Niamh?

[jenster1976]

I love this, and would also shorten it to Evie, but 2 concerns, is it making life difficult for my LO on the spelling front (although DD1 is Isabella and people seem to have plenty of problems with that ) and secondly does it seem pretentious when you're not properly Irish - although it goes v well with our v irish surname?

I love it

I LOVE the name - and have proper Irish roots too. But we decided against it - and our second choice, Grainne, because of the spelling thing. It is horrible to have to spell your name every single time. It's bad enough if it's a name with two legitimate alternative spellings, but if it's a name that no-one will ever be able to spell, then I do think you need to think again.

I love it i really do.

Are you pronouncing it Neeve or nee-ave?
Don't think Evie works with it tbh.

It's nice. It is one of the Irish names coming into more popular use now - so I reckon you won't have as much probs with spelling as you think. People cope with Sean and that's not pronounced how it looks is it?

Should say I love Evie as a name BTW - why aren't you going for that on its own?

My dd is Neve and middle name Erin i spelt it like that as i thought people would never get Niamh right.you don,t get many neves and its not outlandish either

I think this one may cause less spelling problems than some Irish and Scottish names (a) because its short (b) there's quite a few well-known Niamhs (years of Ms Cusack in Heartbeat, though thats going back has imprinted it on me).

And its nice.

[I never can get my head round Sean Bean though. He's either Seen Been or Shaun Baun...]

Love it. Love Evie too.

Neve is my dd middle name and i went for that spelling to make it easier

Love it and Evie

Can I be a pedant please and point out that Niamh is pronounced nee-ave by the majority of Irish people....

My name is Niamh (I name changed for this thread). I am 35 years old and did not grow up in Ireland (although I was born there), so I thought I could give you some perspective on what it is like growing up with this name.

Absolutely no-one knew my name growing up. No Niamh Cusack, not even particularly popular in Ireland back then. People always make a big deal about the spelling thing but I can tell you from my experience, It was a bit of a pain sometimes but that was overshadowed about how much it defined me. People were so interested in my name, it made me a bit different and I didn't mind that at all. At the beginning of the semester a new teacher would inevitably pause at my name on the class roll and the whole class would shout out "It's Neave!".

I found once people 'got' my name, they never forgot it.

It made me just that tiny bit exotic and my DH and I have decided to continue the tradition with our girls - who are called Aoife and Caoimhe. My sister's names are Aisling and Sinead and my mum's name is Eilis. Dad's name is Graham. Hah! Hah! He's not Irish though.

I don't mean there was no Niamh Cusack by the way - I just mean that no-one knew her publicly. Poor Niamh!

It's my DD's name. She's 7.
We do get weird spellings and pronunciatons and if I just say her name people assume she's called Eve but I love her name and wouldn't change it.

Oh and we're not Irish, I'm English, DD's Dad (we're not together) is Australian and DD was born in Scotland and we still live here. No one has called me pretentious.

I call her Niamhy or Nee-Nee for "short"

And (I could talk about this all day clearly!) my doctor who is Irish commented the last time I saw him that friends of his had just called their DD Neve and it was ridiculous as the spelling is wrong.
Ipurposely went for the real name, rather than a phonetic spelling.

Mynameisniamh, interesting to here your point of view, btw how do you pronounce Aoife and Caoimhe?

I like Niamh and think it is not so "way out?" that people won't know how to pronounce it.
Having said that it can be a pain when people mis-spell your name!!

WORD OF WARNING!!!!! My sisters girl is called niamh...i remember when she was born I txted everyone the good news.....and got countless calls back, what kind of a name is miami.....lol blimmin predictive texting!!!

eva and keeva I think?

Lol at the predictive texting - thank you for your comments - I really like it and just working on DH now - he's coming round... Love my Bella's name too but had no idea how popular it was when we chose it - i can't move at toddler groups for Isabellas of any variant, so would like to avoid that situation again!

I like both Niamh and Evie as names but don't see the connection - especially Evie as a shorter version of Niamh, it's got an extra syllable!

One of my best friends at school was a Niamh and I've always liked it. I work for an Irish company so there are a lot of nice Irish names I've come across - Aoife, Caoimhe, Cliona, Aisling.

I have a Niamh. Think it's more common a spelling now. Most people know how to say it ime.

There is another at nursery but she is Neve. I prefer my spelling as it's the right one

I love it too, it just sounds so pretty. I like traditional spellings of names usually but I think Neve looks nice as well, so maybe the best of both worlds

I do really like it, but I prefer just Eve.

I suppose growing up in Ireland and knowing a few Niamhs makes it a bit mah ok to me. But Eve sounds really glamorous!

Hey luna - Keeva (some say Qweeva) and Eefa.