Should I call my daughter Aoibhín in England?

[lovebeingmuma]

Will my daughter hate me for calling her a name no one can pronounce?

Reading posts like this, one would be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that the UK is a monocultural state.

Have people really never come across names from anywhere else in the world?

Irish people, with our Irish names, travel and work all over the world. You can learn a lot about the people you encounter when you present them with your name.

I probably wouldn't sadly. People don't even try to pronounce names that aren't English, there was a thread yesterday about it.
I think it also makes it harder as the letters aren't how you'd assume they'd sound.

Ugh I've just read more of this thread. MN really does seem to be getting more and more racist everyday 😒

Agree it's not that hard. I met an Eilidh, at first I was confused but once I was told how to pronounce it, it was fine. No one else had an issue with it either. Only a real thicko would have difficulty, or as you put it @Arran2024 a coffee shop worker, how insulting! How do you manage in the world, do you never travel or eat foreign food?

My kids and I have Welsh names, yes there have been times people struggled with them, but the vast majority of people get it as soon as you explain and then it’s fine.
3 of them went to uni in England. One uses a short form of her name there, just for ease of pronunciation (as it includes the dreaded Ll sound that seems to blow minds 😂) but again it’s fine.
Use the name, people will get used to it. The borderline xenophobia attached to non-English names on mumsnet isn’t like the real world.

It's not racist to want to spare one's kids a lifetime of time-wasting tedium. I come from a non-English ethnic background and have to keep correcting people's mispronunciations because my name is not spelt in phonetic English.

There's nothing wrong with giving kids names from any ethnic tradition, but please, present it in a spelling that will enable people to pronounce it correctly just by reading it. This is easy to do just by spelling it phonetically in the main language of the country in which you are living, whatever that may be.

Well that says more about the kind of moron you are, than the OP.

I agree to some extent, but more based on long names not different names. I don’t think people should spell it phonetically either, as it is no longer the traditional name. Today I saw a kid with a hyphenated first name and surname which I thoight was ridiculous. Some of the comments on here though are abhorrent, and very much racist. I was just having a quick skim and it's really quite disturbing.

uh huh. And do you spell Christopher as Kristuhfuh(r) in order that people can read it easier outside of the U.K.? That final R is a problem isn’t it? because it’s pronunciation depends on if you are rhotic or not.
How about Fillup? Or Ruhbekuh?

the vast majority of people get it as soon as you explain

Yep, but that means you have to explain it to the vast majority of people.

You may well think that's fun, but many people with such names don't.

There's nothing wrong with retaining the name but altering the spelling in line with the language of the country in which you are living, to make it easy for the vast majority of people to pronounce, without having to "explain" it. There's a long and sensible tradition of people altering the spelling of their names in this way, if they're living in a country with a different language.

Excellent point!! 👏👏👏

You only need to explain once. Like Catherine, Katherine or Kathryn. Or Sean, Shaun or Shawn. Most names you're fucked, so you might as well have the one you want.

If people with English names in non-English-speaking countries are experiencing such problems, then yes, altering the spelling would be a sensible move.

But given the widespread influence of English and English names via popular culture, I would think in most cases (certainly in European countries) such difficulties would be rare.

Yes but you have to explain it once, to each of those vast majority of people.

That is one shitload of tedious explaining, but it seems you enjoy it.

As I said I have a Welsh name. It’s never been a huge deal. I say it, they ask how to spell it, I spell it. 🤷🏼♀️
Catherine, Jane, Steven, Rebecca, Brian..,all have to be spelt as there are common variants. It’s just not that big of an issue.

Not a big issue as long as they can pronounce the name via the spelling presented, which is certainly the case in the examples you've given.

I don't think its such a big deal, I'd rather a world with interesting names as oppose to just Oliver's and Olivia's 🤣 Variety is the spice of life and all that 🫠😉

People will always get names wrong. Dh and I tried to give dc names which would be pronounceable in all 3 main languages relevant to us (both our mothertongues and the country we lived in). It was almost impossible, but in the end we settled on names we thought no one could possibly get wrong, and yet people constantly do.

And that is without even starting on the possibility that they will end up in a different country in the future. I have a name which is simple and perfectly phonetic in loads of different countries. English speakers constantly get it wrong and complain that 'it's not how I would expect to spell it'. Well, no, it's not an English name!

Oh and I’ll change the spellings of names that hold meaning and tradition to a more English-centric version in order to appeal to monoglots over my dead body. The English attempted to eradicate my language for a long time, there’s no way I’m going to help that along.

You miss the point, they still have to spell their names many, many times in their lives. And yet they survive.

It's only ever English people who complain about these kinds of things, literally every* *other person in the world can manage 🤣

You might be Irish and your daughter might be born to Irish parents, but she'll grow up English in England. I am Irish myself, by the way. Most of the young girls I know in Ireland have more international names now.

Difficult Irish name here (not a common one) and have spent my life spelling it out. I LOVE it.

Names are a celebration of culture and a way to connect new children to old family traditions.

It’s a beautiful name, I know several (in England AND Ireland). It’s a great choice!

You're missing my point - I'm all in favour of people having names from any ethnic tradition, the bigger variety the better.

It's just sensible to spell those names in a way that makes phonetic sense in the main language of the country in which you live, if people commonly have difficulty pronouncing them correctly in the original spelling.

For example, the Irish-French name Aveline (from which Eileen is derived) is easy enough for English speakers to pronounce when written as Aveline or Aveleen, but will encounter problems when spelt in Gaelic as Eibhlín or Aibhilín.

Some people are happy to put with a lifetime of such problems, but it's not really fair to foist them on your children.

It’s fine! People can learn to say a name ffs.
I have a friend called Gráinne, she’s a teacher. All her kids and their parents can pronounce her name. No problem.
Call your baby the name you love.