Saoirse?

[NameNameNameNames]

Follow on from my Isla thread, another name I have in mind is Saoirse.

Sister would still be Hazel, and there’s very little chance of the name being mispronounced

@Cherrythomasina

Multiple ways, accent, area… I am more of a Seer-sha person… Ronan has muddied the waters somewhat, what with trying to get Americans to pronounce her name properly.

She muddied them a lot😂
I mean, surely most Americans can say Seer- sha just as easily as Sur-sha.

Ser-sha's not right either, unless your accent makes all ee words sound like that.
Ber for beer and so on

@Cherrythomasina

I think the issue has been she wants Americans to say her name in the southern Irish accented way.. probably specific to where her family originates from exactly too.

Americans saying Seer-Sha is liable to be a very strong, nasal S-EAR-Sha, rather than a gentle sear-sha, seer-sha, sor-sha as you would find in Ireland…

Hence we now have this Americanised Sur-sha fiasco.

Saoirse Ronan was born in 1994 in New York City to parents from Dublin. She moved when she was three to County Carlow. None of those places have an Irish dialect.

The name Saoirse was pronounced “Sur-sha” in the early nineties as I remember. In Belfast then the Irish word saor was pronounced sur - just as in English chair was pronounced chur. The sound change from saor to saoir was not widely known, so Saoirse was also pronounced sur-sha. I do remember people talking about this and whether they were recreating the extinct Antrim Irish dialect or just getting it wrong.

Maybe someone has some audio recordings from the nineties of people saying these words.

My Carlow relatives all pronounce the long E sound as a long A.
Caoilfhionn is pronounced Kaylin.
Beagle is pronounced Bagel.
Etc.

There isn't a Carlow dialect of Irish but there definitely is a Carlow accent of English.

...and it is reflected in how Irish words are pronounced.

That's very interesting @SunnyFog. Perhaps Sursha is a remnant of the now extinct Antrim Irish dialect so.

Possibly Saoirse Ronan had a friend from Belfast (or Scotland) and that's where she heard and borrowed the Sursha pronunciation. Maybe? As per the link I posted upthread I don't think that's how she says it herself in Ireland. Her father called her Seersha in an interview I saw iirc so I think she grew up with that pronunciation, but it is possible Sursha was once used in the Irish of the North East. I think perhaps it's said similar to Sursha in Scottish Gaelic? I'm not sure.

Notions

You could be right 😂

There’s an interview where she says she tells Americans to say it Sur-sha I will try and find it when kids in bed.

Oh god I can’t handle watching anymore Saoirse Ronan interviews… can’t find the Ellen one I was looking for, however, she says about the Americas saying Sur-sha rather than Ser-sha in Good Morning and comments in vid below (Graham Norton) that she doesn’t have the pronunciation right.

This vid makes me feel a bit sorry for her!!

Cheers for the slaggin… hope it brightened up your evening.

Saoirse is an Irish name
...it is NOT from the English language...The phonics in the language are different as in all languages....aoi is pronounced with the sound ee

This thread is almost 18 months old...

It's a beautiful name

Oh Lord its a big no. So many issues with it.