it the way it looks. DD just rolls her eyes now but it must be so annoying for her when it happens over and over. She loathes her name and has told me on many occassions she hates it or says wjy couldn't i give her a normal name. It is a normal name if you live in Ireland not England.

I could change it to the American spelling but that sort of goes against the reason i choose an Irish name for her which was due to my family history.

At least now its more popular than what it was but the damage is done and she hates it

You just cant expect English people to know how to pronounce Irish names unless they have come across them before. Its my own fault as i didnt really think it would be as bad as it has been. Fair enough an adult having to correct people but is not fair for a kid to have to do it almost constantly when her name is read out.

I wish i had gone with Erin and so does DD so op from my experience no i wouldnt do it again.

fattycow · 28/06/2014 02:36

I like the Aoife!

I am originally Dutch and if I want to give my child a Dutch name, I will. Sure, people will struggle, but they will soon get used to it. People constantly mispronounce my name, but I just correct them. The English pronounce the vowel sequence differently, but it is not impossible to pronounce my name the correct way.
Loads of names starting with a j are pronounced dj in English, while they do not in the Netherlands (Jesse, Jenny, John, Jade, to name a few). There are names with ei or ij in them (Marjolein, Thijs, Stijn, Marijke).
There are a few I WOULD avoid. I would not name my son Dick or my daughter Joke, that would be cruel.

On the subject of the English language and the 'messed up' tangle that is: spelling of words if often very different from how they are pronounced. This is partly due to French rulers, Viking rulers, Catholic missionaries and many other things. Spelling and pronunciation have lost a lot of their correlation. A perfect example is the word fish. That could be spelled as ghoti...

mathanxiety · 28/06/2014 02:52

Doctors' receptionists and club employees are not noted for their manners or intelligence.

Believe it or not, I have heard the name Erin mangled. ('Irene' 'Eeren' 'Ereen')

I know an Emma who has been called Emer more times than she cares to count.

There are no guarantees.