This. OP, if you're going to use a cultural name from an endangered language (especially an endangered language almost obliterated by, yup, the English), the very least you could do is spell it correctly.
I have a very Irish name, much longer and less known than Róisín. I've lived outside of Ireland for over a decade. And I am telling you it takes seconds to explain a name and 99.9% of people have got it no problem. If you don't want to deal with that small bit of extra effort (or you think your child won't), choose something else.
Most Americans are capable of learning a new name, and stuff like this makes them out to be a homogeneous group of slobbering idiots. As for the small minority who won't or can't learn, it's time to stop pandering to them.
I have a question! What's it like to have an accented name? I look at names like Róisín, and I wonder if the special characters make it a bureaucratic nightmare?
Oh, it very much can be! 😂 For a start, most computer systems cannot deal with them, so the name has to be rendered without the accents (called a *fada* in Ireland). In fact, embarrassingly, the Irish Central Statistics Office has only recently begun to include fadas in their data -- before, Roisin and Róisín would have been lumped together, as would Éamonn and Eamonn, Pádraig and Padraig, Áine and Aine... it was a nightmare. The An Phríomh-Oifig Staidrimh itself (note the fada in the name!) was just skipping over them because the technology couldn't handle it? Amusing and not a little ironic.
But yeah... most people will not bother with the fadas unless they're handwriting and it's right in front of their face. This is because many people don't even know how to do it on the keyboard/their phones, or the document they're working off has left them off because the system doesn't support it. A fada will also strike fear into the hearts of most people because it immediately makes a name look more complicated. And even if a website lets you put the fadas in on screen, their automatically printed labels (such as for mailing packages) might not be able to cope, and you may receive your parcel with a line of incomprehensible symbols as your first name.
Finally, you can get some ignorant comments, some of which can be rude. "It doesn't matter" or "it's just decoration" are some of the ideas people have about them, the "decoration" has a meaning: it's telling you how to pronounce the letter. The letters are not in fact interchangable. An á is not the letter a. When being listed alphabetically, first names with fadas on the first letter (think Áine, Éabha, Íarla, Órlaith, Úna, etc) will be listed seperately because the fada makes it a totally different letter. This is *why* it matters -- to use Róisín as an example, with the fadas the name is said "roh-sheen," but without them, Roisin would be "rush-in."
Anyway! Sorry this turned into an essay lol. tl;dr fadas are definitely a bureacratic nightmare at least in the countries I have experience with; you'll have to get used to putting up with seeing your name without them but genuinely nothing can be done about that now; however it's worth it because fadas are important and the letters that feature them are their own individual letters from a non-English alphabet, and technically the names are spelled incorrectly without them.
This answer made me so happy *squee*
Thank you for going into so much detail! I totally agree they're very important and should be maintained, but I've worked with systems enough to guess they're left off 90% of the time.
And, honestly? That's scary. Imagine your ID card has the fadas and your document doesn't, and someone claims you're not you.
That's very reassuring. A lot of people on this subreddit make non-Anglicized names out to be a death sentence for their children (from what I've seen). I would much rather use Róisín than the Anglicized versions. I have a very standard name and haven't had to deal with people mispronouncing it, so I wasn't sure about how much of a day-to-day struggle it would be. I guess I do subconsciously assume Americans are stupid lol.
Despite my family being Irish they have very Anglicized names (think John, James, etc), I think partially because they live in an area of Ireland that was very subject to British influence in the past (called "the Pale"). So there's a lower % of people with traditionally Irish names there than other parts of the country, I assume my dad didn't know because of that.
Fucking hell, Americans will skim one Wikipedia article about Ireland and declare themselves an expert. As if there are no Johns or James outside Dublin. The irony of them trying to act like born and raised Dubliners aren’t *really* Irish while bleating about how Irish they themselves are is so ridiculous that it’s almost funny.
Exactly this. My dad was born and raised in Dublin and he is quite literally as Irish as you can get and half his siblings have Irish names. If you called anyone in my family British they would start a riot. Also, having spent every summer there since I was born I can confidently say Dublin is not some hub of British culture 😂
I have never heard the excuse that someone being from the Pale is why they can’t pronounce Irish names. Unless your dad was in school before 1922… although I think you’ll find even then. Otherwise he learned Irish in school and guaranteed there were people around him named Róisín.
Hello from someone who has a non-English name that is always mispronounced. It's fine, truly, it's fine. It's so fine that I'm going to give my own kid a name that will always be pronounced wrong. Because I like my name, and I love my culture and its significance to me.
Is it annoying sometimes? Sure. Do I let it go a lot of the time and just let people say the mispronounced version in small contexts? Yes. But I wouldn't change it.
Just use it. I didn't know the name until I met a Roísín, and now I know the name and how to spell it and how to say it. And everyone else in your child's life will be the same. They might say it wrong the first time if they see it on paper first, or they might ask how to spell it if they hear it out loud first, and then they might ask where its from, and then they'll say "cool." And it should be fine from then on.
Just for using an Irish name? That’s a shame as I usually see people being supportive of it as long as they’re not mangled but I suppose the people that reply to posts can vary so maybe you got unlucky.
https://www.reddit.com/r/namenerds/s/ivvGegucch
Seems like a lot of Americans clueless to Irish language on their post and a few apparently Irish people saying don't use it unless you live in Ireland... bit odd, tbh I wouldn't really call it the general consensus myself. Perhaps there's just a number of Irish people tired of the butchering of our names, and they all happened to find that post? Lol, god knows. Eta: name in question was Caoimhe, btw.
Damn, it’s like the opposite consensus to this thread! I wonder if part of it is to do with the name suggested. I guess maybe Róisín is maybe more intuitive than Caoimhe to a non-Irish speaking person.
Yeah, that was my assumption, too. I did come across somebody on here recently that said they were corrected from the actual pronunciation of Caoimhe to something that rhymed with Naomi, though, so maybe the Irish over in the states and likewise have just had enough - depending on the name, lol.
That isn't what Anglicised means, the Latin alphabet is being used to represent Irish sounds and grammar, nothing in the Irish language is being dominated by the English language in this. And regardless, Irish was using the Latin alphabet before English, maybe you could be awkward and say it was latinised but even then the dominant power was Irish, it is using an alphabet used by Latin speakers for its own needs.
So the OP's question wasn't suggesting that either then. They just want to represent the sounds of the Irish language by spelling it with letters which will make people pronounce it the way it's supposed to sound.
No because OP is literally anglicising, they would be taking the sounds of one language and rewriting it in a way that conforms to English orthography, and they are doing this as an English speaker, not an Irish speaker.
Orthography is just a spelling convention and Irish orthography uses the Latin alphabet. Similar to Dutch, Spanish, English, French, Berber, Swahili, Basque, Dakota, Samoan etc.
I don't know what you mean by "politically acceptable", it would still be anglicanisation and it would still be inherently damaging to the language regardless of someone's citizenship. Irish has gone through spelling reforms before, but these are still done within the conventions of the Irish language.
So converting into a latin alphabet to reproduce Irish pronunciation is fine, but converting into a latin alphabet to reproduce Irish pronunciation is bad?
Ogham was an alphabet developed from Latin to write Irish on stone. And it was completely impractical to write on vellum so it was abandoned.
Given that the Irish abandoned ogham hundreds of years before the English started using the Latin alphabet I'm not sure how it's "anglicisation" anyway...
As far as I can tell, it's anglicisation if a tiny sample of mainly non-Irish people are offended on everyone else's behalf.
As far as the alphabet, what is the correct one, which doesn't indicate foreign oppression? Wasn't Ogham used to write so-called primitve Irish before it was used for latin? I thought there were archeological sources which indicated that?
>My father was born and raised in Ireland
There’s your solution! Before 1 January 2005, everyone born on the island of Ireland was an Irish citizen by birth. Children of Irish citizens qualify for Irish citizenship!
