Shall we change the spelling? (Cillian)

[Alwaysundecided]

We have named our newborn baby Cillian.
He is half Irish. We have had good reactions to the name by most of our friends and both families like the name. The Irish side are obviously very familiar with it and the English side weren't familiar but seem to like it.
Only issue is about 70% of people initially pronounce it Sillian!!
Even people who know Cillian Murphy often just assumed he was Sillian Murphy.
I'm starting to have doubts and was tempted to change the name altogether but we dont have any other names we agree on so would be starting from scratch. His older brother loves his name too (calls him Cilly bean and Cilly bear) and I feel like changing it now would be confusing.
We are considering changing the spelling to Kilian or Killian. Both appear to be recognised spellings.
What do you all think?
Kilian appears to be most popular in Germany and is probably my fave of the two as it doesn't have 'Kill' in it.
With Cillian I don't see the 'Kill' and I think it's quite a gentle name, 'Killian' looks too strong to me.
Thoughts? Alternatively maybe correcting people once isn't the end of the world??
Got 3 weeks to register him. Please be nice, thanks.

Leave it as Cillian - most people know these day and Killian looks like you're spelling it stupidly/wrong
I love the name by the way!

Just correct people. My UK-born son has an unusual Irish name and surname, and people got their heads around it. That is, unless you’re someone who’s bothered by dental receptionists and the like mispronouncing.

Cillian is a nice name, and even though Killian isn’t wildly unusual as an anglicised variant, there’s no ‘k’ in Irish, so it takes it a big step away from Irish for me.

People will get used to it and learn to pronounce it. It's a beautiful name.

I love this name, it's beautiful, but I have to be honest the uncertainty (in other people) over the pronunciation stopped me using it for my DS. I ruled out a few names for this reason (Xavier for example).

Keep it as Cillian I think, people who know him will get used to it and the others he'll just have to correct as he goes along.

I have a very normal, very common name that people misspell and mispronounce all the time. I think people are just a bit daft sometimes even with common names.

Congratulations

He has a lovely name and I don’t think you should change the spelling. DD has an Irish name that people tend to mispronounce initially but I’m hoping the recent Storm Ciara has familiarised more people with it! Perhaps there will be a Storm Cillian one day!

St Killian's School in Dublin is Irish/German so it is accepted as a spelling in Ireland.
i prefer Cillian. I know a charming seven year old Cillian!

To be honest I thought the C sound was softer but if I was told it was K sound once then I’d always remember so I think it’s ok and no need to change. People have learnt siobhan and Niamh and Eilidh so they can lean cillian.
On the other hand Kílian Jornet is a phenomenal athlete anyone should be proud to share a name with.

Please keep the original spelling. It's a beautiful name and people will pronounce it correctly once they hear it once. I don't like the idea of Irish names being changed to make them easier for other people. I don't think that happens as much with other nationalities. In this age of globalisation it's lovely to keep to original names. (I'm Irish living in Ireland but have lived in UK with an Irish name).

I was about to agree with egg above that Killian is perfectly acceptable as in Kildare, Kilkenny, Kieran etc and then I thought... Katherine... and absolutely no one in the world would pronounce Catherine as Satherine!! (And before anyone corrects me.. I know it's the Ci Ce Cy that makes the soft C!!)

Such a lovely name OP. Don't change the spelling. My two daughters both have Irish names with traditional spellings (we are in London) I just correct people when they pronounce it wrong and eventually you find yourself doing it less and less.

DH and I both had friends called Killian at (different!) universities 20 years ago - one from Dublin, one from Galway. So it's maybe unusual, but not completely unknown as a variant spelling.

I wouldn't change it.

But having said that, I'm in Ireland and I know of schools called St Killians so I assume it's also acceptable to use a K.

@HorridHamble Ciara was one of our top choices for a girl and we were choosing between Ciara and Keira. Both beautiful names I think. When storm Ciara came it did occur to me that it would help all the Ciaras out there get their names pronounced correctly

Thanks for all your comments everyone they are so helpful, I've been agonising over this since he was born. I think Killian does sound like it's an acceptable spelling but it changes the name so much for me, I think I would always regret changing it.
I guess he will always have the option to spell it with a K if he wants to when he's older.
I still like Kilian, think it's quite quirky, but it does seem to take away from the Irishness of the name. I'm glad so many of you like the name/spelling Cillian.

I agree, don't change it. I don't like using K, V, Q, Y etc in Irish names since those letters aren't in the Irish alphabet.

I work with two guys called Killian / Cillian. One spells with a C and the other with a K but they are both pronounced the same. I am Irish and both are acceptable here. People will get used to it. Like other Irish names they are becoming more commonly used in the UK like Ciara, Niamh, Saoirse, Aidan etc.

Killian writes as Kill Ian so it’s a big no from me!

My friend has one and she spelt it Kylian at first but then changed it to Cillian before he turned 1.

I love it with a C.

Keep it! It looks weird with a K, much nicer with a C. I also think it’s becoming more popular - by the time he’s old enough for it to bother him fewer people may get it wrong.

(I have a 30 year old friend Niamh living in England who has been reaping the benefits of the popularity spike over here!)

@Alwaysundecided I did spend a long time questioning if I was setting DD up for a lifetime of “see-ah-ra”. Spelling it differently would have changed it too much for me. Also would have given her the initials KNO’B

That's what I'm hoping - it is a top 200 and something name now so I'm hoping it will be a bit more mainstream by the time he's old enough to care. My grandma can't get her head round it at all. She just says Gillian and I've given up correcting her. She is 96 thought

I would stick with the Cillian spelling. People will get used to it. I am half Welsh half English and all my English family manage to say my Welsh name. My parents say some struggled initially but they soon got used to it, even if my granny rang my Dad to complain about it

I would worry about the 'kill' element of 'Killian' and 'Kilian' as well 'kil' isn't that different to 'kill' looks wise.

I’d leave it. My son has a name that people in the country we now live in often mispronounce, but it’s not a big inconvenience - we don’t meet that many new people, so it’s mainly doctors receptionists and the like and he just corrects them or doesn’t depending on how he feels.

I think Cillian is reasonably well known too, I’m surprised a lot of people are mispronouncing it.

And with a K it sounds like a dwarf from LOTR.

It's a beautiful name OP don't change the spelling. People become familiar with unusual names, you just have to cheerfully tell them if they pronounce it incorrectly. "Oh actually it's pronounced......, it's Irish", usually people are happy to know. I speak as the mum to a Saoirse!