Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's recap. The Irish on the thread all say 'no'. There Americans are familiar with a range of names, for various reasons-- Siobhan, Sinead, Aoife, etc. Deirdre and Fiona were probably terribly strange at one time.... I say name with the true spelling. The more exposed, the more they become more "familiar" names to everyone! I have faith that we can learn.

Deirdre and Fiona are pronounced pretty much the.way they are spelled. A name that seems totally to invent sounds is just ridiculous.

Deirdre and Fiona are pronounced pretty much the way they are spelled IN AMERICAN ENGLISH. But American English is not the only way to pronounce words written in the Latin alphabet.

I asked about Graeme once on here and it was pretty soundly rejected in favor of Graham.

Anonymous wrote:Let's recap. The Irish on the thread all say 'no'. There Americans are familiar with a range of names, for various reasons-- Siobhan, Sinead, Aoife, etc. Deirdre and Fiona were probably terribly strange at one time.... I say name with the true spelling. The more exposed, the more they become more "familiar" names to everyone! I have faith that we can learn.

Deirdre and Fiona are pronounced pretty much the.way they are spelled. A name that seems totally to invent sounds is just ridiculous.

I love Gaelic names and they should definitely be spelled correctly. Most people are not going to meet your daughter in writing but rather in person anyway. It simply makes for interesting conversation when the name is seen written down. The main place it may be an issue is in elementary school and as a preschool teacher I can tell you unusual spelling is getting more and more common and doesn't phase most area teachers. Saoirse is on the long list of names I'm compiling for my cutie . I like Niamh as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 2 Aoife's in my kid's class. TWO.

How do you pronounce this? Not A-oi-fe, I'm guessing.

I think it's Efa like Eva with an f instead of a v.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 2 Aoife's in my kid's class. TWO.

How do you pronounce this? Not A-oi-fe, I'm guessing.

Ee-Fa

Anonymous wrote:Let's recap. The Irish on the thread all say 'no'. There Americans are familiar with a range of names, for various reasons-- Siobhan, Sinead, Aoife, etc. Deirdre and Fiona were probably terribly strange at one time.... I say name with the true spelling. The more exposed, the more they become more "familiar" names to everyone! I have faith that we can learn.

I like the way you think!

Let's recap. The Irish on the thread all say 'no'. There Americans are familiar with a range of names, for various reasons-- Siobhan, Sinead, Aoife, etc. Deirdre and Fiona were probably terribly strange at one time.... I say name with the true spelling. The more exposed, the more they become more "familiar" names to everyone! I have faith that we can learn.

OP, I appreciate that you want the nod to your heritage, but unless you plan on raising your child in Ireland she is American. And yes, like it or not, English spelling and pronunciation is the standard language here. You can name your child whatever you want, but I think it makes their life needlessly more challenging.

Anonymous wrote:There are 2 Aoife's in my kid's class. TWO.

How do you pronounce this? Not A-oi-fe, I'm guessing.

Both these names are stupid and weird.

There are 2 Aoife's in my kid's class. TWO.

I have an Irish last name that is constantly misspelled. I love my name and it hasn't ruined my life or anything, but when deciding which last name to give my kids we went with my husband's so that they don't have to deal with the misspelling.

I like the idea of Niamh and Saoirse but it just seemed like too much work to explain it to people. I went with Maeve, and although it also needs to be spelled out for most people, at least they can mostly pronounce it (although she does get called Mauve surprisingly often).

I absolutely love Saoirse. Gorgeous name. We have a very Irish last name but no real cultural ties, so I wanted to stay away from the super-Irish names to avoid sounding over the top, but I definitely would have considered it otherwise. So pretty.


(And no one can pronounce our damn last name anyway, so if someone has to spell their name, I don't think it's the end of the world. I know people with crazy basic names that still get them misspelled and mispronounced.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Totally Irish and this thread had totally done before.

Don't do it unless you want to move back to the mother land.

Why set her up for failure?

Being named Saoirse or Niamh will cause a baby to be a failure in life?

No more so than Ja'qua'netta.

At least I can pronounce Jaquanetta phonetically. Problem is that these names are not pronounced anything like their spelling.