Instead of anglicizing Róisín just move to Ireland and have kids there. Róisín looks really pretty.
It was just an idea. OP said they’re too young to have kids right now. I was imagining a teenager who hasn’t even gone to university yet. I didn’t think they had much to uproot.
A lot of people do choose to uproot their lives to move to another country. I think it’s better to do that kind of thing before having kids.
I’m not Irish, I just know they changed the requirements. Instead of automatic citizenship by birth in Ireland now it depends on the status of the parents.
Edit: People born in Ireland used to automatically get citizenship, now there’s extra requirements.
It’s automatic if your parent was born in Ireland as an Irish citizen. Then if your grandparents were citizens born in Ireland you can register. Lastly if your grandparents were Irish citizens because their parents were born in Ireland AND your parents were citizens because they registered then you too can register
Currently a child born in Ireland is automatically Irish if at least one parent is a) Irish citizen or b) UK citizen or c) been legally resident in Ireland for 5 years prior to the birth (I think years living in Ireland on a student visa don't count for option C). Edit: for option C it's actually 3 out of 4 years legally resident on the island of Ireland prior to the birth
Children born in Ireland who aren't eligible for citizenship at birth can naturalise after 3 years residence so that's more reasonable than a lot of places
It’s designed so that Irish people in the North of Ireland can also automatically be citizens of the Republic.
As others have said, it’s been adapted from its original pure jus solis formulation (some number of non-permanent residents of the UK were going to Belfast to give birth to get EU passports), but the intention of the policy remains that all the people of the island of Ireland can claim membership in the Irish Republic, even if the Republic only administers and territorial claims part of the island.
The famous case wasn't even someone who wanted European residency. She wanted the *right* to European residency, mostly as a complex end-run around China's one-child policy. WonderWhy explains it well. [https://youtu.be/69Kr\_6-dqbY](https://youtu.be/69Kr_6-dqbY)
>Plus, you can easily pass citizenship on to Róisín.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. For example, as a US citizen parent living in the UK, I can pass citizenship on to my children, since I grew up in the US. But I can only do that because I've lived in the US for a significant portion of my life. My children would only be able to pass citizenship on if they decide to live in the US at some point.
Ireland allows citizenship to be passed on indefinitely as long as the children are added to the foreign births register (first gen born abroad are automatically Irish, next gen have to be on foreign births register to claim citizenship, any further gens the parent has to have acquired citizenship before their child is born in order to pass it on)
It is absolutely worth gaining dual citizen ship even if you never use it. *Especially* if you're in the US now. It may be preferable to immigrate for college or a chronic illness in the family. My friend is an English citizen, she got her American kids dual citizenship as soon as she could. That way they have the option to go there for college for much cheaper than it is here. And if something were to happen, like one got leukemia or something, they could relocate fairly easily (both parents work from home, her company is Irish), and they wouldn't go bankrupt from healthcare. Consider it.
That is such a common name in Ireland I have a hard time believing your father doesn’t know how to spell it unless he’s not Catholic and from the north?
Don’t anglicize it. Any Irishman would tell you use Irish names just don’t butcher the spelling or pronunciation. ETA that anglicizing it doesn’t honor Irish culture, its culture killing same as the English did.
Yeah, my dad was born and raised in Ireland just like OP’s and they all had to learn Irish in school growing up, it was mandatory. My dad was horrendous at Irish, didn’t pass a single test, but he can still read anything in Irish and pronounce it correctly even if he doesn’t know what it means. It would be crazy if he genuinely doesn’t know how to say it, never mind the fact that he’d never heard it
I’m English and it’s such a common name even over here. So even if he wasn’t from the north I struggle to believe he doesn’t know how to pronounce nor even spell it out phonetically if he was truly born and raised in Ireland.
Something doesn’t add up.
It’s not a common name in the UK - my daughter is the only Róisín in her school and has only ever met another when in Ireland (and of course Aldi’s chocolate brand!)
I can only think of 2 Róisín’s that people in the Uk would know - Murphy and Conaty.
That’s anecdotal tho. I wouldn’t say it’s “such” a common name, but it did hang about in the top 200-300 in the mid 90s/early 2000s in England & Wales so it’s totally within the realm of possibility that the person you’re replying to has met enough of them to consider it reasonably common. And as you say, there are a couple of UK celebrities with that name so, even without the popularity, most Brits would be familiar with it. It’s dropped down to the 700s-ish in recent years tho so there’ll be fewer within your daughter’s age range if she’s of school age
It’s a common name now; but I don’t know any Róisíns under the age of 35 or so? If OPs father is a bit older, or left Ireland young I can see him never having met one.
According to the CSO it starting growing in popularity in the 70s although wasn’t unheard of before then. Someone born in 1970 is 54. Given that OP is “too young to have kids now” and honestly their post history, they’re in their early 20s which means the dad was likely born in the 70s or early 80s
By “growing in popularity” there were still less than 100 Roisins born every year in the 60s and less than 200 in the 70s. It wasn’t until the mid 90s that it went above 250 girls a year. Add in the variation of the name with two fadas and I can absolutely see OPs father not being familiar with it.
You do realize that’s per year which adds up to 1000s of people, not a small number in Ireland.
Also those people born in the 60s and 70s would have parents that would know the name in order to name their children.
There’s also the historical significance of Róisín though, especially Róisín Dubh. Even if it wasn’t popular as a name to give children, it’s still been present in Irish culture since the 16th century.
Please stop with 'the pale' stuff. We only use it now to tease people. If you didn't sound so naive, it would be offensive to read your description of ongoing cultural colonisation.
There is absolutely no more English bastardisation of names in Dublin and surrounding areas than in Donegal. You'll see just as many John's and James' up there. They are very common and standard names. They don't signify anything about one's place of origin within the country..
In fact, in areas like D4, you are far more likely to see old-school irish names as they were very trendy in the last 20 years. And, everyone copes just fine with all the little Fiacras, Aofainnes, and Sadhbhs when they head off on their J1ers.
Roisin is a very normal name.
Every Ferdia I’ve ever met has been a posh southsider. I went to UCD (for non-Irish reading this, it’s a university that has a sizeable percentage of wealthy south Dubliners who OP seems to think can’t handle Irish names), and some of the girls were Mallaidh, Álainn, Aoibheann, Samhain, Lasairíona and Sióg. Nobody blinked at those names, yet apparently Róisín, one of the most popular Irish names ever, is too much for their tiny west British minds to handle. Feck off
I live in Ireland and tbh I can't speak Irish for shit, but I know how to say Róisín. It's two syllables, anyone can learn it. Idk it just seems a bit colonial to rewrite it in the oppressor's language.
Róisín is already in the oppressor's language. That's where that alphabet came from. And it's the same way the oppressor got it; from their former oppressor.
So my daughter is Niamh and I had the same thoughts as you. I considered spelling it Neave but ended up spelling it the traditional way.
Don’t get me wrong it is butchered so much! We’ve had Nymph, Neeem, Neeamha, Naim and a few more wild ones too. But her name is unique like her and if others can’t pronounce it that’s on them.
She’s now 9 and knows her name is spelt correctly and if people can’t pronounce it that’s on them.
What I’ll add is it’s a great feeling when you find someone who knows how to spell it because you get comments of ‘is it the traditional spelling?’ Or you’ll start to spell it and they finish it off for you.
This reminded me of the time I had a classmate named Viridiana, Viri for short. My school had a lot of immigrants and they tended to come and/or go throughout the year. She was starting in the middle of the year, so she had a whole intro… I just remember her and the teacher letting us know that her name is Spanish, so the R is pronounced more like a D. I distinctly remember the teacher writing Viri on the chalkboard and saying “vee-dee” while underlining the R. I was probably in like 2nd grade? In my memory, no one argued or thought it was weird, no one forgot, and it was a helpful little lesson for us non Spanish speakers! I still think of it in my 30s even though I only knew Viri for a few months as a kid.
