Get updates on how your baby develops, your body changes, and what you can expect during each week of your pregnancy by signing up to the Mumsnet Pregnancy Newsletters.
Baby names
Aoife - if not Irish?
Helpneeded12345 · 18/03/2023 10:36
I love the name Aoife. It is my all time favourite girls name but neither my partner or I are Irish (my great-grandparents were Irish but this is a very long way back!)
I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think it is ok to use Aoife if not Irish or would it be weird / cultural appropriation?
I'm particularly interested in opinions from anyone Irish - would it be offensive?
Greenfairydust · 19/03/2023 14:23
@Stepuptowardsinfinity
"Bizarre. Like using Manuel if you are not Spanish, or Haru if you are not Japanese. Aoife is a lovely name but screams Irish heritage.''
So where does that live the many Juno, Orlando, Olivia, Dominic, Sofia, Zara..?
It is a very middle-class thing to give kids a name with a latin, greek or French origin without having any link to Italy/France/Greece. Or in the case of Zara, a name with an Arabic origin.
Can't see the issue with someone wanting to use an Irish name if they like the sound of it....
Stepuptowardsinfinity · 19/03/2023 15:43
Aoife is very Irish. The examples you gave are widespread across Europe. I've never met an Aoife who is not Irish or who has not got strong Irish heritage. It's just not comparable. OP Aoife is a lovely name but if you use it bear in mind that she will have a lifetime of people assuming she's Irish. It's just odd. I wouldn't use Angharad if I wasn't Welsh so why Aoife if not Irish?
AnonymousArmadillo · 19/03/2023 16:37
KirstenBlest · 19/03/2023 13:41
I'd scroll through this and other Aoife threads and count the misspellings.
Anything with two or more consecutive vowels tend to get them transposed.
..would have loved to name a daughter Aiofe. Go...
Just out of interest, I counted the misspellings on this thread. 2. Aofie and Aiofe. I might have missed a couple but it really isn’t very many.
As it’s my DD’s name, I’m well aware of the issues people have with the spelling and pronunciation. Most friends and family have made the effort to learn it though. With the wide variety of names these days, people aren’t so quick to make assumptions I feel. People will always make mistakes in spelling people’s names. I have a very common name and people still spell it wrong.
KirstenBlest · 19/03/2023 17:43
@sunglassesonthetable , I wouldn't use Angharad either because it is too popular in Wales either as a first or middle name, and because I dislike the anglicised pronunciations. The name itself is nice enough, but Ann-garrud, Ann-harrud, Ang-garrud etc sound ugly.
mathanxiety · 19/03/2023 18:15
Wrt misspellings - so what?
Is there a suggestion that you should dumb down name choices in order to pander to people who are not very bright?
There are only a few guarantees in life, and one is that people who can't spell are going to make a mess of pretty much any name they're faced with.
mathanxiety · 19/03/2023 18:29
I have an Irish name and live in the US, and also a surname that has several spelling variations. Both of my names are routinely mangled, both in spelling and out loud.
It isn't a problem unless you let it become one.
We can't all be Jane Smith, and even if we were, some of us would end up being addressed as Jan / Smiff.
mathanxiety · 19/03/2023 18:51
It's impossible to predict all the ways the not very bright are going to get a name wrong and work around that.
People naming babies even in the 80s couldn't possibly have anticipated all the problems with emails and whatnot.
Choose a name you like, and at the very least it will end up being a way to identify people who know you from cold callers over the phone, and you can also keep a mental spreadsheet of people who fail to get it right after one correction. This sort of list can be handy.
user1469559754 · 19/03/2023 18:53
I'm an Aoife and Irish and would have no problem with you using it. I love my name! It's become very popular in Ireland now so wouldn't agree with a previous poster that it's becoming less common. My 7 yea old son knows loads of Aoifes. I also can't understand people saying it's hard to spell so don't use it - just tell people how to spell it! That is rarely said about names of other nationalities just the Irish.
Andanotherone01 · 19/03/2023 18:54
My DDs have a Gaelic names (DH’s parents are Irish) we live in the Home Counties. DD1 has an Aoife in her class, again parents are second generation Irish. We all have southern accents though, so no one would know we had Irish ancestry unless you asked. I don’t see the issue with using Gaelic names even if not Irish.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.