Irish names for English babies

[harrietm87]

Hello. Not pregnant (yet!) but would love to give my future babes Irish names. I'm Irish, DH English. We live in a multicultural bit of London. Interested to hear people's favourite Irish names and opinions on how traditional/obscure it's possible to go without being accused of child abuse! (Guessing Sean is ok, Feidhlimidh not...). For context I love Ruaidhri, Seamus, Siofra and Ailbhe (but so many good options!)

Ive worked with a Londoner with Irish parents called Saoirse, which I think is a lovely name and no one seemed to struggle with it too much

Love this thread I'm Irish DH black British.. We've given out DS and DD Irish names. My DS is going to kill me when he's older though because I spelt it with about three extra letters than were necessary. Plus both of them have the obligatory "gh" in there somewhere :-)

palace what are the names? (still looking for inspiration!)

Ah I'd definitely out myself if I wrote them. Although not extremely unusual they're not commonly used. Sorry harriet

I have an Orla, Aidan and Gabriel. Some people do mangle the 'r' in Orla but actually surprisingly few but I am in London with a pretty multicultural (although mostly white) community. In laws can't quite get it but they are very south-east RP speakers so have made my peace with that.

I LOVE their names overall and am so happy I stuck to my guns and went for Gabriel. It's a wonderful name and it suits him so well. He's going to rock it when he's a teenager.

Kids can handle whatever names are thrown at them. I teach in a Cotholic school in London and most of the kids have either Nigerian or Irish names. You just learn to pronounce them and the kids don't bat an eyelid at any name. Just pick something you love.

My daughter is Cora, apparently becoming more common now but rather uncommon at the time. She's 10 years old.

Caoimhe can be pronounced either Keeva or Queeva.
Keeva is Connemara and Ulster Irish and Queeva is Kerry Irish.

How about:
Dymphna
Neasa
Beibhinn
Damhnait
Aoife
Aifric

I love Ailbhe from your list. I knew two Alvys growing up in Dublin.
Also love Síofra, mentioned a few times.

I really like Ruaidhri and Séamus.
Also:
Ruadhán
Cormac
Fergus (though not in Irish)
Eoin
Niall (Nee-ull)

And Colmán.

Tadhg is always spelt as Tadgh by English friends who are so used to the convention of 'gh' in English spellings e.g. through, tough, borough (oh look, all different pronunciations!) It's happened a lot on this thread too!

Kids never have an issue with saying it and my son learnt to spell his own name aged 2 (obviously had heard me spell it approx. 5000 times by that point).

My DDs name was deliberately easier to spell but had a loose Irish connection - a variation of Ailbhe but spelt with an E at the beginning.

I get mad when people comment on the difficulty spelling Irish names or say that the child themselves will have issues. We get used to English names as they are more common and so forget that George and Isla aren't phonetic.

I think you have to accept people may struggle the first time with spelling or pronunciation. If people are still struggling the 50th time I get annoyed as they are clearly not listening!