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

what a lovely lovely name Aofie[ee:fa]
But i must admit, i thought it was a-o-fee

To my knowledge, I am 100% English to the bone. DS1 has a Scottish name, DS2 Irish and DD Welsh

thanks Rosa I won't feel so daft now when I'm reading the stories. The stories are lovely too.

Irish names are just gorgeous - my Mum's family is Irish (Mum's name is Carmel) and I have second cousins called Eoghan, Maeve, Grainne and Aisling... I love Eilidh and Aoife and would love to have them as dd's

Nametaken - DD2 got a pocket version of that book when we were in Ireland last summer and she has read it over and over again. The pictures are lovely too, aren't they.

Irish Legends for Children illustrated by Lucy Su.

Blocky and wino, you are not wrong to feel it's 'grand' to have an Irish name in England. It is just my opinion that it was better to blend into England with an English name.

I agree with you in theory that nobody should have to just merge in. I never denied being Irish or lost my Irish accent! but at the same time, as a mother, my children came before any ideaology. I wanted them to be regarded as just like all the other children, not singled out as the Irish children iyswim.

Even if I'd loved Irish names for my own children and desperately wanted to use one (whilst living in the UK) I wouldn't have done so because I would have felt it wasn't my place to use them to challenge a current status quo! It's not their job to push back the boundaries. I wouldn't use them that way. In any respect.

Ninja, it's totally different for the simple reason that everybody here speaks English.
Nobody looks at 'Rachel' and thinks "oooh nope haven't a clue how you might say that!" But even Irish people might stumble over Maeve.

Their is a Latvian child called Rugile in my DD's class. That ls prounounced Loograylee-ah. And I know how everybody struggles with it..

If I had gone to live in Italy, I might have called my dd Sívia or Lídia rather than Sylvia or Lydia.

This is just the way I am. I'm not wrong, you're not wrong either !

Madame Cholet, I see your point but part of the issue for dh and I is that we are living a long way from where either of come from and although the place is beautiful, niether of us have any roots here. We are doing our best to ensure that our children do feel they belong here and that this is their home but we also want them to know that the family's roots are elsewhere and that they are part of that.

I think that England has become a somewhat nomadic country and most people have few ties to the place that they now live. I think that it is a good thing to give children a sense that they are part of a continuing history and tradition.

In addition, from what you say you live in Ireland. Dh is Irish and we have spent a lot of time there and I know that it is no where near as culturally diverse as England. Unusual names do not stand out that much here, they are generally accepted as part of the norm.

My dd is called Caitlin and it's pronounced Kate Lyn. She's been called Cat lin before and various mis-spellings.

My grandparents were Irish so we wanted a name to reflect that but not too difficult.

Ds1 is Morgan and ds2 is Ethan.

JodieG1, it depends where you are when you refer to cultural diversity. In my dd's class here in Ireland there are two English children, one black one white, two children adopted one from south america and one from taiwan, two latvian children and one polish child.

It was nothing like as diverse in her old school in sw London. Everybody was white, middle-class and English. It was not a private school either. Come to Dublin and tell me it's not culturally diverse!!!!!! There are 300,000 Polish people in the Dublin area, and that's just Polish people.

But if you want to use Irish names for your children, go ahead, that's clearly right for you and your husband. It just wasn't right for me.

I would have said that the true pronounciation of Caitlin was more like Coytchleen! That's how it was pronounced when I was reading Peig.

Sorry, I meant Goosey Loosey in my first post.

Lol I was going to say, had to reread my post and was thinking, "Eh?" Hehe.

Your children's names go well together.

Names vary and change over the years and obviously in Ireland names will be more true to the origins in regards to pronounciations but I've always said it Kate Lyn and have loved the name for a long time.

The "norm" for us is Kate Lyn as I've never heard a child with a differently pronounced version of it. I've seen people online say it differently but not in my life.

If that was to me then thank you

It was!

An irish relative of mine is called Kathleen - born in Ireland 50-60 years ago and given the english spelling

When we have another one it will be called Aoife if a girl or Rory if a boy.

Aoife is becoming more common so hopefully people will learn how to say it soon!

It's nothing to do with it being an Irish name and everything to do with the fact that her name is not a bit phonetic.

Your thread should be - if you want a simple life make sure your child's name is a) simple to spell with no variations (Freddie of Freddy)
b) If its spelling isn't phonetically obvious (eg George) make sure the name is sufficiently well-known for you not be asked its spelling constantly.

I had a friend called Aoife as a child. She is now called Ginny

Ninja just wanted to say how lovely your daughter's name is and good for you for keeping the irish spelling...how old is she now? Also just out of interest what names are you thinking of for DC2?
We opted for an english name for DD2 using my husband's family for names. So I feel we reflected both of our heritages for our ch and feel having a family name myself this is important to keep our history alive. Sorry if that doesn't make much sense am a bit brain dead this morning.

Wow, I've just come back to this (I'm usually in the wrong timezone for lively debate!) and am surprised by the number of responses.

Don't get me wrong, I do absolutely adore Irish names (funnily enough Caoimhe was my first choices but I thought that would be too hard for people to pronounce), I just don't understand why people insist on pronouncing it the way they think it should be pronounced after you've told them.

I'm 41 years old and have had to live with an oddly spelled Irish name all that time (obviously). Yes, you do get fed up having to spell it out and yes it does cause headaches when "official" type offices spell it WRONG and you have to have it done again, eg. University grant cheques, driving licence, passport.

On the other hand, everyone remembers it once they know, it becomes second nature!!

Long live weird Irish names.

But thank goodness for more common surnames (in my case, anyway).

My middle name is Jamaican (my dad lived there for many years). Even I can't remember how to spell it sometimes, but I have had job interviews on the basis of them wanting to ask me about my unusual name. At least my first name is fairly traditional and English. Planning short, traditional names throughout for mine!

My nephew is called Matthew but is half French and lives in France. None of his French friends/family/teachers etc can get their head round prounouncing Matthew and he has become Matthieu by default, much to my sister's annoynance.