An Irish Youtuber has created a video to help overseas family and friends pronounce Irish girls’ names.
Although Irish people speak English, many Irish names have spellings which are almost impossible for English speaking people to understand.
YouTube star Wolfe Momma produced her video to not only help people from other English-speaking countries pronounce these names – but also explain what the names mean and provide interesting facts about the history of the names.
For example, the first name Wolfe Momma spoke about was Caoimhe, which is, of course, pronounced ‘Cwee-va’ – but also sometimes ‘Kee-va’.
Wolfe Momma tells us that Caoimhe means ‘gentle, beautiful and precious’.
Another name that come under the microscope is ‘Aoife’ which is pronounced ‘E-Fa’ and means ‘beauty’.
Wolfe Momma says that Aoife was the name of an Irish warrior princess.
Some of the names mentioned in the video may be fairly well known thanks to famous Irish women whose celebrity has made people across the world familiar with the pronunciation of their name.
For example, the name Sinéad, which was made famous by singer Sinéad O’Connor. It is pronounced ‘Shin-ade’ and is the Irish version of the name ‘Jane’ and means ‘God is gracious’.
Another name that has become well known over recent years is Saoirse, thanks to acting sensation Saoirse Ronan.
The name is pronounced ‘Sier-sha’ and means freedom and liberty.
Wolfe Momma talks us through several other Irish names including Niamh, Róisín, Oonagh, Orfhlaith, Maeve, Dearbhla, Sadhbh, Blathnaid, Grainne, Mairéad and Siobhan.
So if you want to know how to pronounce some of these beautiful Irish names and learn a bit more about what they mean, take a look at the video below.
Click here for Irish boys’ name
Pronunciations of Irish girls’ names
Aoife – ‘E-Fa’
Blathnaid – ‘Blaw-nid’
Caoimhe – ‘Cwee-va’ or ‘Kee-va’
Dearbhla – ‘Derv-la’ or ‘Deer-vla’
Grainne – ‘Graw-nya’
Maeve – ‘May-v’
Mairéad – ‘Ma-raid’
Niamh – ‘Neeve’ or ‘Nee-iv’
Orfhlaith – ‘Or-la’
Oonagh – ‘Oo-na’
Róisín – ‘Row-sheen’
Sadhbh – ‘Sive’
Saoirse – ‘Sier-sha’
Sinéad – ‘Shin-ade’
Siobhan – ‘Shi-von’
Written by Michael Kehoe @michaelcalling