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!

[geekaMaxima]

Mikado All bets are off for Ulster dialect Irish! Half the vowel sounds are different, consonants are elided in (to my ear) totally unpredictable ways...

I really don't know how anyone gets an r-sound in the middle of Conchobhar, but at a guess it might be a variant of the mediaeval pronunciation as something like CHU-ur, as a deep phlegmy chhhh can sometimes sound like there's an r tagged on the end. Not a common pronunciation, that!

[Stroan]

Ruairi is top of our boys list. I was convinced I was having one in November but I had an Orla instead!

I also worried about the spelling of Ruairi, but we are in Scotland and it's not so unusual here. Keeping it a top secret in the hope that no-one close to us will use it before the next baby.

[mikado1]

Completely agree geeka and that's why I took note at the time and always remembered it!

[DramaAlpaca]

I love all the names on your list, with Ruairi being my favourite.

If you like Ruairi best, go for that. One of my DC has a very similar name

[Cleebope]

Love Cormac. I wanted to call DS that 18 years ago but DH didn't like it. So I went with a more popular name(also on your list) but I wish I'd gone for Cormac and over ruled him. It's strong and masculine and intelligent sounding! But all your ideas are sound.

[Rinceoir]

I love Ruairi and Cian- both names were taken by family. My boys name was going to be Cathal.

[havalina1]

There's a Ruairi in Dd's nursery. They can't say it - you know yourself it's not quite Rory, there's a 'uaar' sound through the middle of it - so they just call him Ru!

We have an Ailbe (boy) in the house. Nobody gets its right and it's assumed a nickname for Albert (it definitely isn't)

I also love Dara and Redmond.

[BertieBeatle]

Is Ailbe pronounced Alva? Nice name!
Are you in England or Ireland?
I think with Ruairi I'd have to get used to some people just saying Rory. It wouldn't bother me too much I hope!

[Sophronia]

Cormac is my favourite

[birchygoo]

Bertie - I only know one caolan in his 30's but def becoming more popular.

Another name I love but which I sometimes get raised eyebrows at is caoilthe

[Itinerary]

I like Conor and Cian.

[notagiraffe]

Love Ruari. It's one of my favourite boys' names.

[mrsschu]

Cormac is my favourite and you could always use the nn Mac which is cute if you wanted to. Cormac is very easy to pronounce for people in the UK so should give you no problems. I know 2 here in London - one about 10 months old and the other is 5. Both have one Irish parent. I also like Conor and Cian. Not hugely keen on Ruairi but it's fine. I do think however you'll have people in the UK saying Rory which is really not great.

[havalina1]

Bertie

It's pronounced ail-be or can be said like "I'll be". I absolutely love it.

Ruairi is a fab name.

We are in England, definitely running into trouble!

[BertieBeatle]

Thanks for all the responses.
We are definitely leaning towards Ruairi now. My second favourite is Cormac and dh prefers Conor.
He is concerned that everyone would say Cor-Mac rather than Cor-muc. He thinks the second one is correct. How are you all pronouncing it out of interest?

[BertieBeatle]

Also what nicknames do you like for Cormac? I'm thinking there's 3 obvious ones, Mac, Cory or Cormie. I know there's no need to shorten names but I can't help myself

[foragogo]

We are just outside London and I know lots of boys called Connor and Cian, couple of Ruairi , some scottish spelling. One Cormac who gets shortened to Mac. I love this and wish I'd used it myself (I have a Mack), but all are great names imo - Connor a bit too common for me round here.

[BertieBeatle]

Foragogo - we are just outside London too, well a london borough. Interesting that you have met a couple of Ruairis, I'm hoping there's some knocking about so it won't be quite so unusual.

[ElspethFlashman]

Cormac is my fave. I pronounce it Cor-muc but I doubt you'd have much trouble, the UK isn't like the States where the last syllable is the most stressed.

Ruairi is great too.

Conor is too overused imo. Cian is massively popular in Ireland actually.

Agree that Cillian should be on the list too! (Even though I know one that has the nn "Kill" lol)

[foragogo]

I live almost next door to a catholic primary school and my son plays for their football team so that may skew things a bit :). The scottish Ruaridgh (sp?) was where we lived before though and there are loads of Connors all over the place. I love Cormac though I would pronounce it Cor - mack. I think Ruairi is great too and you can certainly get away with it - kids nowadays are used to all sorts of names and spellings especially where we live which is so multicultural - they have trad English, Asian, Eastern European, Whacky etc etc names in all schools nowadays so imo you can call your child what ever you like without fear or reprisal (apart from on MN maybe :) )

[BertieBeatle]

I work with a Cillian and I don't like him so that's a no go unfortunately as it's a nice name.
It's useful to hear these opinions. As it's my first baby I have no idea what is 'normal' in schools these days. I've tried the names out on older people and had weird reactions but I guess older people tended to all have the same names, things have changed a lot since then.
I think it's definitely either Cormac or Ruairi now Conor sounds like it's just too common and I'm not excited by Cian.

[Fuzzyduck21]

We nearly called our ds ruairi but I was nervous of misspellings. Also pronunciation. How would you pronounce it? Apparently it's roo-ri if spelt like that? I'm sure I read that somewhere.

I really didn't like the name Rory but grew to love it and that's what our ds is called. I do love the name ruairi but on reflection I'm pleased I went with Rory.

I'm only a quarter Irish so probably couldn't get away with a proper Irish name for baby but you definitely could. Ruairi has my vote! It really is a lovely name so if you have your heart set on it then go for it x

[Fuzzyduck21]

Love the name ruairi. Only reason we didn't choose it was because apparently it's not pronounced the same as Rory (?!) and was worried about misspelling. But your baby is more Irish than mine so you can get away with a proper irish name! X

[ToastedStoat]

We have a Conor.

Unfortunately in my area (SE England) there are a lot of Conner/Connors and so while Conor is the traditional spelling, people always spell his name wrong, and sometimes even tell me I spelled it wrong when I named him! It's quite infuriating and at times I've considered changing it, though he is now 4 so it would be difficult for everyone.