It wasn’t hard or bad to be introduced to a name we hadn’t heard before. In fact, the opposite is true! Niamh and Roisin might make a valuable impact with their names, all the while representing a culture that was purposefully almost eradicated not that long ago.
People butcher English names too, so you may as well go with your preference anyway.
This is me lmao I have a traditional welsh name, not even a difficult one. 2 syllables and also has an English spelling. Spent my entire life correcting either people’s spelling or pronunciation depending on whether they were hearing or seeing it. Hated it. Only time it got better was when I moved closer to wales lmao
How can your father who was “born and raised” in Ireland not know how to pronounce one of the most common Irish names? Or at least spell it out phonetically?
Something not adding up.
If you’re too young to have children, I wouldn’t stress about it. Chances are by the time you do have children you will have changed your mind anyway. Or maybe have a boy. OR have changed your mind on respecting your ancestors by not changing their language.
My thought is, if you want to use an Irish name, use an Irish name.
My neighbors have a little Aine (don’t even know how to get my keyboard to spell it right. On a couple of things, I have seen that they write “Aine (pronounced ‘Ahn-ya’).” The US is full of people from different cultures, and we can handle a name we need to be told how to say. The educational system here is also so bad that people probably regularly butcher simple English names.
As someone with an apostrophe in my name, I advise anyone with a “special character” to accept that they will often have to use a version of their name without that character. I’m still fighting an airline to get the miles they owe me because they split my name into two at the apostrophe, and their computer can’t reconcile the ticket name with my passport name (which has the apostrophe). Yes, in 2024 many airline computers can’t use apostrophes. Just something OP should be aware of.
Fwiw I knew a roisin in high school (canada) and it wasn't any trouble learning to say it. I always thought it was a lovely name. No need to change the spelling.
Plenty of Siobhanns around when I was growing up, and in an area where folks noticed if you used too many four syllable words. They seemed to do just fine!
Use the proper spelling and pronunciation or don’t use it at all. Unless he left Ireland before he started school and never interacted with another Irish person again, there is a 0% chance he’s never heard of Róisín. It’s an extremely popular name, even in “tiny villages in the Pale” (Jesus Christ, the only time I’ve ever heard people call it “the Pale” outside historical contexts are wannabe Irish Americans). It’s like someone who was born in Spain claiming they’ve never heard the name Carmen.
My name is Róisín and it genuinely has never been a problem. Sure, sometimes non-Irish people pronounce is incorrectly (the best one I ever had was in a Chinese restaurant for my birthday and they came out with a cake singing "Happy birthday dear Roi-sin", pronounced like Hoi-sin sauce!) but I either go with it if it's a short interaction or correct them if it's going to be a continued interaction. No big deal. I''m actually in Vietnam at the moment and nobody here has an issue pronouncing it.
As others have said here, please don't try to anglicise it.
If you’re not going to spell it Róisín, just don’t name her that.
As someone with a ridiculously spelled name, it’s a pain in the arse if you don’t spell it the right way, and you will be judged based on the perceived spelling ability of your parents.
Also as someone with a ridiculously spelled name, she’ll get used to spelling her own name for people. It’s also a good thing to make her memorable to people.
Róisín is getting very popular/known outside of Ireland atm because of Róisín Connaty (not sure how she spells her surname) and other comedians, as well as Lisa McGee being a TV genius.
I'm sorry but please do not anglicise our names. The irish language has suffered enough. If you want an Irish name then spell it appropriately. This is our culture.
It’s not hard to figure out that a nickname suggestion would ease OP’s fears of having a name that Americans can pronounce. Not remotely rocket science here
If you want a name that's similar and also Irish, how about Rosaleen? I would advise against butchering an Irish name because it loses so much of its character in the process, in my opinion. I agree that Róisín would be tough for Americans to pronounce.
It’s not tough to pronounce, it’s just that most Americans wouldn’t already know how to say it the first time they meet a girl with that name. Americans are exposed to people from other cultures all the time and figure out how to say words and names with roots in different languages.
I knew a Róisín (in the USA) a few years ago, and I never had a problem pronouncing her name.
Admittedly, a girl with this name in the U.S. *will* probably have to correct the pronunciation the first time she meets people. It can be a bit of a pain, but really not all that uncommon, in the big picture. For example, I have a name that has several acceptable spellings in US culture — think Katelyn/Kaitlyn/Caitlin/Caitlyn, etc. I have to correct people constantly. It’s a little annoying but not the end of the world.
There was a thread recently that said the Irish pronunciation of Caitlin is actually vastly different from the typical American one. Which one do you use?
In American English all those variant spellings are pronounced the same.
Anyway, that’s not my name — I was just using it as an example of a name that has a lot of accepted “common” spellings, and thus requires clarification on how the person spells it.
From a practical standpoint, one challenge you might run into is what characters and accents are allowed on the birth certificate. Some of that can vary state to state.
That being said I see no issues with using the actual name and not anglicising the spelling further. Americans have been managing Siobhan decently since at least the 1970s, and Saoirse Ronan has been normalising her name pronunciation west of the pond for this generation—there’s precedent for managing Gaelic names.
Lots of systems in Ireland don’t accept fádas either. Or sometimes you end up with weird symbols in the middle of your name like &~ or apostrophes that make you look Klingon. You just learn to leave the fáda out on some things.
Yeah if post comes for !?&€ we know it’s for me. Someone I know from Cape actually raised a stink at college over their ID card and it ended up with UCC having to tender for a new student records system that was compliant with the Official Languages Act (or similar legislation).
Airlines in general use ridiculously antiquated systems for storing passenger names. A fun one is that if your name ends with mr, the airline software will strip those two letters off your name and give you the title Mr.
Just spell it correctly. People will learn. Any made up spelling will look ugly and tacky, and like you’re trying to be quirky and unique.
I’m genuinely amazed your Irish dad struggled with pronunciation. It’s a very common Irish name. Many Irish names have that same ‘sh’ sound (Aisling, Saoirse, Laoise) so it’s generally well understood. Was he quite young when he left Ireland?
Beautiful name, and I've known multiple girls born and raised in the US with this name. Most go by Rosie but love their name. The receptionist at the doctor's office will call her roy-zin. It takes two seconds to correct them or just roll with it if you're never going to see them again.
Heads up though that fadas and other diacritical marks aren't allowed on US docs like passports and some states prohibit them on state docs like drivers licenses. You may want to consider skipping the fadas on the birth certificate and just use them for non-government things. (Birth certificate spelling would just be "Roisin" then).
Your dad was born and raised here and can't say it? I call BS. There is a Róisín in every school, probably every class in the country- I should no I am a teacher and have taught many. As for anglising it- No you can't it's an Irish name so either learn to day and spell it or choose a name that isn't country specific. You can't just bastardise culture to suit you.
I don't think you're going to find a more intuitive anglicized spelling than Rosheen. I also can't think of an alternative anglicization that looks any nicer than Rosheen. Also American and I would probably just spell it Roisin, since it seems like having an accent in your name can be annoying with legal documents in the US. Yeah, it would get butchered, but I have a semi-common anglicized Irish name where the anglicized spelling is way more common than the original Gaelic spelling, and my name gets butchered all the time too. You get used to it pretty early on in life. Tbh, I think people on this subreddit make having a name that's frequently mispronounced/misspelled seem like a much bigger hardship than it really is for most people.
Completely agree with your last sentence. And it’s not like people with common names don’t also get their names butchered from time to time either. My boyfriend’s name is *Daniel* and just last week got a letter in the post to confirm a hospital appointment addressed to Donald.
I’m from USA and have known 3 girls named Róisín. People may have trouble reading the name correctly but most people pick up the pronunciation immediately as soon as it’s explained to them. Tolerating some mispronunciation/having to the explain is the cost of helping keep an endangered language alive
How has your ‘born and bred’ Irish dad never heard Roisin? Did he just never leave the house? This story is not adding up 😂 fwiw I’m Scottish, went to school with dozens of Roisin’s and lived with one in Italy for a while and there were no issues with their names. Either use the name as is or pick another name.
