Hello! I have a shortlist of Irish girls names, but fear I’ve overlooked some lovely options. So please tell me your suggestions.
The rest of this post you can skip, but it might be useful background for some people!
I’m Irish, DH is English. The baby will be born in south-east England, but could grow up anywhere. We’re both lived and worked outside of our home countries, so there’s a good chance we’ll do that again. (And maybe we’ll just move to Ireland)
Husband speaks with a non-rhotic accent, which means that when he says some Irish names with Rs in them, they don’t sound right to my ears. For example, he’d say something like O-la for Orla. So keen to avoid this.
I have an Irish name. My job means I speak to people from all over the world everyday. I’m used to questions about it. And have coped just fine with that. It’s actually often a nice ice breaker. So not concerned about that, although would ideally like a name where the spelling isn’t too complicated for non-Irish people or is relatively well known (eg I’d probably opt for Maeve over Medb). But this isn’t a deal breaker. I also don’t want to create some weird Anglicised version of a lovely name just because some people are uncomfortable with other languages. (This has been suggested to me!)
Finally, I know a lot of people - family, friends, friends’ children - with Irish names. So it feels like I can’t use a lot of them! So all suggestions are very welcome!