Baby name Oilibhear?

[Juliette222]

Hello!
I wondered what you think of the baby boy name OILIBHÉAR? (pronounced Olly-vare).
We wanted to find an Irish name. I like that it has the friendly nn “Ollie” but an unusual longer name. But keen to hear what others think ….?
Thank you! :-)

Just call the poor kid Oliver ffs…he’s going to have a life time of nicknames and having to correct people and spell his name out.

I knew someone with a non-Irish name - let's say, Stephanie - and then her parents "made it Irish" but without knowing Irish, so it really just looked very long and strange. That meant that English speakers could make no link at all with the faux-Irish word and the sound of Stephanie, often pronouncing the word as best they could to make an unpleasant sound, and in Ireland, Irish speakers pronounced it either with their best guess or could easily tell it wasn't an Irish word or name, or even following the rules of Irish, so she said she often felt like she had no name at all.

@shreddies

It will be a huge pita for your son for the whole of his life

This was my first thought, we gave our daughter a middle name from the country where she was born and she hates it. I once had three Siobhans in my forn, none of which was correctly spelt, he will either detest having to spell out his name and correct errors or he will love being distinctive!

Oisin is a lovely name. But he will be forever having to correct teachers who think it's pronounced like the French for bird

I'm Irish and have never heard of this name. Hard for him to spell and his friends will call him Oily Bear. it's rather pretentious on your part.

Oisin is nicer, and easier for most English by analogy with Roisin which is pretty well known. I think there's a similar Welsh name isn't there? And if it is mispronounced, it's not going to be a fairly innocuous rhyme with 'hoisin' not daft like 'oily bear'.

Oisin is a fab name and a rather good NH jockey too

I'd pronounce it Ocean with a little more emphasis on the flat "a", if that helps.

I'm Irish in Ireland.
I could read it and know it meant Oliver in Irish but I have never seen or heard of this being used in Ireland. It's a real Irish name according to Google.
Think this will be very hard on your child and on constantly trying to explain the spelling.
Oisin is a beautiful name.
Taz.

Oisín is a great name. I first came across it when I met DH's young cousins in Ireland many, many years ago. One of them was called Oisín. I think it has a lovely ring to it.

Oily Bear (yes, that is what it looks like)? Not so much.

My top Irish boys' names would probably be Oisín, Seamus, Sean etc.

@PussyCatEatingPigsInBlankets

Oisin is a fab name and a rather good NH jockey too

I'd pronounce it Ocean with a little more emphasis on the flat "a", if that helps.

There's no flat 'a' in Oisín though. The second syllable is pronounced 'een'.

Whether the OP uses Oilibhéar or not , I think Oilibhéar can be viewed as an Irish name , albeit not a common one- I’m guessing the Cromwell link may be a reason for this in the past couple of hundred years. In general names are not unique but one culture , they are taken around the world as people move, for trade / colonisation/ migration. The names traditionally seem as Irish are names from the Middle Ages and before , so may have their origins in Ireland/Norway/ France (Normans) and of course Christianity . Stephanie is an interesting one though as Stephan /Stiofán would have been imported along with Christianity but for whatever reason wasn’t either recorded or used in a female form.

Also Irish so I knew what the name was but I wouldn’t use it. It looks a bit pretentious if I’m honest.
If you want Irish, go with Oisin, Fiachra, Fionn or many of the lovely Irish names available.

Lizzie Oops.
Oh well, I guess some of the Horse Racing commentators need a little help their too.

Perhaps a Gaelicised Cromwell for the middle name?

I think the related Welsh name Osian is pronounced as you say PussyCatEatingPigsInBlankets?
I'm not Welsh though and know nothing about racing either unfortunately

On the plus side, none of his future schoolmates will be aware of Officer Crabtree

I love the proper pronunciation but I'd think it was Oli bear (still pretty damn cute!). I would also as a pp said think it was French. Love it though, sounds posh and grown up without being pretentious.
With Oisin I'm not keen on Uh-sheen much prefer Oh-sheen.

I think (open to correction here) that Ush-een is the more widely used pronunciation of Oisín in Ireland, though in the north of the country it is said more like Osh-een Tal45. The Oh-sheen pronunciation always confuses me a bit as I'd expect the spelling to be Óisín then, not Oisín.

forvo.com/word/ois%C3%ADn/

I guessed that it was basically Oliver (not Irish, live in Ireland, but struggle with reading Irish - the kids have to help each other with their homework as I'm useless!)

I've not seen it here, I'm not sure what the advantage is of using an Irish spelling of a not particularly Irish name. Although having said that, I know an Eoin, which took me a couple of runs at to realise it was basically Owen, and I prefer the Irish spelling now.

I have a difficult to spell second name (entirely foreign), and I don't mind having to spell it over the phone personally, so I wouldn't use that as a reason not to use it, just that, well, it's a bit tortured, and will definitely have people rolling their eyes.

@thadhiya that reminds me, at work, a non irish colleague had a correspondence from a mr "malearchaidh" and my colleague asked me how to pronounce it. My first reaction was to laugh. I thought it was a joke. To my understanding that is Malarkey. 😵

I like it!
If I'd had another son I'd have called him Oisín. Irish names are back big time now so he won't be unusual if you're in Ireland and there's no reason why British people can't leanrn to pronounce them once told how! I've only a few phrases of Irish but even I have an idea of how certain letter combinations sound, such as "bh" being pronounced like "v". Irish sticks to it's own rules, unlike English (:-

@Mamette

Well Oliver Plunkett is a saint isn’t he? And there’s a lot of schools called after him, his English-language name too.

Good old Olly Plunkett. You never forget your first shrunken head.

OP, I much prefer Oisín from your two potential names.

@stairgates

I don't think its a good idea either. Would it be pronounced sounding like a person from Liverpool saying Oliver?

It would.

I wouldn't use it even if living IN Ireland tbh.

@Contactmap

It looks incredibly pretentious. Rather like some of the 'unique' name spellings but with a veneer of pretend class.

Its isn't in the least pretentious anymore than Oliver is in the UK (which is not at all). I'm familiar with the name. Its not popular in Ireland but it isn't unheard of either. Its used more when somebody is translating their English name into Irish e.g. in a classroom environment.