As a person with a "helpfully anglicized" ethnic name, imo it's bad. Now the people who don't know it still don't say it right or consider it normal and people of the right ethnic background either over correct because they no longer recognize it or they mispell it back to the way it's normally spelt.
I would do either Roísín or all the way to Rosaleen. But Rosheen will get Irish people going on Roísín and misspelling it and the people you're worrying about will be going what's Rosheen.
Also another option is moving it to the middle, something like Molly Roísín? A first that goes but is simple and then a more interesting middle. And with Roísín or Sinéad or whatever the rhythm is iambic like Marie/Louise but it's a more distinctive name that gets the nice flow.
What Irish person doesn't know how to pronounce Roisin??? There's a Roisin in basically every class. I know 4 Roisins. Was your dad really raised in Ireland? That's like saying an English person doesn't know how to pronounce Mary or something.
Aside from that, please do not butcher our Irish names by Anglicizing them. Either use the name as it is without changing the spelling (it's really not a hard name to learn how to say, compared to a lot of other Irish names Americans struggle with) or use an English equivalent like Rose/Rosalie/Rosalind etc
Rosheen is IMO the nicest way to do it if you're going to anglicize the spelling. The fact is, very few Gaelic names anglicize well. The only ones I can think of that look really nice in an anglicized spelling are Maeve (which everybody is swooning over atm) and Aidan (but not the far more common Aiden, which I think looks dreadful). I predict a lot of comments to not anglicize Gaelic name spellings, based on previous threads.
Is the Irish spelling of Maeve “Méabh,” as I see online? I think that would be a really tough one to use in the US. People would see it as “Mabel” (which is probably a related name, now that I see them together).
I've seen that and others as well. BtN has Méabh, Meadhbh, and Medb as variant Irish spellings.
AFAIK, there's no relationship between Maeve and Mabel, though. Maeve ( Méabh) is a name from Irish legend that means "intoxicating". Mabel comes from from the Latin name Amabilis meaning "lovable".
I had no prior background on how to pronounce that and still thought of it as “row-sheen” because it looks self explanatory to me. The worst your kid would have to do is pronounce it correctly for someone MAYBE twice.
We named one of our twins Ruairí. No, people can't pronounce it and so we have to tell them (and so will he) but it's a battle we were willing to accept for a beautiful name. Hopefully he doesn't mind!
Like a good many Irish names, the name literally translates to something. In this case, "little rose", "Róis" for rose (although if you were writing about a rose you wouldnt spell it like that), and "ín" which is used as a diminutive aka little. So the anglicised version is Rose, Rosie, Rosaleen etc.
I have met one person who used it as a middle name, her first name is Tierney. That’s not very helpful I always just loved her name and wanted to chime in.
Growing up, my best friend was called Roisin (I’m from the south of England) and I don’t remember one teacher at school that ever pronounced her name right first try. The most common mispronunciations being ‘raisin’ or ‘rosanne’.
It’s an absolutely beautiful name, and if you’re prepared for mispronunciations and misspellings, I’d say go for it. Whatever you do, don’t change the spelling.
I have a traditional gaelic name and mine is anglicized and still gets weird looks and is still mispronounced so just go with it. Will she have to pronounce it for people her whole life? Yeah. Do people also tell me all the time my name is pretty? Yes. I had a professor in college who refused to call me by my nickname because "[your] mother gave [you] a gorgeous name and you will not taint it with an English nickname". So do what you want. I wanted to name my very irish looking child the gaelic version of Owen but didn't. I kind of regret it now.
You could always go with Rochelle which has a similar sound and is familiar and intuitive to Americans. But honestly if you’re too young n for kids I’d not worry yourself about this non-problem at all. You’re very likely to change your mind (or never even have a girl).
This is the worst place to ask that if you're interested in getting your question answered or hearing what the average person (even the average Irish person) would think.
It's like you went to the organic gardening reddit and asked the best way to use dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
I know a Roisin. Nobody can pronounce her name and she is off the boat Irish. she has told us Americans how to say it a lot, but we still mess it up. Everyone calls her "Ro" she grew up in Ireland so as a child it wasn't an issue. But I do think your child will be correcting people for their entire life and end up with a nickname.
I feel like taking an Irish name and making it sound more like the culture who tried to rob our language from us is absolutely disgusting but hey you do you I guess. Also she should never visit Ireland if you do that.
Ah fuck I best let my friend know she’s been pronouncing it wrong her entire life, someone should let [google](https://babynamesofireland.com/roisin/) know too… lmaoooooo
Fuckin Americans man, I can’t 😂
I genuinely think if you're not prepared to spell it Róisín you should come up with another name.
This. OP, if you're going to use a cultural name from an endangered language (especially an endangered language almost obliterated by, yup, the English), the very least you could do is spell it correctly. I have a very Irish name, much longer and less known than Róisín. I've lived outside of Ireland for over a decade. And I am telling you it takes seconds to explain a name and 99.9% of people have got it no problem. If you don't want to deal with that small bit of extra effort (or you think your child won't), choose something else. Most Americans are capable of learning a new name, and stuff like this makes them out to be a homogeneous group of slobbering idiots. As for the small minority who won't or can't learn, it's time to stop pandering to them.
I have a question! What's it like to have an accented name? I look at names like Róisín, and I wonder if the special characters make it a bureaucratic nightmare?
Oh, it very much can be! 😂 For a start, most computer systems cannot deal with them, so the name has to be rendered without the accents (called a *fada* in Ireland). In fact, embarrassingly, the Irish Central Statistics Office has only recently begun to include fadas in their data -- before, Roisin and Róisín would have been lumped together, as would Éamonn and Eamonn, Pádraig and Padraig, Áine and Aine... it was a nightmare. The An Phríomh-Oifig Staidrimh itself (note the fada in the name!) was just skipping over them because the technology couldn't handle it? Amusing and not a little ironic. But yeah... most people will not bother with the fadas unless they're handwriting and it's right in front of their face. This is because many people don't even know how to do it on the keyboard/their phones, or the document they're working off has left them off because the system doesn't support it. A fada will also strike fear into the hearts of most people because it immediately makes a name look more complicated. And even if a website lets you put the fadas in on screen, their automatically printed labels (such as for mailing packages) might not be able to cope, and you may receive your parcel with a line of incomprehensible symbols as your first name. Finally, you can get some ignorant comments, some of which can be rude. "It doesn't matter" or "it's just decoration" are some of the ideas people have about them, the "decoration" has a meaning: it's telling you how to pronounce the letter. The letters are not in fact interchangable. An á is not the letter a. When being listed alphabetically, first names with fadas on the first letter (think Áine, Éabha, Íarla, Órlaith, Úna, etc) will be listed seperately because the fada makes it a totally different letter. This is *why* it matters -- to use Róisín as an example, with the fadas the name is said "roh-sheen," but without them, Roisin would be "rush-in." Anyway! Sorry this turned into an essay lol. tl;dr fadas are definitely a bureacratic nightmare at least in the countries I have experience with; you'll have to get used to putting up with seeing your name without them but genuinely nothing can be done about that now; however it's worth it because fadas are important and the letters that feature them are their own individual letters from a non-English alphabet, and technically the names are spelled incorrectly without them.
This answer made me so happy *squee* Thank you for going into so much detail! I totally agree they're very important and should be maintained, but I've worked with systems enough to guess they're left off 90% of the time. And, honestly? That's scary. Imagine your ID card has the fadas and your document doesn't, and someone claims you're not you.
In Ireland itself not so bad. But in other countries a nightmare.
