How do you feel about traditional Irish names?

[Jackie1985]

Given my Irish heritage, I'd like give my soon to arrive child a suitable name - such as Aoife. My husband thinks they could cause some later school bullying (think London secondary). Thoughts?

I am (Northern) Irish and love traditional Irish names. I speak a little Irish but some of the more unusual ones still get me a bit. Though nothing a quick how do you spell/pronounce that? doesn't solve. For example I had no clue how to go about saying Sadhbh when I first saw it so I just asked and now it's one of my faves. You have options with spellings of so many names too eg Keelan is easier to guess the pronunciation than Caolan to a non-Irish person. Likewise if you don't like the Orla/Oral thing spell it Orlagh or Orlaith.

Lila how DO you pronounce Sadhbh?

I'm interested to learn something

It's pronounced Sive, to rhyme with 5.

Irish names are very common round here (north england) I work with children and see a lot of Aoife's wouldn't be seen as unusual all all

It's pronounced Sive, to rhyme with 5.

Nice. My daughter has one of those easy-to-say, hard-to-spell names, I'm sure she will be in for a lifetime of spelling it out if she ever moves outside our country but hey, we can't all be called Marta, Silvia and Lisa!

I love Irish names ! 😄☘

No bullying problems but they will spend their life spelling it out and correcting pronunciation errors!

How on earth do you even pronounce Gobnait?

I love Irish names. I live in NW England but went to RC school, so I know a fair few Sineads, Siobhans, Roisins etc. Never had an issue with bullying in Lancashire in the 80s/90s so I can't see there being a problem in London in 2017.

How the f do these names have spellings like that??
Like in English, French and German most letters have vaguely similar sounds and a load of English words that come from Irish resemble the original Irish word but how does sadhbh have an si sound in it.

Saoirse kinda half makes sense and eoghen does too.

(No offence intended I'm just curious)

Aoife is just so unimaginative. Nothing so ubiquitous in Ireland will still be causing difficulties in the UK by the time she is old enough to reach secondary school. Niamh entered the top 100 girls names in the UK when my DD was born.

Older than you think, Irish is not a Germanic or Romance language.l like English French or German. It has a different alphabet, hence different sounds.

Because it's a different language with different rules.

It's the 'adh' that gives the i sound and 'bh' gives the soft v. I don't know how to explain it other than that that's how those letters together sound.

It is a gorgeous name but the hassle would rule it out for me. That and I remember doing a story with a Sadhbh in it at secondary school and it always made me think of a sieve!

Gobnait = Gub nit.

I actually like it

Aoife's incredibly popular at the minute in England. If I was going to avoid it it'd be for that reason.

Also went to RC school with a tonne of Irish names . DH is Irish so DD has an Irish name and there's the full range ah her school from Aoife (quite popular) to Saoirse . We're in NE England .

Clodagh is a beautiful name.

I have a common Irish name and still have to spell it out all the time. It's even worse outside the UK as nobody can pronounce it right even with help, let alone spell it... If you are fixed on Aoife, you could also anglicise the spelling to make it phonetic although I appreciate that might not be for puritans. Some friends of mine did that for an easier life, although they were christened with the complicated spelling.
I don't think bullying would be an issue at all

How do you pronounce Saoirse Kendodd?

Saoirse is pronounced 'seer-sha'.

I really like them. However I'm very used to seeing Celtic names criticised on MN "if you don't live in that country" is often seen in a way you don't when referring to names like Isabella (so not "British")

Thanks Lovinlola. That's sounds lovely.

Not sure about poor old gubnit but the other names all sound lovely. Am annoying the pronunciation lessons.

Enjoying not annoying

You have options with spellings of so many names too eg Keelan is easier to guess the pronunciation than Caolan to a non-Irish person.

Keelan and Caolan would be pronounced very differently. Caolan is pronounced kale-awn.

I don't get the phonetic thing, who decided that a random collection of letters should many sounds in English that they don't normally make? I suppose I'm asking why all Irish ( and Russian and Asian etcetc) words are not phonetic when written with English alphabet?
I am a big fan of Irish names, I'm not knocking then, just interested in the linguistics of it.