Should I call my daughter Aoibhín in England?

[lovebeingmuma]

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

I’m as English as they come and I know how it’s pronounced. No problem at all in having an Irish name in London.

Do you say Aiveen or Eeveen though?

I was watching something on tv yesterday and it had a 16 -yr old girl called Gwawr on it. How would you write Gwawr phonetically to make it easier for non-Welsh speakers?
Should the parents have avoided the name as she might grow up to be living in a non-Welsh speaking part of the world?
What if she stays in Welsh-speaking Wales all her life?

Someone else has a daughter called Elliw. She has lived in Welsh-speaking Wales all her life but I think went to university in England.
The university is one that probably has several Welsh-speaking students every year.

Those two names are not unusual Welsh ones, but not ones that transcribe into English easily.
Should the parents have opted for MN-approved names just in case their daughters decided to live outside Wales.

No. I would have to be corrected, then I'd forget and be embarssed to ask again. Why waste her energy with that kind of stuff? It's a hard name for most people here.

You tell me how it’s pronounced then because people in my town pronounce it the way I have just mentioned

Usually more like Shivaun.

English: /ʃɪˈvɔːn/ shih-VAWN
Irish: [ˈʃʊwaːn̪ˠ, ʃəˈwaːn̪ˠ]

Same difference, same pronunciation… just that you have spelled it differently! But different accents will pronounce slightly differently. However you have given more or less the same pronunciation of what I meant. So I didn’t pronounce it wrong after all. Just that my accent will pronounce it in more or less the same way I wrote it and that’s how we pronounce it in my town.

You absolutely should not be calling people stupid. I adopted two girls with learning disabilities. You are right that they will not be able to get these names right and one of them, who has an IQ of 56, would struggle with the other names you mentioned. They cope with their learning disabilities as best they can. The idea that people are going around calling them "stupid" in this day and age is appalling. I would report your message to mumsnet only i want to call you out and for you to see this message.

I knew a girl called Aiveen in the 60s, in Scotland.

I simply referred to a coffee shop worker because they write the names on the cup and are not usually an important person in your life, to compare them misspelling the name versus an aunt, say, in a birthday card.

@Mumofnarnia , By that reasoning, you'd say Seán as Shonne.

We say Shawn for Sean.

People called Shaun will have people in their lives who spell it wrong every time. It then becomes embarrassing to correct them. I should know. My name can be spelled 4 different ways. My sister in law uses the wrong spelling, despite her having seen how I spell it on birthday cards, Xmas cards, Facebook etc. Infuriating

Then you don't say Siobhan as Shavonne then do you. @Mumofnarnia .

Yes we do!

Look I’m not arguing with you about it! My accent is none of your business and I don’t have to justify myself to you about how we pronounce every single name. The point of my post was that people in England will struggle to pronounce certain names due to their spelling! It has nothing to do with my accent! You pronounce it one way and I pronounce it slightly differently due to my accent which I cannot help! I do not wish to discuss this further or have to justify myself to you! Some people will just argue about anything 🙄

Reminds me that even after 12 years I still spell my god daughter’s name wrong- it’s become a bit on an ongoing joke that I can’t remember if it ends in an i or a y. It is a weird mental block that I think I’ve got it right this time and yet again it is wrong!

In my accent, On and Awn really aren't very far away...

If I was asked to phonetically (in English) spell Siobhan, I would type Shiv-On

I was glad to see that my Irish pronunciation of OP's name was agreed with by other posters though - I've clearly learned something living here all these years, no matter what my children say when I try to 'help' with Irish homework :)

Haha. Yes I agree. A lot depends on where you come from, your accent and what you pick up from other places you may live during your lifetime. I can understand that people have different accents and things may get pronounced slightly differently due to that reason - but the end result is still the same.

@Mumofnarnia It was only my business because you posted something that looked completely wrong and nothing like the IPA.

It goes to show why spelling names phonetically doesn't work. The IPA is an approximation.

Yes but you was trying to tell me that I don’t pronounce it the way I said I do. You don’t know me, my accent, where I’m from or how I speak to be able to tell me that I don’t pronounce a name in a certain way when I’ve clearly stated that I do.

@Emanwenym i think you’re just objecting to the way the pp has rendered it phonetically.

If you take Siobhan as an example, I’d probably write that as “shuh-vawn”, but I’d pronounce all of these words in exactly the same way: Siobhan, shivon, shuhvon, shavon, shavonne, shivawn, shivaun, shuhvaun etc etc. Unless you’ve got a degree in linguistics you’re probably not going to use the precisely correct phonetic rendering of the sounds.

I think the correct term is a schwa which is an unstressed syllable. Just because the pp used an “a” to represent this doesn’t mean she was pronouncing it with a long “a” like “have on” for example.

Exactly! As I said earlier, people will just argue about anything and find something to pick at. Just a difference in accents that’s all but the end result is still the same.

Whatever. Luke and Look sound the same in my local accent.

I think pp was confused too because Seán and Siobhán have the same ending…strictly speaking they end with the same sound. @Mumofnarnia said she says the final part of the names differently. I know it’s just a local accent thing, but it’s what caused some of the confusion I think.

In my accent they end differently, that’s not to say that particular pp is wrong. It’s just that it’s not fair to come on here and tell me that I don’t pronounce something a certain way because the way they pronounce it is slightly different. That pp doesn’t know me or my accent to tell me how I do and don’t pronounce something. I get that might be confusing to that particular person but there was no need for them to pick at me about it.