Scottish people...

[HamWater]

I'm English and considering the name Alba. If you met my daughter in the future, would you think it a bit ridiculous/insulting that she'd have that name with no family connection to Scotland (or Italy and Spanish speaking countries)? I don't want to set her up with a lifetime of having to explain her parents' name choice.

I wouldn't find it at all insulting. I like the name

Gaelic has a system of broad vowels (A, O, U) and slender vowels (E, I). It's a strange feature of Gaelic spelling that a consonant – or bunch of consonants – only ever has broad vowels on both sides, or slender vowels on both sides. So aonach and coire are both valid words, but not aonech or core."

This is so interesting! I didn't know!

@Mrsjayy, I live in the Hillfoots and was thinking the same thing about Alva!

@wigglbeezerI wonder if they had driven through and thought aww Alva would be a nice name

I really like it as a name however living in Scotland, the things that would put me off are the BBC channel and as someone else said the links to Scottish nationalism (Saor Alba is free Scotland) which i would feel would be labelling her politically even if unintentionally.

@TeacupDrama

I also found your explanation of vowels in gaelic very interesting - i have a gaelic name and never knew about it!

All languages have spelling rules
in English the only vowels doubled are e and o as in feed or wool, there are very very few words of English origin with aa, ii or uu there is the odd word like aardvark, skiing or vacuum which have been adopted a bit like the gaelic word ceilidh is not translated but spelt in Gaelic in English prose

generally when it comes to nouns or verbs people don't feel free to change spelling as it might mean something else however unique spellings for names are becoming more common but when the name is not from your own culture it is easy to inadvertently make mistakes
gaelic names spelt the traditional way automatically follow the rules
like Maighread, Eilidh, Siobhan, Domhnall, Calum, Eoighainn

When I've heard native Gaelic speakers promoting BBC Alba on the telly they sort of say "Al-uh-buh". Maybe that's just their accent though.