I didn't think this name would be so unpopular

[spookybitches]

So all throughout my pregnancy, my husband and I kept our baby name choices to ourselves. My baby is now 2 months old, and nearly everyone we have met or spoken to, have mispronounced it. Granted, we haven't seen many people over the last few weeks, so now I'm starting to wonder if it's just my family or if it's really so unheard of?
My baby boy is called Cillian (DH Irish). My whole family pronounce it silly-an even when I've corrected them numerous times.
Can I ask if you would know how to pronounce Cillian? I'm worried I've set him up for a lifetime correcting people.

Are they doing this as a protest?

Presumably a xenophobic protest.

I clicked on thread thinking it'd be a dodgy but its one of my favourite names. Good choice OP. Your family will get used to it.

I fear it's xenophobic protest too. I am half Welsh and have had a lot of comments from people including the non Welsh side of my family, and DH's family, about not using Welsh names for my children, or singing Welsh nursery rhymes to them etc. One colleague actually said to me 'you're not going to give you child a ghastly Welsh name like your parents did with you are you?'

I find it very offensive. There was a sustained effort to crush the Welsh language in Wales by the English and discourage the use of Welsh names. Many of my ancestors were Thomas, Hugh, Mary, Laura officially as a result but known as Tomos, Huw, Mari and Lowri.

Sadly there seems to be an element of picking on Celtic names - you see anti Welsh/Irish/Scottish comments in name threads in a way you don't with other cultures. I'm sure my family would never dare say 'they shouldn't have given that child an XYZ culture name in England' but will happily tell me my parents were neglectful to give me a Welsh name in England.

I also know people who will go to great effort to pronounce names from other cultures correctly (as they should), but not mine (or Irish/Scottish names), because 'it's too difficult and Welsh' even though it's actually quite easy to both spell and say!

It's fucking rude.

@spookybitches - are you going to tackle your parents over this?

I also know people who will go to great effort to pronounce names from other cultures correctly (as they should), but not mine (or Irish/Scottish names), because 'it's too difficult and Welsh' even though it's actually quite easy to both spell and say!

That is very true. Is it because xenophobia against a predominantly white culture doesn't have the same socially unacceptable associations in their minds as xenophobia against a culture that is predominantly a different race? Racism = bad so they won't express it. The xenophobia gives them a more socially acceptable outlet for their fundamentally racist views

Most Welsh names aren't easy though. They are if you speak Welsh.

If I tried to explain how to say CaffiSaliMali's first name, you probably still wouldn't get it. It is definitely not ghastly and it is a popular and very pretty name. Assuming that it is what I think it is.

It's not helped by the names becoming mainstream and the mispronounced version becoming the one that people are used to.

I imagine it to be the same with names from other languages.

Most Welsh names aren't easy though. They are if you speak Welsh.

The same could be said for some Irish names. However, Cillian's is not one of those. All an English speaker needs to know is that they should use a hard, rather than a soft, C. Hard C's exist in English so this should be easy for anyone who is not refusing to pronounce it correctly.

Thanks Mike, I don't think it's ghastly either! most people say 'oh that's really pretty and unusual'. The numbers who are rude are quite small, thankfully.

People rarely think my name is Welsh. I've been mistakenly assumed to be Portugese, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Iranian and Jewish. I have zero ancestry from those countries/cultures - I'm a very British mix of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and Manx!

I wonder why Gillian has a soft g but Gilbert doesn't. English names are very difficult to pronounce

I wonder why Gillian has a soft g but Gilbert doesn't

Fish gills with to l's has a hard g, but gils, as in the old imperial measurement doesn't. So does Fothergill.

English is a mish mash of old languages - norse Viking, saxon, French etc. so not very consistent, but probably really interesting when you get into it.

I have heard Gillian pronounced with a hard G is the US. The author Gillian Flynn for example.

I wouldn't know how to say it to be honestly. I just learnt Isla is what it is.

@maddy68 NO ITS NOT
Have you read the thread?

If you dont want the confusion use the version with a K instead of a C ..its much easier. And people know it thanks to Once upon a time

What a lovely name. I usually see it spelt Killian so can see why it might be mispronounced. But after ppl learn the annunciation im sure no problem after that 😃

If you dont want the confusion use the version with a K instead of a C ..its much easier.

There is no K in the Irish language, plus I really don't think Irish people need to resort to Neve, Shivaun etc just to pander to the inability of a certain subset of English people to get their tongues around anything 'foreign'.

I knew how it was pronounced but I’m of Irish heritage, I also have an Irish name and I have spent literally all my early life correcting people/teachers, thankfully it doesn’t happen quite so much now there are more of us! It’s a lovely name.

ki-lain. I'm Scottish, though.

I would say "sorry I don't know how to pronounce your/the name" and then I would forever use the right name.

It depends on how much they get it wrong after you have corrected them. My mum kept using the wrong pronunciation of my daughters name for the first few weeks and there was nothing in it, she just got it in her head!

I like Cillian, but I only know how to pronounce it because of Cillian Murphy. It's a lovely name. I think all you can do is keep correcting them.

Neednewwellies I am a Scot, can see N.Ireland from my beach and lived there for a few years and i have never met anyone with that name. His name may not be made up but throughout his life he will come across peaple who dont know the name.

To be honest I used to think it was pronounced silly-an before I’d heard of Cillian Murphy.

OP don't worry about it, at least it is not a dull name. like many have said Killian is probably the way you are supposed to pronoiunce but if you want to pronounce it as sil-i-an then by all means. Should be about what your preferences are not what others think or think it should sound like. Loads have people have foreign names which are hard to work out.

Cilla, in the case of Cilla Black is a shortened version of her real name, Priscilla White

Kill-i-an! And it's top of my list for a boy too, love it 😍