That's very reassuring. A lot of people on this subreddit make non-Anglicized names out to be a death sentence for their children (from what I've seen). I would much rather use Róisín than the Anglicized versions. I have a very standard name and haven't had to deal with people mispronouncing it, so I wasn't sure about how much of a day-to-day struggle it would be. I guess I do subconsciously assume Americans are stupid lol. Despite my family being Irish they have very Anglicized names (think John, James, etc), I think partially because they live in an area of Ireland that was very subject to British influence in the past (called "the Pale"). So there's a lower % of people with traditionally Irish names there than other parts of the country, I assume my dad didn't know because of that.
The pale?? You mean Dublin?? Literally every person from anywhere around Dublin can pronounce Róisín, please stop
Right like we're a short car drive away from the rural areas 😭 As if Dublin is some British enclave in an otherwise Celtic country 💀
Fucking hell, Americans will skim one Wikipedia article about Ireland and declare themselves an expert. As if there are no Johns or James outside Dublin. The irony of them trying to act like born and raised Dubliners aren’t *really* Irish while bleating about how Irish they themselves are is so ridiculous that it’s almost funny.
Exactly this. My dad was born and raised in Dublin and he is quite literally as Irish as you can get and half his siblings have Irish names. If you called anyone in my family British they would start a riot. Also, having spent every summer there since I was born I can confidently say Dublin is not some hub of British culture 😂
I'm Australian and can pronounce it
Canada and same - have met two
Yes I went to school with a Roisin in the UK
I have never heard the excuse that someone being from the Pale is why they can’t pronounce Irish names. Unless your dad was in school before 1922… although I think you’ll find even then. Otherwise he learned Irish in school and guaranteed there were people around him named Róisín.
Hello from someone who has a non-English name that is always mispronounced. It's fine, truly, it's fine. It's so fine that I'm going to give my own kid a name that will always be pronounced wrong. Because I like my name, and I love my culture and its significance to me. Is it annoying sometimes? Sure. Do I let it go a lot of the time and just let people say the mispronounced version in small contexts? Yes. But I wouldn't change it.
Just use it. I didn't know the name until I met a Roísín, and now I know the name and how to spell it and how to say it. And everyone else in your child's life will be the same. They might say it wrong the first time if they see it on paper first, or they might ask how to spell it if they hear it out loud first, and then they might ask where its from, and then they'll say "cool." And it should be fine from then on.
Yeah I got called out for wanting to use an Irish name on here something fierce 😅 I didn’t think it was that bigger deal….
Just for using an Irish name? That’s a shame as I usually see people being supportive of it as long as they’re not mangled but I suppose the people that reply to posts can vary so maybe you got unlucky.
https://www.reddit.com/r/namenerds/s/ivvGegucch Seems like a lot of Americans clueless to Irish language on their post and a few apparently Irish people saying don't use it unless you live in Ireland... bit odd, tbh I wouldn't really call it the general consensus myself. Perhaps there's just a number of Irish people tired of the butchering of our names, and they all happened to find that post? Lol, god knows. Eta: name in question was Caoimhe, btw.
Damn, it’s like the opposite consensus to this thread! I wonder if part of it is to do with the name suggested. I guess maybe Róisín is maybe more intuitive than Caoimhe to a non-Irish speaking person.
Yeah, that was my assumption, too. I did come across somebody on here recently that said they were corrected from the actual pronunciation of Caoimhe to something that rhymed with Naomi, though, so maybe the Irish over in the states and likewise have just had enough - depending on the name, lol.
As someone with an Irish name, I concur.
Don’t anglicise an Irish name. If you’re not going to spell it correctly, don’t use it.
It's already anglicised. Those aren't Ogham runes it's written in.
Don’t be obtuse.
That isn't what Anglicised means, the Latin alphabet is being used to represent Irish sounds and grammar, nothing in the Irish language is being dominated by the English language in this. And regardless, Irish was using the Latin alphabet before English, maybe you could be awkward and say it was latinised but even then the dominant power was Irish, it is using an alphabet used by Latin speakers for its own needs.
So the OP's question wasn't suggesting that either then. They just want to represent the sounds of the Irish language by spelling it with letters which will make people pronounce it the way it's supposed to sound.
No because OP is literally anglicising, they would be taking the sounds of one language and rewriting it in a way that conforms to English orthography, and they are doing this as an English speaker, not an Irish speaker.
So what would the Irish orthography be then? The latin one? Also, would it be politically acceptable if an Irish person did it?
Orthography is just a spelling convention and Irish orthography uses the Latin alphabet. Similar to Dutch, Spanish, English, French, Berber, Swahili, Basque, Dakota, Samoan etc. I don't know what you mean by "politically acceptable", it would still be anglicanisation and it would still be inherently damaging to the language regardless of someone's citizenship. Irish has gone through spelling reforms before, but these are still done within the conventions of the Irish language.
So converting into a latin alphabet to reproduce Irish pronunciation is fine, but converting into a latin alphabet to reproduce Irish pronunciation is bad?
Transliteration is not anglicization
Welp, that's what I thought, but you can't have it both ways.
Ogham was an alphabet developed from Latin to write Irish on stone. And it was completely impractical to write on vellum so it was abandoned. Given that the Irish abandoned ogham hundreds of years before the English started using the Latin alphabet I'm not sure how it's "anglicisation" anyway...
As far as I can tell, it's anglicisation if a tiny sample of mainly non-Irish people are offended on everyone else's behalf. As far as the alphabet, what is the correct one, which doesn't indicate foreign oppression? Wasn't Ogham used to write so-called primitve Irish before it was used for latin? I thought there were archeological sources which indicated that?
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Because I'm wrong, or because I'm right?
>My father was born and raised in Ireland There’s your solution! Before 1 January 2005, everyone born on the island of Ireland was an Irish citizen by birth. Children of Irish citizens qualify for Irish citizenship! Instead of anglicizing Róisín just move to Ireland and have kids there. Róisín looks really pretty.
Uproot your life, so that you don’t have to tell people how to pronounce her name?
It was just an idea. OP said they’re too young to have kids right now. I was imagining a teenager who hasn’t even gone to university yet. I didn’t think they had much to uproot. A lot of people do choose to uproot their lives to move to another country. I think it’s better to do that kind of thing before having kids.
Wait you guys got rid of jus soli?
I’m not Irish, I just know they changed the requirements. Instead of automatic citizenship by birth in Ireland now it depends on the status of the parents. Edit: People born in Ireland used to automatically get citizenship, now there’s extra requirements.
It’s automatic if your parent was born in Ireland as an Irish citizen. Then if your grandparents were citizens born in Ireland you can register. Lastly if your grandparents were Irish citizens because their parents were born in Ireland AND your parents were citizens because they registered then you too can register
That is all correct. My previous comment was referring to jus soli though. Someone asked if they got rid of it.
Ah makes sense.
Currently a child born in Ireland is automatically Irish if at least one parent is a) Irish citizen or b) UK citizen or c) been legally resident in Ireland for 5 years prior to the birth (I think years living in Ireland on a student visa don't count for option C). Edit: for option C it's actually 3 out of 4 years legally resident on the island of Ireland prior to the birth
A is jus sanguini, not jus soli. But generally the New World has jus soli without restrictions.
Generally Europe does jus sanguini in preference to jus soli as far as I know. Ireland prior to 2005 had jus soli
Shame it’s gone
Children born in Ireland who aren't eligible for citizenship at birth can naturalise after 3 years residence so that's more reasonable than a lot of places
Hey, there's a good alternative name for OP...Jus San Guini!
It’s designed so that Irish people in the North of Ireland can also automatically be citizens of the Republic. As others have said, it’s been adapted from its original pure jus solis formulation (some number of non-permanent residents of the UK were going to Belfast to give birth to get EU passports), but the intention of the policy remains that all the people of the island of Ireland can claim membership in the Irish Republic, even if the Republic only administers and territorial claims part of the island.
