Should I call my daughter Aoibhín in England?

[lovebeingmuma]

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

Both things are true. A child born to Irish parents is an Irish national and is entitled to Irish citizenship. If they are born in England they are also English. It’s possible to be both simultaneously.

How they feel and describe themselves to others is entirely their choice.

Im Irish and have 2 children living in England. My own name is a traditional Catholic one but not Irish. As a child born and raised in Ireland my Irishness was never going to be in doubt. Whereas it was important to me to give my English born children identifiably Irish names so that that part of their identity was clear to them and others.

But I don't live in Ireland.
I bet you don't know how to pronounce Icelandic names either.

Here’s why we want to use Irish names that reflect our heritage. My aunt was given a copybook that was found when an old school was being knocked down. She was a primary school principal before she retired and the little girl whose copybook it was had the same surname as ours so was related to us. My dad was from a small town in Ireland and we have a usual spelling of our surname which is nearer the Irish spelling of our surname so we know she was related to us. The little girl is writing about her ‘news’, what she did everyday and what was happening in her life. For the first couple of months she’s Máire and then sadly she is using Mary by the end of the book. The English invaders had taken away her name which her parents gave her and which she would have used and heard everyday.

The problem is you lose the meaning of the name when you change the spelling. Aoibhín has meaning (even if only Irish speakers understand, maybe Scottish too?), but the spelling Aiveen is meaningless. And that can matter to people . (Aiveen is also a mispronunciation of the original Irish, but that is a separate issue.)

Use it as a second name so she can use it if she wants later on - or use an Anglicised spelling on a day to day basis even if officially its the Irish - we had enough trouble with Caitlin (we really didn't expect it having chosen the english way of spelling/saying) and more "Irish than us" cousins (Mom is Irish and they live there) have issues here with Oisin and Rohan and Dylan

Erin works, maybe Evelyn or Evie as a short name. To be fair irish names are definitely getting more common as is the ability to say them, but it does get tiring.

but having been told once most people remember. I am struggling to understand why people are so bothered by this. I worked with an Aoife. I didn’t know how to pronounce at first , I was told and for the last 20 years I know how to pronounce it without thinking. England is littered with place names (Bicester, Leicester, Holborn?) and surnames (beauchamp, Cholmondeley ?!) with pronunciations which don’t match the spellings. We mostly all know to pronounce them though and if we don’t we learn,

It's lovely you feel like that but not everyone does. DS is half Irish half Scottish and as English as they come! He has no interest in either culture (although an EU passport is always a draw)
I.have lots of Scottish and Irish friends who have raised kids in England and they go right across the spectrum of interest in their parents country of birth.

In school, it's not a big deal.
But every time I call insurance company/gp/bank/police/clubs, I have to spell my quite easy foreign name letter by letter, and it will never stop. While othe people can say "I'm Olivia Douglas" and that's it.

I have a classic name but also need to spell it every time - it’s similar to Catherine.

There are very few surnames that don’t require spelling confirmation. Even in your example - Douglas can be spelled Douglass and a non-native speaker of English would likely omit the “o”. In reality this takes a couple of seconds. It’s not a big deal.

But I have to do that for my surname most of the time. There are about 10 different ways of spelling it phonetically. What is the issue? That is even before we get to my road name which is a whole other story!

Well, if it's 1 odd letter, you always can say "It's Douglas but with extra S", as I was doing with my last name in my country.
I would spare the child of "I'd better spell it for you" and "S for Sierra" dance for the rest of their life.

It is the duty of parents to accommodate their kids by giving them names that can be easily pronounced phonetically in English, if they're living in an English-speaking country.
The names themselves don't have to be "English", they just have to be spelt as they would be pronounced in English. If they're not, and they're not widely known names, the child will face a lifetime of having to correct people - for which they can only blame their own stupid parents.

So you think parents who give their child a name that is not easily pronounced phonetically in English are stupid?
Charming.

How do Brits politely call someone, who doesn't think ahead?

It doesn’t actually take any longer to say “Douglass with an extra s” than saying each letter though does it?

If you are providing your name to someone over the phone you will almost always spell it out in case the person on the other end makes a mistake. Let’s face it - many many companies now have call centres overseas where the staff are (naturally) not familiar with even common English surnames.

If the exact spelling matters then you will spell it even if your name is Smith (which of course could be Smyth) and if it doesn’t matter then it doesn’t matter.

The correct pronunciation is Eve - een .
Aoibh is Eve . My daughter is Aoibhe - Eva !

What happens if you have the name Sean? Surely you have to spell it every time as how to the person on the phone know if you are a Sean, Shawn, Shaun ? (Or other even other ways of spelling it?) Steven/Stephen? Graeme/Graham?

Well, in the UK I have to spell 14 letters and it's tirening :) That's why I wouldn't wish an unusual name on someone.
It's fine while your parents do it for you though :)

By adulthood you know if your name has standart spelling and noone makes a mistake in 90% of cases, or you have to point out on smth every time.

Having looked at this thread many times, I would have to check the thread title if I wanted to stand any chance of writing the name correctly. How many readers could look away from their phone and spell the name correctly, despite being on this thread?

The difference with spelling a name like Sean/Shaun, is that there are a couple of options and people will be familiar with the name and spelling. This name is entirely different to that and can’t be compared.

I have an English first name and an Irish surname - in fact also 14 letters. I have never had an issue with the Irish surname as people will generally ask how to spell it as they are unfamiliar with it.

I encounter far more issues with the English first name as there two equally common variations - and I find that people invariably go for the wrong one without checking (Katherine as opposed to Catherine, though that’s not my name).

I can say that none of this bothers me in the slightest and it certainly didn’t feature in my decision to name my children (or if it did, certainly not in priority to their cultural heritage).

It will be a nightmare her whole life. Constant repetitions and spelling it out and correcting folks pronunciation.

But the result is the same surely. Someone called Sean will always have to spell their name out. Doesn’t matter if it is known, doesn’t matter if everyone knows the potentially spelling, if someone says hi my same is ‘Sean’ the first thing the person will ask is ‘how do you spell that?’

Yeah, they will have to spell it. And then the person will stand a chance at remembering they are the Sean variation and not require it to be spelled again and again. Think friends at school. They will have to ask the spelling many times before they are likely to remember it. The same with adults etc. It’s not like Graham/Graeme, where the name is “Graham with a ‘h’”. It’s a long winded spelling which will need spelled out, time after time after time. Imagine a supply teacher attempting to read the name on the register. Or reading the name of a winning raffle ticket. I do think OP should use the name if she wants to. I like the name. But it’s important to be honest about the long term impact and how it will likely be frustrating at times.

I think it is slightly different if your name has a variation in the local language. I assume you mean something like Julia or Laura? You're really facing an uphill battle there to get people to pronounce it in what is effectively a foreign way as the local pronunciation is built in to muscle memory.

@Mumofnarnia , it's not pronounced Shavonne.