How would YOU say this name?

[3luckystars]

It's a girls name, just looking for your first reaction to it if you have a minute to reply. I don't want to pick a name that would cause confusion if she lived in another country. Thanks very much.

Aoibh

I personally favour names that work well internationally. But at the same time I don't think there's anything wrong with people choosing a name that's specific to their culture. One of my siblings living in London has an old Irish name that totally foxes people and he accepts that having to explain his name to people on a regular basis is just one of those things. I'm a very impatient person so would be bored after three day of having to do this!

And I'm sure it's phonetic in its own language, but the point of the OP was to ask about other contexts

Yes, but you may have missed that the point about phonetics was to the poster who complained it was spelled wildly differently to how it is pronounced. Which it isn't, unless you think all foreign languages need to conform to the rules of English.

It's a seperate point to the OP's question.

Eve

You get to the point you don't notice it, squoosh. I start spelling my surname before I even realise I'm doing it half the time.

Oh I've got to spell my surname all the time too Rafa. It's just my brother has got the first name/surname double whammy.

Actually yesterday I was signing for a parcel and the courier knew how to spell my surname.

He was like, 'oh as in -vaguely famous person- of the same name'. That was nice.

I think unless you knew the pronunciation already you might say AY-OB. Well I might anyway. It looks like that to me. You would probably have to spell it and or pronounce to anyone not familiar with the language or the name. If she's going to be raised in Ireland, more people will know it.

Irish spellings really fox me. I used to have lovely Irish flatmates that laughed at me saying "Dun Loggaire" instead of Dunleary.

I have an English name with phonetic spelling, I live in England. I still have to spell my name most of the time.

That just implies the people she worked with were a bit thick

I only know how to say Grainne because I was at uni with a girl of that name. Prior to that I would have had no idea. You cannot possibly say people are thick because they cannot pronounce a name which is foreign, new to them and spelled in an unfamiliar language. There's a difference between thick and never having heard a name before.

No, MissBattleaxe, but someone who encounters an unfamiliar name on someone's nametag can just ask how it's pronounced, rather than making wild guesses and turning Grainne into Grey Knee? Perfectly reasonable not to know how to pronounce a name that, like Gráinne, is obviously from another language/culture, not so reasonable not to take the obvious, polite approach and ask.

Like no one would have expected you to know how to pronounce Dun Laoghaire. Calling it Dun Loggery would only be unreasonable if you'd lived there for twenty years and still got snitty with cab drivers for not knowing what you meant when you jumped into cabs shouting 'Take me to Dun Loggery!'

That doesn't make them thick. Presumably the person corrected them and then they got it right. Not thick, just making a polite guess so as to use the person's name when addressing them.

My Dad knew a woman who up until she died at some grand old age in the 1970's insisted on calling 'Dun Loggery' Kingstown.

You cannot possibly say people are thick because they cannot pronounce a name which is foreign

What I said was if you see a name you don't know, and instead of simply asking how you say it, use some mangled attempt of your own, you are a bit thick.
You see a name you can't say, you ask the owner of the name how to say it. Job done.

You can say they're ignorant and rude though.