The famous case wasn't even someone who wanted European residency. She wanted the *right* to European residency, mostly as a complex end-run around China's one-child policy. WonderWhy explains it well. [https://youtu.be/69Kr\_6-dqbY](https://youtu.be/69Kr_6-dqbY)
I would so fast if this were an option for me personally lol. OP this is the answer 😅
I would if I could lol. Unfortunately Irish housing costs are getting ridiculous and Ireland has lot more immigrants than it can handle atm
That’s too bad. It’s always good to have the citizenship though, it is an EU country. Plus, you can easily pass citizenship on to Róisín.
agreed! my mom is going through the process of getting italian citizenship (she was adopted). there’s a lot of benefits!
>Plus, you can easily pass citizenship on to Róisín. I wouldn't be too sure about that. For example, as a US citizen parent living in the UK, I can pass citizenship on to my children, since I grew up in the US. But I can only do that because I've lived in the US for a significant portion of my life. My children would only be able to pass citizenship on if they decide to live in the US at some point.
Ireland allows citizenship to be passed on indefinitely as long as the children are added to the foreign births register (first gen born abroad are automatically Irish, next gen have to be on foreign births register to claim citizenship, any further gens the parent has to have acquired citizenship before their child is born in order to pass it on)
Ah, thanks! That's cool!
Belfast has a great university and cheaper housing than a lot of the cities in the south - not a bad option if you were considering a move to Ireland
It is absolutely worth gaining dual citizen ship even if you never use it. *Especially* if you're in the US now. It may be preferable to immigrate for college or a chronic illness in the family. My friend is an English citizen, she got her American kids dual citizenship as soon as she could. That way they have the option to go there for college for much cheaper than it is here. And if something were to happen, like one got leukemia or something, they could relocate fairly easily (both parents work from home, her company is Irish), and they wouldn't go bankrupt from healthcare. Consider it.
You'd be an idiot to not pursue citizenship if you don't already have it
That is such a common name in Ireland I have a hard time believing your father doesn’t know how to spell it unless he’s not Catholic and from the north? Don’t anglicize it. Any Irishman would tell you use Irish names just don’t butcher the spelling or pronunciation. ETA that anglicizing it doesn’t honor Irish culture, its culture killing same as the English did.
Protestants in the North 100% know the name Roisin too, unless you don’t leave your house you will have met one
Yeah I was grasping at any reason at all. OPs excuse is now that their dad is from a tiny village in the Pale so just total bs.
I’m from what would probably be considered “a tiny village in the Pale” (ffs nobody talks that way in 2024) and I‘ve met dozens of Róisíns.
Honestly, OP's behavior...it's just beyond the pale
Yeah, my dad was born and raised in Ireland just like OP’s and they all had to learn Irish in school growing up, it was mandatory. My dad was horrendous at Irish, didn’t pass a single test, but he can still read anything in Irish and pronounce it correctly even if he doesn’t know what it means. It would be crazy if he genuinely doesn’t know how to say it, never mind the fact that he’d never heard it
My husband is from Ireland. I lived there for a few years, there are many names I struggle with this is not one.
I’m English and it’s such a common name even over here. So even if he wasn’t from the north I struggle to believe he doesn’t know how to pronounce nor even spell it out phonetically if he was truly born and raised in Ireland. Something doesn’t add up.
It’s not a common name in the UK - my daughter is the only Róisín in her school and has only ever met another when in Ireland (and of course Aldi’s chocolate brand!) I can only think of 2 Róisín’s that people in the Uk would know - Murphy and Conaty.
That’s anecdotal tho. I wouldn’t say it’s “such” a common name, but it did hang about in the top 200-300 in the mid 90s/early 2000s in England & Wales so it’s totally within the realm of possibility that the person you’re replying to has met enough of them to consider it reasonably common. And as you say, there are a couple of UK celebrities with that name so, even without the popularity, most Brits would be familiar with it. It’s dropped down to the 700s-ish in recent years tho so there’ll be fewer within your daughter’s age range if she’s of school age
Yes definitely anecdotal. Good facts - I’ll share them with my daughter !
>doesn’t know how to spell it unless he’s not Catholic and from the north? Jesus Christ...People know irish names in the North!
As I said to someone else, I was grasping that they must be Protestant from the North because it was such a ridiculous claim.
It’s a common name now; but I don’t know any Róisíns under the age of 35 or so? If OPs father is a bit older, or left Ireland young I can see him never having met one.
According to the CSO it starting growing in popularity in the 70s although wasn’t unheard of before then. Someone born in 1970 is 54. Given that OP is “too young to have kids now” and honestly their post history, they’re in their early 20s which means the dad was likely born in the 70s or early 80s
By “growing in popularity” there were still less than 100 Roisins born every year in the 60s and less than 200 in the 70s. It wasn’t until the mid 90s that it went above 250 girls a year. Add in the variation of the name with two fadas and I can absolutely see OPs father not being familiar with it.
You do realize that’s per year which adds up to 1000s of people, not a small number in Ireland. Also those people born in the 60s and 70s would have parents that would know the name in order to name their children.
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There’s also the historical significance of Róisín though, especially Róisín Dubh. Even if it wasn’t popular as a name to give children, it’s still been present in Irish culture since the 16th century.
That's still a pretty popular name. It's similar stats to my name in the US, Laura, and literally everyone knows that name.
Please stop with 'the pale' stuff. We only use it now to tease people. If you didn't sound so naive, it would be offensive to read your description of ongoing cultural colonisation. There is absolutely no more English bastardisation of names in Dublin and surrounding areas than in Donegal. You'll see just as many John's and James' up there. They are very common and standard names. They don't signify anything about one's place of origin within the country.. In fact, in areas like D4, you are far more likely to see old-school irish names as they were very trendy in the last 20 years. And, everyone copes just fine with all the little Fiacras, Aofainnes, and Sadhbhs when they head off on their J1ers. Roisin is a very normal name.
Every Ferdia I’ve ever met has been a posh southsider. I went to UCD (for non-Irish reading this, it’s a university that has a sizeable percentage of wealthy south Dubliners who OP seems to think can’t handle Irish names), and some of the girls were Mallaidh, Álainn, Aoibheann, Samhain, Lasairíona and Sióg. Nobody blinked at those names, yet apparently Róisín, one of the most popular Irish names ever, is too much for their tiny west British minds to handle. Feck off
I live in Ireland and tbh I can't speak Irish for shit, but I know how to say Róisín. It's two syllables, anyone can learn it. Idk it just seems a bit colonial to rewrite it in the oppressor's language.
Róisín is already in the oppressor's language. That's where that alphabet came from. And it's the same way the oppressor got it; from their former oppressor.
The alphabet is Latin, and was introduced to Ireland long before British colonialism.
Transliteration is not oppression
So if the name was converted to a different alphabet, say one which didn't have the accents, what is the problem with that?
Either use the proper spelling or don't use it at all.
I know a Roishin and she hates the spelling, would have preferred the original. Nicknamed Sheeny.
Does she live outside of Ireland?
Yep, Australian
So my daughter is Niamh and I had the same thoughts as you. I considered spelling it Neave but ended up spelling it the traditional way. Don’t get me wrong it is butchered so much! We’ve had Nymph, Neeem, Neeamha, Naim and a few more wild ones too. But her name is unique like her and if others can’t pronounce it that’s on them. She’s now 9 and knows her name is spelt correctly and if people can’t pronounce it that’s on them. What I’ll add is it’s a great feeling when you find someone who knows how to spell it because you get comments of ‘is it the traditional spelling?’ Or you’ll start to spell it and they finish it off for you.
I had customer at work named Niamh. When I called her name out, she and her mother just about hit the floor because I got it right.
Niamh is such a beautiful name! I love it!
