Should I call my daughter Aoibhín in England?

[lovebeingmuma]

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

It is a big deal when it's your name.

Do this, call her Aiveen. Its gorgeous and honours her irish roots but reflects that she will also have english roots and does not condemn her to a childhood of planning to change her name by deed poll when she is 18.

Dsis has an irish name that is not pronounced like it is spelled (not seen it on this thread yet) and she has always hated it because of this. If i mention her name to english people they mostly screw up their face and say “what? how do spell that?”. It must be so tiresome dealing with it day in day out. She lasted a couple of yrs living in england after uni and fled back to ireland (where even there they cant get it right).

I struggle so much with this. Because of course youbshould. But on the other hand, should you make your child’s life difficult for a principle? We chose not to- and I’m glad we didn’t. But our adult child wishes we had. But we made the decision for the child, and she can only think about it as an adult.

I think that you'll be fine to call her that. It would raise eyebrows in certain areas (e.g. the rural village where I grew up; interestingly it was the likes of Mairead and Aoife that caused a stir, as they were so exotic!), but I imagine that you're more likely to get away with it in a bigger town or city.

As an ex-teacher, I've come across a LOT of names that I had never seen before. Aoibhin is positively mainstream compared to some of them...

But the child won’t be Irish, the child will be born and grow up in England. Why start their life by giving them a name you know they will have to constantly spell out and teach other people to pronounce when there are plenty of other names, even Irish ones, that are more easily spelled and pronounced in English?

It’s too similar to Aoife.

What about Aideen? Or the Irish spelling I think is something like Eadaoin? (there should be some fadas in there somewhere)

Aoife and Aoibhín are very close, even if you go for the "Aiveen" pronunciation. If you aren't going to pronounce the Aoi sound correctly, why not go for Aibhín or even Aiveen?

Caoimhe is a new one for me. How is that pronounced ?

i work in an international job and you LEARN people’s names.
Same here but not everyone gets it right. E.g. Eleni. I listened carefully to how she said her name, yet when i referred to El-enny, my monoglot colleague corrected me with Elainy.

Welsh First Minister gets called Ellen Ed a lot. She's Eluned.

The child WILL be Irish. Both parents are Irish, so the child WILL be Irish. Same as if they all lived in India, the child would still be Irish as both parents are Irish, the child would not be Indian.

Irish citizenship and passports for children born abroad

@Denimrules , it varies, but Keeva (or Kweeva).

Ghislaine Maxwell has been headline news for years but I still hear many pronunciations of her name.

I think the big problem is Aoibhín and Aoibheann are already massively mispronounced in Ireland already, so it all gets worse when you go further a field with such a name.

As others have said, 'aoibh' is pronounced as 'eve' in Irish.

That means Aoibhín is pronounced Eve-een and Aoibheann is pronounced Eve-ing.

If you're looking for the Irish name that's pronounced Ave(as in behave)-een, that's spelled Éibhín.

All lovely names, but variations in pronunciation will mean you could struggle with them, even in Ireland.

Why are people saying it should be anglicised? if you're going to do that you may as well just give her an actual English name, it would be far less insulting. Nothing annoys me more name wise than say for example, a v where there should be a bh. There's no v in the Irish language and names shouldn't be made up like that, totally ridiculous and giving 'younique'.

It's bizarre the amount of English people on this thread who feel their inability or unwillingness to learn a name should mean every one is called Lucy or Evie or Something- fucking-Mae.

My parents are Scottish, I was born and raised in England, I’m English, it would feel weird if someone described me as Scottish when I’ve never lived there.

It's pronounced Kwee-veh.

Lovely name. I would have known 2 Caoimhe's growing up. Then it grew hugely in popularity as a name and my kids now know quite a few.

Please don’t bastardise the spelling of a beautiful Irish name to fit in. Or to suit those ignorant people who cannot be bothered to learn or pronounce a name.

Please don’t bastardise your heritage.
I had a very unusual Irish name growing up ( but not so unusual now) I was never bullied or teased but have spent most of the childhood spelling it and it has always been a conversation opener.
My Mum stood firm and did not allow anyone to shorten it and I glad she did. I love my name and it is my heritage.

I hate to break it to you, and I'm not sure how you've reached adulthood before finding out you're not English, and are actually Scottish. Be proud of your heritage, Scotland is a wonderful place:

Scottish
If both parents are Scottish and their child is born and raised in England, the child is typically considered Scottish for nationality purposes. This is because the child's Scottish heritage is recognized, and the UK nationality laws generally favor the nationality of the parent who is a citizen of a country that has not separated from the UK. Therefore, the child may automatically acquire Scottish citizenship if at least one parent is a Scottish citizen.

www.gov.uk

This is the problem though, as many people have said on the thread, Aoibhin or Aoibheann are “Eve-een” and “Eve-en” - Eavan is the anglicised spelling of the latter.

The Ayveen pronunciation is a really common mistake.

Im Irish in London and I gave my kids Irish names and it’s fine, but imo it would be embarrassing to give your child a difficult name and then get the pronunciation wrong yourself. If you want the Ayveen sound you need to change the spelling so that it makes sense.

Or better still, choose a different name so it’s more different from your other daughter. Aine is quite matchy but still distinct?

Well said!

How would not knowing if you are addressing Rachel, Raechal, Rachael, Raychelle or Raechel make one an idiot?

no

Because some of those spellings are ridiculous.

I know 2 Rachaels, a Rachelle, and many Rachels. All pronounce Raytch-ul, apart from the Israeli ones who use the phonetic Hebrew pronunciation.

What you’ve linked to there doesn’t say what you imply it does, but thanks for the patronising reply.

@ReadingSoManyThreads , you don't seem to hate to break it to pp at all.

Generally speaking, there are only two spellings of Rachel/Rachael in the UK. There are other spellings worldwide of course and different pronunciations worldwide but there's only one pronunciation and two spellings normally used in the UK. Other variants, such as some of the ones you've mentions have other origins. I was generally speaking with my "idiot" comment, as in it's not exactly a difficult name to get wrong, neither is mine though, and 99% of people still spell and pronounce my name incorrectly, like I said, idiots everywhere!