Irish names English people can say

[Annie29]

Any Irish mums or mums-to-be out there with English OHs???
I really want my baby to have an Irish name, so that, despite my fading accent (the shame ), we can still maintain a bit of heritage (it's all getting lost with the World Cup coming up!).
DH and his family are from Up North, so they have trouble pronouncing any of my sisters kids names, all beautiful Irish names like Saoirse (they say Sushi), Ciaran (Key-ron), Blaithin (Blah-hoon!!) .
We've been told it's a girl, so any suggestions would be welcome! I have a DS, but couldn't come up with an Irish name for him, so this one HAS to have an Irish name!!!

I can only pronounce a couple of name on this thread

Colleen
Lorriane
Kathlyne
Caitlyn

Are they Irish?

How do you pronounce your DD's name Expat ?

I have a friend called Feidhlimidh, pronounce that if you can!! It is pronounced felimi and it's an ancient Irish boy's name

Our Eilidh just suits it so well. She looks the image of DH - but w/green eyes and chesnut hair. I know if she goes down South people will have trouble w/it, but it's a reflection of her heritage and culture.

Roisin suits her name as well - she's plump and blooming like a rose, w/a rosebud mouth. She even looks like his nana. His mum cried when she saw her b/c she looked like 'Mam', as she called her.

Question answered. Sorry but how the hell do you get the Aylee from Eilidh.
Beautiful name but I would be someone that constantly mispronounced names

clodagh

MrsR,
I had thought Eilidh was a Scots name. But it's true when we went to see DH's aunt and cousins in Cork they could all say Eilidh just fine. No one seemed to have a prob w/it there.

We're down south Expat and you have just described our dd - looks like dh and has green eyes and brown hair. People do struggle with her name but it really does suit her unique personality.

My three boys have 4 Irish names between them but we use the standard Anglicized spellings as we thought it would be impossible for others to read their names otherwise. Also, I am English and dh is only Irish by descent (actually Australian) so it might have been a bit odd to use Gaelic spellings. (People think it is odd enough that we use Irish names at all, but I like them and wanted something different for my children.)

I am interested that there is a girl's name similar to Hayley that is Irish as we opted out of Irish names for our dd and called her Hayley. So perhaps her name isn't such a misfit after all?

Apparently years ago there used to be a double accent that you would put above the "d" to say it was silent. This then was phased out (I guess it was hard to type) so an "h" was put after the "d" to say the letter before was silent. So you really say "Eili" but with a Scottish twang.

And no I'm not Gaelic! I'm Romany.

Also, when we take dd to the Doctor's, we always book an appointment with the Scottish GP so she has no trouble. In fact, I would say that dd is known very well around the neighbourhood/school as she is so chatty and it you can't remember her name at the beginning of a conversation she'll dammned well make sure you do by the end

Sorcha is lovely too. This baby will have about fourteen names by the time I'm finished!

Expat I had a few Irish midwives as well, can't remember their names though. Now they all seem to be African.. Fallon? Gaynor? Aren't they jockeys?

JanH I actually knew a girl called Gobnait! Nice girl, but...
Gormlaith!!!!!
Dervla and Dymphna... nah, sorry!

I love the name Maeve as well, but like I said, they just say mauve...

I have a friend called Eilish as well.

So here's my shortlist at the mo:
Aoife
Laoise
Eimear
Erin
Niamh.

All fairly simple, and pronouncable???

Thanks again everyone, this is really getting me thinking. Only 5 weeks to go!!

My dh Irish so know a few Irish kids (though resisted meself for our lot) - most recently:

Cliona (pronounced just like Fiona but with the Cl iykwim)

Sorcha - sounds more like Sercha - sure I have spelling wrong here.

The only 2 out of those I could pronounce would be Erin and Naimh and my DP's dad was Irish .
Love Irish names though, what about Caitlin or is that not Irish enough ?

I like Grainne (Gron-yeh) for some reason, but looks a bit like Granny written down.

I also once had a teacher who dd was named Connaire (Connery), which I've never since come across, but I like a lot.

Dd is Erin, and was never going to be anything else - my love of that name has never changed since I was a child.

If ds2 had been a girl, he's probably have been called Maura. He ended up with a biblical name though as we couldn't find another Irish boys name that we liked as much as ds1's.

We had lots of Irish boy names picked when we were expecting but turned out to be a girl and her name isn't particularly Irish at all.
We wanted Finley Patrick for a boy

My vote is for Laoise.

Second would be Niamh.

Third would be Emer.

Expat, Eilidh is lovely!!! I bet your DD is only gorgeous! Coinneach though??!! Roisin sounds like a sweetie as well. Roisin would be good actually, as it's an Irish version of DH's nan Rose. Hmmm!

LadyTTT, Colleen? Really? With Wayne Rooney all over the news all day every day?
Lorriane - not specially Irish
Kathlyne - again, like Kathleen, a bit old lady
Caitlyn - a nicer version of Kathleen

I really like Katie actually. DS was nearly a Katie as well, except for the small issue of being the opposite sex!

Feidhlimidh... imagine having to spell that one!

Clodagh is gorgeous as well, but again, I have a very good friend called Clodagh.

MrsR, it is all the bh's and dh's that make the language hard to pronounce and spell. there's lots of silent letters. I think if you're brought up in Ireland or Scotland it just comes naturally though.

Our Eilidh is a true daughter of Scotland.

Go Irish! Be proud! Laoise and everyone can just learn to expand their horizons a bit, for the love of Pete.

Every Lorraine I've met's been a Scotswoman.

Loreena, perhpas?

Cliona is ok,
Sorcha I would pronoune Sorra-ka, as I knew a girl called that once. Some people say Sor-sha though.

Caitlin is nice, but I think a lot of Americans are called that (no offence!!)

i can't have Grainne sorry!! Like you say it sounds a bit like Granny, or Groaning!! And I know a couple of grainne's as well.

Finley, I like that. Can I call a girl Finley? Or Finlay? Hmmm!

Thanks everyone, I'm off home now, might try and catch up again later.

Slan!! (can't do fada's on this computer)

As someone whose 3 kids all have Irish names, my advice would be - pick a name which is reasonably easy to pronounce phonetically (unless it is very common here). I didn't - the names are very popular in Ireland but not common here yet - and it is always hilarious watching doctors, etc try to pronounce them. If you really like a particular name, go for the more anglicized spelling - eg Orla rather than Orlaith, Emer rather than Eimear. Unfortunately there is no alternate spelling for my dds name!

I like Niamh, Sinead and Orla and would probably have gone for one of those if I'd had another dd.

I considered Caoimhe (Keeva or more Kweeva I think I was told) for DD but couldn't face the endless spelling/pronouncing that went with it.