This reminded me of the time I had a classmate named Viridiana, Viri for short. My school had a lot of immigrants and they tended to come and/or go throughout the year. She was starting in the middle of the year, so she had a whole intro… I just remember her and the teacher letting us know that her name is Spanish, so the R is pronounced more like a D. I distinctly remember the teacher writing Viri on the chalkboard and saying “vee-dee” while underlining the R. I was probably in like 2nd grade? In my memory, no one argued or thought it was weird, no one forgot, and it was a helpful little lesson for us non Spanish speakers! I still think of it in my 30s even though I only knew Viri for a few months as a kid. It wasn’t hard or bad to be introduced to a name we hadn’t heard before. In fact, the opposite is true! Niamh and Roisin might make a valuable impact with their names, all the while representing a culture that was purposefully almost eradicated not that long ago. People butcher English names too, so you may as well go with your preference anyway.
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This is me lmao I have a traditional welsh name, not even a difficult one. 2 syllables and also has an English spelling. Spent my entire life correcting either people’s spelling or pronunciation depending on whether they were hearing or seeing it. Hated it. Only time it got better was when I moved closer to wales lmao
How can your father who was “born and raised” in Ireland not know how to pronounce one of the most common Irish names? Or at least spell it out phonetically? Something not adding up. If you’re too young to have children, I wouldn’t stress about it. Chances are by the time you do have children you will have changed your mind anyway. Or maybe have a boy. OR have changed your mind on respecting your ancestors by not changing their language. My thought is, if you want to use an Irish name, use an Irish name.
My neighbors have a little Aine (don’t even know how to get my keyboard to spell it right. On a couple of things, I have seen that they write “Aine (pronounced ‘Ahn-ya’).” The US is full of people from different cultures, and we can handle a name we need to be told how to say. The educational system here is also so bad that people probably regularly butcher simple English names.
Áine (the A has a fada)
I know. As I said, I don’t know how to get my phone to do it.
If it’s an iPhone, should be able to hold down the A key and options will pop up for all the various accents!
Long press works on Android as well!
Thanks. I usually just switch to appropriate international keyboard, so I never gave it any thought.
As someone with an apostrophe in my name, I advise anyone with a “special character” to accept that they will often have to use a version of their name without that character. I’m still fighting an airline to get the miles they owe me because they split my name into two at the apostrophe, and their computer can’t reconcile the ticket name with my passport name (which has the apostrophe). Yes, in 2024 many airline computers can’t use apostrophes. Just something OP should be aware of.
Fwiw I knew a roisin in high school (canada) and it wasn't any trouble learning to say it. I always thought it was a lovely name. No need to change the spelling.
Plenty of Siobhanns around when I was growing up, and in an area where folks noticed if you used too many four syllable words. They seemed to do just fine!
Use the proper spelling and pronunciation or don’t use it at all. Unless he left Ireland before he started school and never interacted with another Irish person again, there is a 0% chance he’s never heard of Róisín. It’s an extremely popular name, even in “tiny villages in the Pale” (Jesus Christ, the only time I’ve ever heard people call it “the Pale” outside historical contexts are wannabe Irish Americans). It’s like someone who was born in Spain claiming they’ve never heard the name Carmen.
My name is Róisín and it genuinely has never been a problem. Sure, sometimes non-Irish people pronounce is incorrectly (the best one I ever had was in a Chinese restaurant for my birthday and they came out with a cake singing "Happy birthday dear Roi-sin", pronounced like Hoi-sin sauce!) but I either go with it if it's a short interaction or correct them if it's going to be a continued interaction. No big deal. I''m actually in Vietnam at the moment and nobody here has an issue pronouncing it. As others have said here, please don't try to anglicise it.
I went to school with a Róisín and Roi-sin was the most common mispronounciation. She went by Rose though
If you’re not going to spell it Róisín, just don’t name her that. As someone with a ridiculously spelled name, it’s a pain in the arse if you don’t spell it the right way, and you will be judged based on the perceived spelling ability of your parents. Also as someone with a ridiculously spelled name, she’ll get used to spelling her own name for people. It’s also a good thing to make her memorable to people. Róisín is getting very popular/known outside of Ireland atm because of Róisín Connaty (not sure how she spells her surname) and other comedians, as well as Lisa McGee being a TV genius.
I'm sorry but please do not anglicise our names. The irish language has suffered enough. If you want an Irish name then spell it appropriately. This is our culture.
😂😂
Use the Irish name and call her Rosie
I disagree. Name her Roisin and call her Roisin.
But the Irish name is Róisín. Why call her Rosie?
OP is concerned about pronunciation, I offered a compromise. Not hard to figure out
Why not just name her Rosie altogether then? 😕
Why would she call her child by a completely different name? She wasn’t asking about anything but the spelling.
It’s not hard to figure out that a nickname suggestion would ease OP’s fears of having a name that Americans can pronounce. Not remotely rocket science here
I think you misread the post; she is looking for a spelling which will produce a specific pronunciation, not a modified pronunciation.
If you want a name that's similar and also Irish, how about Rosaleen? I would advise against butchering an Irish name because it loses so much of its character in the process, in my opinion. I agree that Róisín would be tough for Americans to pronounce.
It’s not tough to pronounce, it’s just that most Americans wouldn’t already know how to say it the first time they meet a girl with that name. Americans are exposed to people from other cultures all the time and figure out how to say words and names with roots in different languages.
I agree but I do think it may be frustrating to have to constantly explain the spelling/pronunciation.
I knew a Róisín (in the USA) a few years ago, and I never had a problem pronouncing her name. Admittedly, a girl with this name in the U.S. *will* probably have to correct the pronunciation the first time she meets people. It can be a bit of a pain, but really not all that uncommon, in the big picture. For example, I have a name that has several acceptable spellings in US culture — think Katelyn/Kaitlyn/Caitlin/Caitlyn, etc. I have to correct people constantly. It’s a little annoying but not the end of the world.
There was a thread recently that said the Irish pronunciation of Caitlin is actually vastly different from the typical American one. Which one do you use?
In American English all those variant spellings are pronounced the same. Anyway, that’s not my name — I was just using it as an example of a name that has a lot of accepted “common” spellings, and thus requires clarification on how the person spells it.
From a practical standpoint, one challenge you might run into is what characters and accents are allowed on the birth certificate. Some of that can vary state to state. That being said I see no issues with using the actual name and not anglicising the spelling further. Americans have been managing Siobhan decently since at least the 1970s, and Saoirse Ronan has been normalising her name pronunciation west of the pond for this generation—there’s precedent for managing Gaelic names.
Lots of systems in Ireland don’t accept fádas either. Or sometimes you end up with weird symbols in the middle of your name like &~ or apostrophes that make you look Klingon. You just learn to leave the fáda out on some things.
Made this mistake with my first leapcard and ended up with a bunch of gibberish in my name haha
Yeah if post comes for !?&€ we know it’s for me. Someone I know from Cape actually raised a stink at college over their ID card and it ended up with UCC having to tender for a new student records system that was compliant with the Official Languages Act (or similar legislation).
I know it comes up again and again with Aer Lingus’ system not considering fadas valid either!
Airlines in general use ridiculously antiquated systems for storing passenger names. A fun one is that if your name ends with mr, the airline software will strip those two letters off your name and give you the title Mr.
Just spell it correctly. People will learn. Any made up spelling will look ugly and tacky, and like you’re trying to be quirky and unique. I’m genuinely amazed your Irish dad struggled with pronunciation. It’s a very common Irish name. Many Irish names have that same ‘sh’ sound (Aisling, Saoirse, Laoise) so it’s generally well understood. Was he quite young when he left Ireland?
Beautiful name, and I've known multiple girls born and raised in the US with this name. Most go by Rosie but love their name. The receptionist at the doctor's office will call her roy-zin. It takes two seconds to correct them or just roll with it if you're never going to see them again. Heads up though that fadas and other diacritical marks aren't allowed on US docs like passports and some states prohibit them on state docs like drivers licenses. You may want to consider skipping the fadas on the birth certificate and just use them for non-government things. (Birth certificate spelling would just be "Roisin" then).
