Ruairi, Conor, Cian or Cormac

[BertieBeatle]

Help!!
I'm driving myself mad trying to name our lo due in a few days.
The only thing we have decided is he will have an Irish name. He will be half English and half Irish and will probably grow up in England.
We both love Ruairi with the nn Ru and had completely decided on it but I'm so worried about the spelling issus it's clouding it. Part of me thinks we should just go for it but I have a tendency to overthink things.
I'm not a fan of Rory as I have known 5 adult Rory's over the years and it just reminds me of them. I like being able to shorten names so if you have any good nn ideas for the above it would be really helpful.
I realise Cian is very short so unlikely to be able to shorten it which puts me off a bit. Surname is a simple one syllable name and sounds fine with all of them.
I would really like him named before he is born as otherwise I'll be tired and hormonal and will never make a decision!
DH likes all of them but prefers Ruairi.
Thanks all!

I have a Cian so I am biased I love the name.

Thanks Tyrion, are you living in England? Do you get issues with people pronouncing it with an 's'sound? Like sian?

Sgoin - that's exactly what I was hoping to hear and is very reassuring, thanks

Ruairi is really lovely :)

Just being pedantic but is Conor Irish as such? Think the Irish is Conchubhair (pronounced ridiculously Cru-hoor!)

Whilst cormac isn't uncommon in Ireland, it's less probably less popular than the others (with the exception of cian). It would be even more unusual in England but has the beauty of being easy to spell* and pronounce.

I should mention that my eldest is called Cormac, but any bias is purely coincidental.

• Dh has an aunt who can't fecking spell to save her life and at one point wrote a birthday card to Cormagh.

You have picked all my fav's - living in England but Irish and I would def use any of them

P.S. Cillian is another nice one!

I have a Ciara so a bit biased towards Cian. I can't think of Conor without going 'Conor Mcloud of the clanMcloud' everytime. I realise that's just me. Ruairi is lovely. Sounds very comforting. Best wishes for your impending squishy bundle.

Maybe as we have similar tastes you may be able to help me with Irish girls names - that's were I'm stuck! Sorry Just hijacked your thread - I'm just impressed with your name choices

mikado cillian is great, good call.

I agree they are all lovely. Eoin and Darragh (Daire) are also nice.

Conor, Cian & Cormac were my favourite boys names. He ended being called Sadhbh 😂

Ruairi is cool imo. Yes, there will most likely be spelling issues, but if you like it I think you should go for it :)

I also like Cormac. Cormac is really cool imo.

Actually, when I think about it a bit more, I don't think Ruairi is that complicated. My cousin's name is really complicated (her dad is Asian) and foreign and she still loves her name. So, I think you should chose it if you love it. So many people seem to have name regrets, which just sucks...

birchy

Aoife, Eimear, Niamh, Eibhlin, Laoise (i think that's how you spell it), meabh, aine, orla.

Loving all these responses. Thanks all it's so helpful, keep 'em coming.
Birchy - my favourite irish girls names are Ciara, Aoife and Orla. I haven't obsessed over girls names anywhere near as much though as I knew from 20 weeks that we were having a boy
Mika - just asked DH who is Irish and he confirmed the traditional spelling of Conor is Conchubhair makes Ruairi seem positively mainstream!!

Also Ciaran (can't work out fada on phone).. would have liked that for ds2.. Ronan. No more from me, promise!

1horatio - that's interesting. It's nice to hear of people with unusual names that still really like them. I think it would be so boring if we all just chose safe names. I think I would regret not choosing Ruairi. Ive been calling him Ru for months.
I guess if he was shy and really didnt like it he could just go by Rory, and it wouldn't be a huge change.

Go for it! There's a gorgeous little floppy haired Ruairi down the road from us and he spent his first 4 years in England with no bother :)

Just to be pedantic about it (sorry ) Conor is absolutely a traditional Irish name, spelt that exact way as Gaeilge (in Irish). Conner or Connor would be the anglicised spelling.

Conchobhar or Conchobar is the Old Irish spelling of the name from about 800-1200 years ago, and was pronounced approximately CON-chu-var (with the ch like Scottish loch). As Irish changed over time, the sound evolved to something closer to CON-chur and then CON-ur. Spelling modernisation in Irish reflected its current pronunciation as "Conor".

That said, there has been a revival of the old spelling in recent years and you do see the occasional Conchobar / Conchobhar around now. The pronunciation is highly variable, though... some people say it as Conor (even though that doesn't make sense in modern Irish), and others go with the mediaeval pronunciations of Con-chu-var or Con-chur. It's a minefield!

Thanks never Laoise and meabh are top of my list at the minute.

I also love naimh and aoife but 2 of my close cousins are called this.

Bertie is say go with ruairi, as you say he can choose Rory if he wants - I really hope not though!
Another of my favourites is caolan

Thanks geeka. Very interesting to know, I thought maybe Conor was the English version. To me Connor is a surname and Conner is a misspelling You've not mentioned Cru-hoor as a pronunciation which is the only one I've heard including an Irish language lecturer (Ulster dialect). It's a very unwieldy spelling!

I like Caolan, but dh really doesn't like it. I don't think he had heard of it. He's been over here a long time so wondered if it's only become popular recently?
I love Niamh and Maeve but as we have a one syllable surname I ruled them out straight away as it just didn't sound right.

Declan is my favourite, I also like Finnbar.