Is Saoirse cruel?

[Anonymous]

I also love the name Saoirse, but fear it’s too try-hard and would be a pain to constantly spell/pronounce for others. My DD is Maeve and even that is hard for some people, although I also get tons of compliments on her name. My sons have names that are more recognizable but still technically Scots/Irish.

[Anonymous]

My issue with it is that it's very trendy and much more political than the people using it usuallly realize. It's pretty, and people will learn how to pronounce it quickly (spelling is another issue), so no: it's not cruel. But I still roll my eyes at the parents when I get a birth announcement with this name and a pronunciation guide on it.

-Very Irish (Catholic) American parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you love it, go for it. There are never guarantees with pronunciation. I can’t tell you how many times people have butchered names I thought were simple - I had no idea people didn’t know how to pronounce Eliza for example, which is one of my kid’s names. But seriously half the people who see it in writing freeze or say “uh … eh …. Eh-li-ssa?” Or how many people call me by nicknames I don’t use just because they are common for my name.

And while it depends where you live, if you’re in the DC area there are tons of unusual names from many languages. There are always at least five kids on the roster of each of my kids’ classes whose names I have no idea how to pronounce. But if my kids become friends with them, I learn. Not a big deal.

IMO if the child is Indian American, speaks Hindi with grandparents, is growing up in a classic Indian American culture, then having an Indian American name makes total sense, no one bats an eye. But if it’s a child whose mother is Indian American and whose father is white, and they are not part of an Indian American cultural, having a name like Daksha Smith is a little bit like making her life hard for no real reason. In my opinion.

Most Hindi names are basically phonetically pronounceable by Americans even if they mangle the vowels and emphasis a little. “Swati” is unfamiliar to some but you can more or less say it.

Irish names are totally unpronounceable phonetically unless it’s one of the few that are known here (like Sean or Siobhan). I get the desire for a unique name but it REALLY would be a millstone to give a child a name that is literally unpronounceable.

Also specifically for Saorsie, it’s a political trend name revived from the Irish revolutionary period. That’s like trend on trend to give your American kid that name unless you’re really Irish.

I’d pick an Irish name that is pronounceable like Maeve. Or an American name that gives the same feeling, maybe something like Lorelei or Sierra or Sabine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My issue with it is that it's very trendy and much more political than the people using it usuallly realize. It's pretty, and people will learn how to pronounce it quickly (spelling is another issue), so no: it's not cruel. But I still roll my eyes at the parents when I get a birth announcement with this name and a pronunciation guide on it.

-Very Irish (Catholic) American parent

op, don't do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People eventually figured out Siobhan! They will figure out Saoirse too. Especially since the actor talks about how to say her name all the time - it is more commonly heard

Yeah but people spell it Shivan now too (some of them).

I've also seen Shivon, Shivaughn, Shivonne. I have a coworker named Siobhan and she tactfully explains that hers is the Gaelic spelling. It is a beautiful name that has been butchered by Americans.

Yes, I also love Siobhan and Sinead. I thought seriously about using Sinead as a middle name. Maybe if I'd had one more girl.

[Anonymous]

I just accidentally said Sairi out loud to try it out and my Apple device asked me what I wanted. So….it’s a no.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Or an American name that gives the same feeling, maybe something like Lorelei or Sierra or Sabine.

Lorelei is a name of German origin

Sierra is a name of Spanish origin

Sabine is a name of Italian origin

All three names predate the existence of America by hundreds of years.

Maybe Naveah is a name of American origin? Very few names are American.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Or an American name that gives the same feeling, maybe something like Lorelei or Sierra or Sabine.

Lorelei is a name of German origin

Sierra is a name of Spanish origin

Sabine is a name of Italian origin

All three names predate the existence of America by hundreds of years.

Maybe Naveah is a name of American origin? Very few names are American.

by “American” I mean a name actually used in the US with no particular reference national origin the way Saoirse is meant to scream IRISH.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

I have a “foreign” name. My parents gave me an American nickname that’s similar to my real name, which I still go by today.

Even though my last name is pronounced exactly as it’s spelled in English, and is pronounced exactly like a very famous celebrity’s except that the first letter is different, 60% of people get it wrong. (The other 40 are like, “Why? It’s pronounced exactly as it’s spelled”). The only way you would not know this household name is if you live in a community that doesn’t acknowledge televisions or Hollywood, or if you are under 25 and moved to the US last year.

If preceded by my real first name, sometimes both names simply get mispronounced. Sometimes letters get scrambled. The best is when random syllables or consonants somehow get dropped in. Some people seem to temporarily lose the ability to sound things out one syllable at a time, phonics-style. Circuits fry. Eyes glaze over. They’ve just given up by the time they get to my last name, or they actually say some iteration of my first name (both names are under six letters. They share two vowels that occur only once each.)

When I was a kid and other kids would say stuff, it was good to have “yeah that’s why I go by X” as a response to fall back on. During roll calls I learned to just raise my hand when the awkward pause happened. And I could always see the relief when I said “you can call me X”

My name doesn’t get misspelled on written correspondence too often, probably because it is really not that hard. I do get misgendered. My findability online is scattered since I don’t always have control over which name gets posted. So a bad picture from 15 years ago might be the first search result.

It pisses me off when Americans insist on calling me by (a still butchered version of) my real first name because “it’s cute! You should embrace it!” So condescending and presumptuous. I have a very strong connection to my home country, so I go by my non-American name when I’m there.

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t the actress pronounce it like Sur-sha?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Or an American name that gives the same feeling, maybe something like Lorelei or Sierra or Sabine.

Lorelei is a name of German origin

Sierra is a name of Spanish origin

Sabine is a name of Italian origin

All three names predate the existence of America by hundreds of years.

Maybe Naveah is a name of American origin? Very few names are American.

by “American” I mean a name actually used in the US with no particular reference national origin the way Saoirse is meant to scream IRISH.

Saoirse is in the top 1000 names of American babies since 2015. It is used in the US, where many more Irish people live than live in Ireland today.

What ridiculous comments. There aren't any given names that are American, unless you count the names of indigenous Americans. All of our given names are derived from other countries from which our forbears emigrated.