The attempts here to phonetically reproduce the Irish sounds using English spelling are just that — attempts. St. Patrick’s Day is coming, and soon everything will be dyed green, and everything you touch will turn to gold. Having a hard-to-pronounce Irish name is no picnic here a blogger called Bláthnaid explores the difficulties, questions, and humorous moments that arise when you have a name … By Olga Gorchichko/shutterstock. Comedian Gary Lyons sheds some light on the difficulty faced by those who aren't brought up with names like Siobhán, Ruaidhri and Caoimhe. However, Irish is a language all its own, and many names are very difficult to pronounce for foreigners—names like Toirdhealbhach, Maelshechlainn, and Fionnbharr, for example. Eve-een is how you say it but for the love of god don't spell it that way. When the British took over Ireland, they spelled out names phonetically, and thus the three names above became Turlough, Malachy and Finbar. Thanks Irish roommate. — Jordan Young (@jordany) January 31, 2016 Source: Jordan Young/Twitter Irish names are notoriously difficult to pronounce so here are the ten hardest to prounce Irish first names, ranked. Irish Baby Names List, Some Maybe Notoriously Hard To Pronounce. Also Read: 19 Irish Names That Only Old Men Have Now Add us on Snapchat: @collegetimesct What is Irish Gaelic? Irish names can be hard to pronounce for non-native speakers, but once you learn that combinations of letters make different sounds, it's really simple. TIL: Youghal is pronounced like "y'all" or "yawl". Nothing looks like it sounds in Irish. by Julie Nealon | February 21, 2019. They do bring the pronunciations much closer to the true pronunciations and for me, I simply appreciate that some people are interested enough to want to pronounce Irish names as correctly as they can. People may guess “sy-en” or even “Shawn” … but this Irish name is pronounced like Ian with a hard C: KEE-an. When two or three vowels are joined, they create a different sound. Irish Gaelic is Ireland’s native language. Against all common sense from an English language perspective – this name is pronounced ‘SHIV-on’. It's pronounced Loor-ken. One of our own decided to pronounce Irish names like they're spelled and the results were hilarious. When asked what Irish first names they find the most difficult to pronounce, most non-Irish people will bring up the name Siobhan, and to be fair, some Irish people will too. That’s why we’ve included pronunciation, both here and on our Irish Names for Your Baby Main Page. Because Irish spelling differs from English, however, sometimes parents need a little help learning to pronounce them. 21. Aoibheann. Kian is the English version of the Gaelic name Cian (meaning "ancient") and it's extremely confusing to pronounce for those of us who aren't Irish. 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