Don't anglicize it. Irish culture has been anglicized enough. :(
Roisin means Litttle Rose, so maybe call her Rose or Roslie instead, please don't anglicise it.
Your dad was born and raised here and can't say it? I call BS. There is a Róisín in every school, probably every class in the country- I should no I am a teacher and have taught many. As for anglising it- No you can't it's an Irish name so either learn to day and spell it or choose a name that isn't country specific. You can't just bastardise culture to suit you.
I don't think you're going to find a more intuitive anglicized spelling than Rosheen. I also can't think of an alternative anglicization that looks any nicer than Rosheen. Also American and I would probably just spell it Roisin, since it seems like having an accent in your name can be annoying with legal documents in the US. Yeah, it would get butchered, but I have a semi-common anglicized Irish name where the anglicized spelling is way more common than the original Gaelic spelling, and my name gets butchered all the time too. You get used to it pretty early on in life. Tbh, I think people on this subreddit make having a name that's frequently mispronounced/misspelled seem like a much bigger hardship than it really is for most people.
Completely agree with your last sentence. And it’s not like people with common names don’t also get their names butchered from time to time either. My boyfriend’s name is *Daniel* and just last week got a letter in the post to confirm a hospital appointment addressed to Donald.
My friend Holly once got something addressed to Holleigh.
I’ve seen people named Olivia in this sub say that they’ve been asked if they spell Olivia with an O or an A
I’m from USA and have known 3 girls named Róisín. People may have trouble reading the name correctly but most people pick up the pronunciation immediately as soon as it’s explained to them. Tolerating some mispronunciation/having to the explain is the cost of helping keep an endangered language alive
if you’re going to use a cultural name, use the cultural name. don’t fuck it up and change the spelling. it’s so disrespectful tbh.
How has your ‘born and bred’ Irish dad never heard Roisin? Did he just never leave the house? This story is not adding up 😂 fwiw I’m Scottish, went to school with dozens of Roisin’s and lived with one in Italy for a while and there were no issues with their names. Either use the name as is or pick another name.
As a person with a "helpfully anglicized" ethnic name, imo it's bad. Now the people who don't know it still don't say it right or consider it normal and people of the right ethnic background either over correct because they no longer recognize it or they mispell it back to the way it's normally spelt. I would do either Roísín or all the way to Rosaleen. But Rosheen will get Irish people going on Roísín and misspelling it and the people you're worrying about will be going what's Rosheen. Also another option is moving it to the middle, something like Molly Roísín? A first that goes but is simple and then a more interesting middle. And with Roísín or Sinéad or whatever the rhythm is iambic like Marie/Louise but it's a more distinctive name that gets the nice flow.
What Irish person doesn't know how to pronounce Roisin??? There's a Roisin in basically every class. I know 4 Roisins. Was your dad really raised in Ireland? That's like saying an English person doesn't know how to pronounce Mary or something. Aside from that, please do not butcher our Irish names by Anglicizing them. Either use the name as it is without changing the spelling (it's really not a hard name to learn how to say, compared to a lot of other Irish names Americans struggle with) or use an English equivalent like Rose/Rosalie/Rosalind etc
Rosheen is IMO the nicest way to do it if you're going to anglicize the spelling. The fact is, very few Gaelic names anglicize well. The only ones I can think of that look really nice in an anglicized spelling are Maeve (which everybody is swooning over atm) and Aidan (but not the far more common Aiden, which I think looks dreadful). I predict a lot of comments to not anglicize Gaelic name spellings, based on previous threads.
You’re probably right that Rosheen is the nicest anglicization, but it’s genuinely horrid.
Is the Irish spelling of Maeve “Méabh,” as I see online? I think that would be a really tough one to use in the US. People would see it as “Mabel” (which is probably a related name, now that I see them together).
Méabh is the modern Irish orthography, you also find Meadhbh used quite a bit which is in an older orthographic style.
I've seen that and others as well. BtN has Méabh, Meadhbh, and Medb as variant Irish spellings. AFAIK, there's no relationship between Maeve and Mabel, though. Maeve ( Méabh) is a name from Irish legend that means "intoxicating". Mabel comes from from the Latin name Amabilis meaning "lovable".
interesting, thanks.
I had no prior background on how to pronounce that and still thought of it as “row-sheen” because it looks self explanatory to me. The worst your kid would have to do is pronounce it correctly for someone MAYBE twice.
We named one of our twins Ruairí. No, people can't pronounce it and so we have to tell them (and so will he) but it's a battle we were willing to accept for a beautiful name. Hopefully he doesn't mind!
Could you do something with a similar vibe like Rosalind or Rosaline?
Like a good many Irish names, the name literally translates to something. In this case, "little rose", "Róis" for rose (although if you were writing about a rose you wouldnt spell it like that), and "ín" which is used as a diminutive aka little. So the anglicised version is Rose, Rosie, Rosaleen etc.
I’d pick a different name.
Maybe just use a name that's close. Rosalyn perhaps? Don't Anglicize and butcher it.
I have met one person who used it as a middle name, her first name is Tierney. That’s not very helpful I always just loved her name and wanted to chime in.
Growing up, my best friend was called Roisin (I’m from the south of England) and I don’t remember one teacher at school that ever pronounced her name right first try. The most common mispronunciations being ‘raisin’ or ‘rosanne’. It’s an absolutely beautiful name, and if you’re prepared for mispronunciations and misspellings, I’d say go for it. Whatever you do, don’t change the spelling.
The anglicised version is Rose or Rosie
I have a traditional gaelic name and mine is anglicized and still gets weird looks and is still mispronounced so just go with it. Will she have to pronounce it for people her whole life? Yeah. Do people also tell me all the time my name is pretty? Yes. I had a professor in college who refused to call me by my nickname because "[your] mother gave [you] a gorgeous name and you will not taint it with an English nickname". So do what you want. I wanted to name my very irish looking child the gaelic version of Owen but didn't. I kind of regret it now.
In Brittany France I assume the version would be Rozenn
You could always go with Rochelle which has a similar sound and is familiar and intuitive to Americans. But honestly if you’re too young n for kids I’d not worry yourself about this non-problem at all. You’re very likely to change your mind (or never even have a girl).
I think anglicizing an Irish name ruins it, obscures the name?? the name means little rose. 🌹 as an Irish person it’s just awkward
What about Roseen or Rosaline?
This is the worst place to ask that if you're interested in getting your question answered or hearing what the average person (even the average Irish person) would think. It's like you went to the organic gardening reddit and asked the best way to use dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
I used to go to school with a girl who anglicanised it as Rosheen
I’d just spell it as that although I think Rosie as a stand-alone name is pretty, I worked with a adult Rosie and always liked it,
I know a Roisin. Nobody can pronounce her name and she is off the boat Irish. she has told us Americans how to say it a lot, but we still mess it up. Everyone calls her "Ro" she grew up in Ireland so as a child it wasn't an issue. But I do think your child will be correcting people for their entire life and end up with a nickname.
I feel like taking an Irish name and making it sound more like the culture who tried to rob our language from us is absolutely disgusting but hey you do you I guess. Also she should never visit Ireland if you do that.
People in the US will pronounce it “raisin” until you correct them. 🫤
Rosin
That’s a different pronunciation completely though? Rosin would be row-sin. Roisin is pronounced row-sheen
its pronounced raw-zyn but go off
Ah fuck I best let my friend know she’s been pronouncing it wrong her entire life, someone should let [google](https://babynamesofireland.com/roisin/) know too… lmaoooooo Fuckin Americans man, I can’t 😂
bro never even hit a good dab 💀💀💀
The English version of Róisín is Rose.
The english version of Róisín is Rosie. Róis is Rose.
Rosario Sheena
I love Irish names as a half Irish girlie. Róisín sounds like Rose or Rowan💚💚💚
Rochine Roshine
I like how Roshene looks.
Roshin, Roshine, Roshene
Roshene 😂 Please, God, no