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

You can have exuberantly positive responses by the way - as I said the republicans love it.

We were in a pub when pregnant (me obviously not drinking) and discussing names as you do. I mentioned I loved the name Saoirse and DH’s friend said “ah freedom” followed by a republican phrase and my husbands name in Irish… I have no idea what he said but DH just looked at me pointedly like see I told you so… and that was the end of that sadly!

ps might I add since children we spend much less time in pubs to encounter all these experiences 😂😂

It’s pronounced Seersha. It also means freedom and for a specific group of people it is associated with the ‘troubles’ in Ireland and the IRA.. I love it personally

Roughly speaking the specific group would be the 1 million Protestants on the island and the people who voted Sinn Féin in last elections. 30% in north, 13.8% south… so extrapolating broadly (not taking into account non voters) that would be 570k, 690k…… 2.26 million total out of a total population of 6.8 million.

So a third of the island could be a pain in the arse about the name. But the rest will just think it’s a pretty name like any other.

That is a totally different name!

I am Northern Irish, but we say Seer sha too.

I think that's overstating the case quite a bit.
Most people in ROI won't be bothered irrespective of their politics or religion (with the possible exception of some in the border counties).
I agree it might have more implications than Rosie does in the North, but then other Irish names have the same issue to a lesser extent. I know a Ciaran and an Aoife who were advised to use their middle names when they visited a particular town in NI a couple of years back. The person dishing out the advice was only half joking.

Yeah @Darkherds its shit, I have to use my maiden name in certain places when back and we gave up house hunting in NI as difficult to find anywhere suitable that surnames/identities wouldn’t be a problem. It’s so very segregated, we are a cross community outfit so hard to fit safely.

It makes me think “tuirse”
or maybe that’s just this grumpy thread.

I'm not Irish but know how it's pronounced. Lovely name, go for it.

I have NEVER thought of 'sore arse' when seeing this name.

But now I won't be able to think of anything else! 😂

@NameNameNameNames The name Saoirse is a nice name, but yeah it will be spelt incorrectly AND pronounced incorrectly throughout her life. A LOT.

Re the SoreArse thing......I dont know if there are still any ex BGHers here but if you are then you know!!

There are thousands of Niamhs, Maireads, Siobhans, Nualas, Deirdres, and other bearers of Irish names from my generation living all over the world, and their friends and colleagues and HCPs manage to deal with their names just fine, as do the women themselves. My experience of having an Irish name in the US is that the vast majority of people get it right after one or two tries, and it's not at all a pain in tbe ass.

I would pronounce it Sore -see which I am sure is wrong.

I think the days are long past when Irish people should second guess names or pander to ignorance or bigotry when choosing names for their children. We don't have to have an 'official' English name any more for school or public records, and we're no longer begging for menial work in Anglophone countries and trying to make ourselves acceptable by ditching our language. We should proceed on the assumption that most people are open minded and reasonably intelligent, and if it turns out we are wrong, then that's their problem.

I find it hard to believe it would be A LOT when in Ireland. It’s quite an easy name to know around here. Maybe one or two people might struggle but it wouldn’t be too many.

Totally agree

Imo it won't even be "a lot" when in England. My dd has a Irish name (shock horror we have no Irish connections we just loved the name)

People may ask once or twice but then they get the hang of it and it stops. Dd lived in Denmark for 2 years where the name is unheard off. They just asked. How do you say your name? And got on with it.

Dd is 20 so we have had years of this. People are.more used to non top 10 names these days.

Totally agree too, and it’s a lovely sentiment if you are sunning yourself down in Kerry.

Where you have peace walls, dissident attacks, segregated education on the basis of religion and culture… a name like Saoirse will be contentious and labelling.

Seer-sha? Glad you´re in Ireland, I wouldn´t have a clue, I would have gone for Soh eer seh. But then the spelling of Irish names is an absolute mystery to me.

Agree with others - I wasn't aware of any political connotations around the name growing up in Dublin, but now I live in NI I wouldn't use it. (And one of my DDs does have an Irish name and goes to the local Protestant school, so I've no issues with appearing Irish, Catholic or nationalist but I would not want anyone to think I was more extreme than that).

Irish names are actually very easy to pronounce once you know how the letters combine, Irish spelling is much much much more regular than English.

A few tips to get you started:

aoi = ee (e.g. Aoife = ee-fa)

bh = mh = v (e.g. Siobhán = shuh-vawn, Niamh = neev or nee-uv)

So use it proudly and challenge the misperception. We do not need to pander and in fact doing so only perpetuates the divisions because it is engaging with the sectarian dynamic.

With respect @mathanxiety because I get what you’re saying and it is absolutely the way it should be in an ideal world.

But equally well this is kind of like those extreme traveller people who think the world should be free to roam and want to challenge peoples perceptions about countries. They are all for standing up for their personal freedoms…. and then they wonder why they’ve been held hostage and are in need of emergency support to escape.

Things have come a long way - but the current political situation and unrest is not conducive to relaxing about personal safety.

I loved Saoirse but I agreed with my husband in the end that it wouldn’t have been a safe name to use as we are back quite a lot and our daughter may go to Uni/live in NI for a time. Ie we are all for culture but we didn’t fancy having our daughter a target for assault.

If there was a functioning government, no dissident attacks, removal of peace walls, abolition of the catholic school system in favour of integrated education amongst other things…. then we would have likely felt comfortable, but the atmosphere has been too charged for some time because there is little forward progress.

The lack of forward progress is due to lack of political courage, and extreme parochialism. Someone needs to make the first move.

I’m from NI and grew up in Belfast during the Troubles. In those days, it was a definite political statement to call your daughter Saoirse and would only ever have been done knowingly by people who had particular sympathies.

But that was like 30 years ago now and the OP’s child is going to grow up in ROI. So whether her name is Saoirse or something else she’s going to be Irish in the eyes of the people who might have taken issue with Saoirse, and her name won’t make a difference to anything.

I think it’s a lovely name. I’m in England though and the number of people who insist it’s sursha thanks to Miss Ronan is infuriating!!