Is Saoirse cruel?

[Anonymous]

Go for it! Saoirse is a beautiful name, and Saoirse Ronan has been famous for YEARS. Isla (another hard-to-pronounce name) is a top 50 name, and Ronan is probably more well-known than Isla Fisher.

[Anonymous]

Even the Irish in Ireland are not giving their children these names. My Irish relatives had the very Irish names of Edward, James, John and Mary, Catherine and Margaret

I love the suggestion of “just naming her Bridget and calling it a day!”

Love, Bridget’s Mom (DD12 and the only one in her age group and school)

[Anonymous]

This is so funny. The Irish don't even do this half the time.


Grace, Fiadh, Emily, Sophie and Lily, with Ellie, Mia, Amelia, Éabha and Ella are the most popular girl's names in Ireland right now. Fiadh is the only one that makes you wonder wth it is.


I have no idea who the actress is, and after 8 pages I still don't know how to pronounce OP's sugggested name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Add a few other options

Tallulah
Moira
Maureen
Marade (like parade)

Ah, yes. The spelling is Mairead, but this is also really pretty and not quite as complicated.

Also Moirin/Maureen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fully realize this is judgmental and probably even irrational, but my gut reaction when I see that name on an American-born kid is an internal eye roll because it seems really try-hard on behalf of the parents. Like they are trying to prove how sophisticated and cultured they are and are looking forward to clarifying and correcting other's pronunciation and then explaining that "it's an IRISH name" for their kid's entire childhood. Just - why do that?

I don't think that using a name from another language/culture is a problem, even if long/unfamiliar/complex/etc. - but go for something that isn't a complete nonstarter for most Americans from a pronunciation/spelling perspective.

(Maybe I had a bad run-in with some Saoirse parents along the way?)

Also definitely don't do Sari rhyme with hair. I think Sari like sorry is actually a great nickname for Saoirse and could be a way around some of the aforementioned complexity. I have a friend who's daughter is Aurelia, nicknamed Ari, that works well.

+1000. I've even encountered a Saoirse dad who was flustered and then kind of visibly angry when I pronounced it correctly off of his kid's name tag. Like I stole his chance to Irish-splain this impossible-for-dullard-Americans-to-comprehend collection of vowels. All the eye rolls.

As a person with a difficult Irish name, I 100% believe this and the previous pps take. I think my parents, even though one was an Irish citizen were pretenious af to give me this name. The only Irish thing about me, besides my name, is my ruddy complexion and striking eyes.

This set of quoted responses reminds me of a son's friend's name. I never asked about the backstory. His rather unique boy's name is a word/name in Hindi and also a character in a famous sci fi movie series (probably a created name, not Hindi-driven). Anyway, the kid's mom and dad pronounced his name very differently from each other, so the entire friend cohort was unsure which was right. The parents got divorced around the kid's first grade. It was obvious they didn't agree on much and that was just one of the symptoms.

So, is your husband ready to be a "Saoirse Dad"?

This is a new dcum term, right up there with Larla, lightly fried tuba and burgandy washcloth. Stay tuned, folks...

[Anonymous]

*lightly fried tuna!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not this again. The answer is no, don’t give your child an Irish name. Since you don’t live in Ireland and you are just an American who has some Irish ancestry, it makes absolutely no sense.

As someone who actually grew up in Ireland, it truly baffles me why Americans do this!

What an ignorant comment. There are more Irish in America than in Ireland, and they have every right to name their children with Celtic names.

No, these people are American, not Irish. If you do not have Irish citizenship you are not Irish! Gah! This is why Americans of Irish descent are the worst.

