Think very hard about giving your baby an Irish name unless you live in Ireland!

[sunnydelight]

DD is called Aoife. I am Irish and my mum died when I was pregnant so giving her an Irish name seemed very important to me even though I was living in the UK (as well as giving her her grandmother's name as a middle name). Five years later I want to scream. No, she is not called EeTHa, or A-o-fie. I have a smile permanently pasted to my face explaining that of course I wouldn't expect anyone to know how to spell or pronounce such a strange name, but it is pronounced Ee-fa. I even write it phonetically in brackets when I fill in forms now. I remind her swimming teacher (with a smile on my face) every week, ditto the guy who runs the gym club. I am glad that I am not allowed to watch her ballet class so I don't have to listen to what they call her. We have just had a friend around (first Aussie playdate so every excited) and her friend's mum called her EeTHa throughout. I have already explained how to pronounce it so resorted to the usual "mirror it back the correct way" every time. No deal. Don't do it to your babies, please don't do it

People have difficulty pronouncing all sorts of foreign names. I work in the East End and most of our Asian customers use English first names to help us out. e.g a customer called cchagan, goes by the name Chris. Perhaps your DD needs an English nickname, if it bothers you.

Idobelieve.. I think it's probably Maeve (there are a few different ways to spell it though!)

I have spent my life spelling Catherine (is that with a C, with K and a Y etc) so I think you get this whatever. My DDs are Niamh and Orla which are fairly mainstream I think but so many people struggle a lot, particularly with Niamh. I must admit I'm happy when we're in Ireland and I don't have to spell it out to people all the time! But then if we all wanted our kids to have the most common, easily pronounceable names they'd all be called Bob and Jill and the world would be a very boring place!

What a lovely name though. I was on a training course the other day and the course leader was an Aoife.

it does sound like maeve sazisi..and i think that is why i can't remember it ( i keep automatically saying meave)...it definately starts with an 'm'..and ends with a 'b'.

All my three daughters have Irish names (one is Aoife) and we haven't experienced quite the degree of difficulty that the OP describes, but we deliberately give them nice English middle names in case they ever wanted to lose the Irish name. So far they love being a bit different.
I have found that having a famous person with the same name helps. There was far less of a problem with Aoife here after the Maria talent show on TV featured a contestant of that name.

I felt very guilty a couple of weeks ago after realising I'd spelt sheikhs DS's name the english way, when I did know better.

My ds is Ciaran and although most people pronounce it OK, their spelling is often bizarre! Various combinations of C, K A, E and I!

That looks like the name winnie (not that i knew how it was spelt)..but seeing it written down is making me remember it now.

Thank-you!

Slight hijack but how do think Caitlin is pronounced?

kate lynn

I pronounce it Kate Lyn as well.

it was originally kathleen but is generally katelyn now.

I can forgive someone not spelling my DCs name correctly, but after I have told them repeatedly how to pronounce her name, I do get a bit annoyed.

She is Catriona, which is not really difficult for Germans to say so I don't see the problem.

My daughters have Gaelic names in Scotland. Never been a problem here .

Caitlin should be- ie was originally and is apparently still pronounced in Ireland Cat-leen!!

I disagree. I'm a Londoner with an Irish name with a very Gaelic spelling, and despite the fact that I have to spell my name to the vast majority of people/ explain how it's pronounced/ explain it's it's origin etc I love it. I wouldn't be a Gemma or a Louise if you paid me (no offence to Gemmas and Louises). My name is beautiful, it has a lovely meaning and it reflects my heritage. I'm proud of it.

Btw, Aoife is beautiful. My mum nearly called my sister that, but at the last minute chose another (equally 'difficult for English people to pronounce' name! )

i have never been sure re kathleen / katleen lambethlil, am a kath myself and find that lots of irish people call me kat, i think the accent does not pronounce th strongly? ditto german.

My dd2 has a traditional flemish name. My english family and friends have all made a great effort to pronounce and spell it properly. Ironically it's flemish people who often spell it wrong!

You can call your dcs what you like, but it's not really on to be cheesed off with people for pronouncing them incorrectly. It's embarrassing to have to ask several times if someone will repeat their name because you couldn't quite catch it, and it does seem that if people have unusual names they perform an especially mumbly introduction.

My sister chose 'international' names for her dcs as she was living and married to an Italian in Italy. She said she wanted their name to fit in in as many places as possible.

I had no idea how to pronounce Aoife until I saw this thread. But if I met your (no doubt lovely) dd IRL I'd listen and try to remember.

I would try and remember, but it's very hard with a name you've absolutely never heard before.