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.

With a hard C is correct but if I didnt know that I'd pronounce it with an S sound.
Just keep telling people, they'll get it in the end!

I think it's a lovely name (caveat, I'm Irish)

My 4mo daughter has an Irish name nobody can pronounce at first. I just tell them how 😉

@oakleaffy - Just checked Wikipedia. The alphabets are the same except the fadas (accents) point the opposite direction.

It would have been silly ann to me.
Sorry.

Silly Ann

It's Killeean. I know because of Cillian Murphy. It's a great name op, keep correcting people and they'll get it

It's not an unpopular name, just that the anglicised k for c sound is more popular in uk. It's a nice name and your family will get used to it.

I do sometimes think people panic if there isnt an immediately obvious shortened nickname as well.

Sill-ee-ann for me. If you’re in England, Scotland or Wales why are you surprised. Never heard of it.

I'm Irish so think of it as a normal (and lovely!) name and am really surprised to see how many people so far have said they would mispronounce it. My nephew is called Kilian and he lives in Spain and no one has issues with pronouncing it.

Has literally nobody in your family ever heard of Cillian Murphy? Do they never leave the house or something?

Kill-i-an.

I mean at this point just throw the whole child away. Or when he gets old enough, let him out into the woods to find out what his true name is, ha ha !

Killian
Lovely name OP, your family are stupid and rude (sorry!)

I have a good friend called Cillian, so yes, I'd know. It's a lovely name.

do people in the UK have a problem with the name Conor, do they pronounce it Son or?

when my father first went to work in England from Ireland he found people couldn’t pronounce his name....Kevin. Another ancient Irish name.

It's pronounced Killian. There's no soft c in Irish.

The family must be spectacularly thick to keep up the soft C even after being told how to pronounce the name.

I've never heard of Cillian Murphy.
I do know that the Celtic languages have two groups, one which pronounces C soft as in a Scottish football team, and the other hard as in the more usual way of pronouncing Celtic.
Now whether this is going to be a real issue depends - where exactly in the British Isles you live, where your families come from. Anyone English should be ready to adapt, but some other areas may find it harder depending on their experience of a different Celtic pronunciation
But then I've had a lot of people mispronounce my surname all my life, despite the fact it is pretty phonetic..

It's a lovely name but I'm afraid I would have mis-pronounced it. I am crap at working out how to pronounce unfamiliar words/names though.

Its rude though if family have heard they way you want it pronounced, yet still say it differently.

It's not just that they want it pronounced that way, that's the way it is meant to be pronounced.

Surely they first found out the name verbally, so would have heard the correct pronunciation from the start? Did somebody then see the spelling and decide to pronounce it differently?

When I started work and was young and unworldly, I came across a 'Ceri' and thought it was pronounced 'Seery'. Everyone laughed at me for being thick.

Now I look back and can't believe I didn't realise - but we all come across names we haven't encountered in our lives, and sometime we pronounce them wrong. But we learn from it - and move on, and don't make the mistake again.

Your son has a lovely name! Even people with the most obvious names still have to spell them out over the phone - don't give it a second thought. His peers and friends will soon learn - no-one else matters. Don't worry about it.....

Would know it was a K and think it is a lovely name. Just correct people when they get it wrong and they’ll soon get it right. If anyone is being deliberately obtuse, just explain it is K as in cat and they’ll stop with their silly “but C is always pronounced Sss” nonsense! Your son is carrying some of his dad’s heritage and that’s a beautiful thing, don’t let others spoil your joy.

But C followed by o is normally a hard C like cot or con. Whereas c follows by i is usually soft like civil or circle.

I thought it was silly-un