A mum-to-be has admitted that her husband has been calling their unborn child a traditional Irish name but she is hesitant to actually use it because of how it will likely be pronounced.
The 27-year-old woman and her 28-year-old husband were delighted to find out that they were expecting a baby girl after hoping to become parents. Ever since they began trying to conceive, the woman’s husband, who is ‘second-generation Irish’ in the US, had been using a ‘joke placeholder’ for the name.
The name is Siobhán, a very common and well-known name here in Ireland but far more unique in the US. She admits that her husband loves the name because it is ‘traditional Irish’ and while the mum-to-be also likes it, she doesn’t want to choose it for their daughter because they are ‘both born and raised in the US, and the US is known to be kinda garbage at pronouncing traditional Irish names’.
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‘I do not want to send my daughter to 12+ years of public education and have teachers, substitutes, and fellow students unable to say her name right on the first try,’ she told Reddit.
The mum-to-be has her own experience of having a ‘unique’ name and hated it, so doesn’t want to do the same with her daughter.
The problem is that everyone else in their lives thinks that they should go with the moniker and her family have even gone so far as to try and get it embroidered on a blanket. ‘I’ve told everyone that it’s not what I want to go with, but it’s like talking to a brick wall!’
She said that while her husband has stopped using the name Siobhán because of how she feels about it, other people in her life are still insistent and, in some cases, annoyed with her for not being able to choose a name yet.
‘I still can’t make up my mind on what I ACTUALLY want to name my daughter and I’m just a mess. I’m pregnant, my head hurts, and…I don’t know. Am I just making a big deal over nothing? Should I just name the baby Siobhán and get it over with or is this worth putting my foot down on?’ she asked Reddit users.
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One person told the writer that she shouldn’t have told people any name they were considering, as you can’t stop the comments. ‘This is why you don’t discuss baby names with anyone who isn’t the mother/father of the baby until after the baby has been named. I had zero people commenting on my kids’ names. It was fabulous.’
‘Let everyone who keeps using the name know that unless the teasing stops, you will not be sharing any more pregnancy updates, or birth updates. That should shut that sh*t down,’ someone else advised.
A third added: ‘Naming babies is a two yes answer. Yours and your husband. You need to call this child this name for the rest of your life. It should be a name you like.’
Others agreed that while both the mum and dad should be happy with their daughter’s name, Siobhán isn’t actually as uncommon or hard to pronounce as she might think, thanks, largely, to the show Succession.
‘I knew right away what the name was and how to pronounce it. It may not be as uncommon as you think it is,’ one reader said while a teacher chimed in with: ‘ teacher here and Siobhan is not a difficult name in my area. I have an Oonagh and an Aoife in my class, and have known a Ceilidh.’
