Non-ugly Irish girls' names

[skidoodle]

I'm looking for suggestions of Irish names (broadest interpretation of same OK) for a girl that are not hideous.

Irish boys' names are easy, but girls are way trickier as so many of them are just not very attractive IMHO. Others are lovely when pronounced properly but very lumpen in the mouths of non-Irish speakers, and DH (and family) are English.

So, what am I not considering? The more unusual the better here.

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Hi there - this thread is a little old. [[https://www.mumsnet.com/baby-names/most-popular-irish-baby-names
If you’re looking for an Irish baby name, find inspiration here]]. MNHQ

we have a Ciombhe (pronounced Keeva) in our family. We also have an Aoife (pronounced Ether) in the nursery where we work. Shes such a cute little thing that I cant think of the name without thinking ahhh

aoife is pronounced ee faa

Came on to say Aoife and would have chosen that for dd but our surname begins with E so sounds too like "E for... "!

teamcullen - why is the child called Aoife pronounced Ether? That's completely incorrect. Why choose a name and then totally mispronounce it??

My favourite girls' name is Irish, but unfortunately doesn't go with our surname at all so I can never use it (at least with this DH!!!).

It's Erin.

For me, that's as pretty as it gets for a girl

Macana - Erin isn't actually an Irish name. It's the historical poetic name for Ireland and has never been commonly used as a name in Ireland.

To me it's one of those cheesy American-Irish names that 4th generation Irish Americans give their kids, see also Caitlin and Briana.

Erin is a brand of soup.

Rhiannon is Welsh. But a very nice name.

Yeah, awful packet soup. In the same aisle as pot noodle. That puts me off it I'm afraid.

oh god! brianna! oh that is yuck.

I bet nobody's going to suggest Oonagh.

Are they?

Erin definitely not a soup here (not sure where other mners live).

And funny you should say that about not being common in Ireland Bunny, I know 4 Irish Erins. Cheesy is your opinion, but IMO, nothing wrong with Caitlin either. Each to their own....

Some Irish American names have made it to Ireland in recent times, so you occasionally hear of katelyn, when most people can work out that the correct pronunciation is cotchleen.

am giggling here at the way some of you are phonetically spelling names and they don't come near to how they really sound. Erin reminds me of Oxtail Soup.

Laoise -Leesha - sounds like a drunk person trying to say Lisa to me....

Saoirse is gorgeous tho....

"Erin reminds me of Oxtail Soup." Me too!

Ha ha or sean Connery saying lisa

As an English person (with a half Irish DH) I was going to suggest:
Aisling - not too hard to get your head round
Roisin - ditto
Finola
Katriona (friend of mine from Kerry is called that) - nn Nina
Orla
Sinead - I think most people know how to pronounce that now from Sinead O'Connor

It took me ages to work out how to pronounce Grainne, Aine and similar and no doubt I still get them wrong
I don't like Sorcha, Niamh, Maeve, Siobhan, Dervla or any of the -een names ("ugly" sounds to me)

HTH

DD has a friend called Una (accent on the U) who is very definitely Irish but I'm not sure if the name itself is?

Well Máire would be the Irish for Mary. Úna is indeed Irish - OOHNA.

Well Mary is prob due a revival tbh! There used to be millions of them.

Máire is my Mum's name, so will probably be the second name if a girl.

There's no way we are ready for a revival of Mary. Every second woman of 50+ is called Mary.

true Skidoodle! DH has 2 aunts called Mary and another of his aunts has a best friend called Mary - it needs another 30 years yet to graduate from being a frequent middle name (it's mine, it was my mum's and my great-gran's too) to a first name again.