It comes from the historical legacy of discrimination when many arrived in the US 170+ years ago. No matter how much these first Irish immigrants and their descendants worked hard and tried to assimilate, they were always singled out, othered. Same way a third-generation American of Chinese origin is still called “Chinese” even if they’ve never been out of the country and only speak English. So what do you do? You band together, find strength in community, and try to retain the aspects of your heritage that you can, even if it warps over time and looks fake or nominal to “real” Irish people. I think that’s why Irish-Americans can be so loud about their “Irish” identity - it was ascribed to their forebears willy-nilly. Irish-Catholics in Boston were still being discriminated against when JFK was elected president, fully 100 years after they’d established a presence in the country.

Yes and their Irish great-great grandmother immigrant to the US was named Mary or Kathleen. Not Saorsie. It’s like someone in Dublin naming their child Brooklyn :)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even the Irish in Ireland are not giving their children these names. My Irish relatives had the very Irish names of Edward, James, John and Mary, Catherine and Margaret

I love the suggestion of “just naming her Bridget and calling it a day!”

Love, Bridget’s Mom (DD12 and the only one in her age group and school)

I love the name Bridget. It’s both Irish and mid-century American.

[Anonymous]

name your kid what you want to name your kid.

This particular name isn't unheard of in the US. Another Irish name I personally like is Roisin, pronounced Ro-sheen, but I actually wouldn't use that one because I watched a girl in my daughter's dance class be called Roy-sin every class for a few months. I don't think Saoirse is as foreign to Americans as Roisin is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless you name your kid something Native American, or Mormon, or African American, it's probably going to be a name that didn't originate in America. If your heritage is Irish, then an Irish name makes sense.

But you don't need to pick the very hardest names to spell. Saoirse, Caoimhe, Aoife, are too hard. The issue, to me, is less the teacher not knowing how to pronounce it (they'll learn) and more the work email that goes astray because someone mistyped Saoirse as Soairse or as Saorsie or something.

I'd either pick something that's got no more than one difficult feature spelling wise -- like Ciara, or something like Maeve or Eilish that has an Americanized spelling. There are lots of beautiful options.

I also wouldn't name a kid a very political name.

Lordy. I'm pro-Saoirse, but I work with a Ciara, pronounced Keera, and she has coworkers who have worked with her for over a decade who still pronounce her name See-yar-a.

That's on them, though. Don't pander to those who can't be respectful.

[Anonymous]

I really feel bad for the kids of people like OP having to live their whole lives with a name that no one can pronounce. But I’m secretly laughing to myself at the idiocracy of the American parents who insist on naming their child a Gaelic name.

[Anonymous]

To address a bunch of comments: Yes, Irish people name their Irish daughters names that are easily recognizable to Americans, like Grace. But of the top 100 names, 25% of them -- so, a lot -- are very definitively Irish names. There are still a lot of baby Aoifes being pushed in prams down Grafton Street.

Also, I'm sure most Americans don't think twice about a name like Sarah (my name) and how, while everyone can pronounce the name, it nearly always has a spelling question (with or without an H). Katherine -- with a K or C? Zoe or Zoey? Vivien or Vivian or Vivienne? "Standard" white American names can have issues, too, and no one thinks twice about them. Not to mention the preponderance of "creative" spellings out in the world these days. Saoirse will just encounter more issues than most, but it's not like a curse.

[Anonymous]

Sairsha- A backwater *** version of Sasha.

[Anonymous]

no judgement but as a 50 something with a much easier to pronounce Irish name if it doesn't sound as pretty in American English because of the mispronunciation it's a hassle for the person often because everyone wants you to say they are saying it correctly even if they aren't which is a convo that gets old after 1ooo plus times. Some sounds don't exist in English so if you are not a Gaelic speaker or at least have a brogue it is not going to sound as pretty

[Anonymous]

I find the "too political" comments a bit funny because Irish independence was a century ago and it's...not controversial now.

Also, it's way over the head of most Americans. My husband has an Irish revolutionary first and middle name ("George Washington Smith" style) and I didn't even realize until I walked past a monument to the historical figure in DC. Nobody ever comments on it. He's second generation, it was definitely on purpose, but it's not exactly in your face.