Anonymous wrote:I lived in Ireland for a while and everyone my age (I’m 36 now) was named Mary, Sarah, or Sinead. While I was there, I certainly butchered my way through some of names at first, like Aoife. I got there in the end but the pronunciations of some are not straightforward. I’d say that if you want something that screams IRISH but that most Americans will be ok with, you should go with Maeve or Sinead or Fiona.

Aoife is pronounced EEF-UH, right?

This reminds me of the show Catastrophe, they name the daughter Muireann and the American dad never knows how to pronounce it.

Aoibhe is pronounced differently to Aoife.

US pronunciations of Irish names can cause problems the other direction too - when I first moved here, I met more than one Caitlin, and I pronounced it as we would in Ireland (Cat-leen), and managed to offend people Another time, I told someone how their surname (Coughlan) would be pronounced at home in Irl (Kock-lan) and they got very offended (apparently here it's pronounced koff-lin!)

Anonymous wrote:Saoirse is probably known better now because of the actor. No chance for Siobhan, Caoimhe, Niamhe, Aoibhe, etc. basically if there’s a b or an m or an h next to each other.

I like Fiona, Maeve, and Orla

Np. I have never seen Aoife spelled with a b or Niamh splled with an e at the end

Anonymous wrote:Move to Chicago! I can easily recognize and pronounce every name in this thread as can most of my friends.

-Bridget Kathleen

My husband’s family and his cousins are an Irish American role call — Sean, Michael, Danny, Kelly, Robbie, Patrick, Erin, Brigid, Molly, Deidre, Liam, Connor, Brendan, Katie

Grainne

I lived in Ireland for a while and everyone my age (I’m 36 now) was named Mary, Sarah, or Sinead. While I was there, I certainly butchered my way through some of names at first, like Aoife. I got there in the end but the pronunciations of some are not straightforward. I’d say that if you want something that screams IRISH but that most Americans will be ok with, you should go with Maeve or Sinead or Fiona.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Siobhan

I have absolutely no idea help this name is pronounced

Sha-vahn

Not this again! If you are American, would you want to name your poor daughter a name that is not able to be pronounced using phonetic English?! Do her a favor and stick to Kathleen or Kerry if you want an Irish name.

Anonymous wrote:Move to Chicago! I can easily recognize and pronounce every name in this thread as can most of my friends.

-Bridget Kathleen

Yup! Or Boston.

Move to Chicago! I can easily recognize and pronounce every name in this thread as can most of my friends.

-Bridget Kathleen

Just stick with Molly, Kerry, Shannon

Oona, Colleen, Ciara (KEE-ra), Eileen/Aileen.

Saoirse is probably known better now because of the actor. No chance for Siobhan, Caoimhe, Niamhe, Aoibhe, etc. basically if there’s a b or an m or an h next to each other.

I like Fiona, Maeve, and Orla

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Siobhan

I have absolutely no idea help this name is pronounced

Sha-vahn

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ailish, Sinead, Saoirse, Roisin, Mairead, Dierdre, Fiona, Maeve

+1 Ailish is adorable.

Classmate’s name is spelled Alis, pronounce “A lish”