Aoife

[1haudyerwheesht]

Do you think Aoife blends in too much with all the Eva's and Ava's about? Obviously the spelling makes it stand out but is the pronunciation too similar? My daughter has a traditional irish name and looking for another.

I don’t think that many people will have trouble pronouncing - it’s becoming a lot more popular for a start so it’ll just become another name people become familiar with.

Absolutely no idea how to pronounce that!

I had no idea either. It is not exactly obvious

And poor Aoife when she has to learn to spell her name...

Yes, you do, WaitrosePigeon! Many PPs have written the phonetic pronunciation and here it is again: Ee-fa.

it's not the most unusual name ever...I would be surprised if somebody had never heard it before. if you don't know how to pronounce something, you can just ask.

And poor Aoife when she has to learn to spell her name

That's a very Little Englander comment. Would you say the same about Phoebe?

pipilangstrumpf

I’m Polish my name is Niamh I’m sure little Aiofe will be fine..

Oops ha Aoife

Thank you Mumsnet. I recently read " The bone clocks" and have finally learned how to pronounce Aiofe. I've just spent a whole book doing it wrong! Perhaps I should try again...I liked it...not sure I liked it that much,..

My post was not about the mispronunciation by some or the spelling. It was about the possibility of the beauty of the name being lost amongst a sea of Ava's and Eva's. Saoirse has learnt to spell her name just fine

Trust me Ben could have just as much learning how to spell his name as Aoife...at that stage phonics is still lost on their little minds bless them😂

What about Aoibh?

I guess Aoibh would have the same issue with Eve confusion - lots of little Evies around as well.

OP I think it does sound similar to those names which are extremely common.

I like the Caoimhe suggestion, or what about Aoibheann?

Also Siofra is lovely with a cute meaning, but maybe you want to avoid the same initial as Saoirse?

Riona came up here in a pp. That is just gorgeous. Well to me anyway.

Aoife is lovely too don't get me wrong, but there is something easy on the ear about Riona. It comes for the Irish for Queen.

There are so many legends regarding the origin of Gaelic/Irish names, it is fascinating to me.

"poor little Aoife when she has to learn to spell her name"

You do realise that babies don't come with a default setting of 'English', right?

Lasairfhiona is Lassa- reena if you want to ignore the fact that the R is a narrow vowel, and Lassa- rheena for the more correct version.

Narrow consonant, not vowel.