A recent study revealed that four popular Irish girl names are among the top ten hardest to pronounce names among British people.
Four Irish names have been ranked among the most mispronounced by British people, according to a study from online casino operator Slotbox.
Coming from the Gaelic language, Irish names are notoriously mispronounced by those whose first language is English. So, it’s unsurprising that these four Irish names have been ranked in the top ten hardest to pronounce names among British people.
Ranking alongside popular foods, capital cities, and Asian names, the Irish names proved notoriously complicated for Brits.
The most mispronounced names – popular names across the Emerald Isle
According to Slotbox, Aoife, Saoirse, Niamh, and Siobhan are the four Irish names that ranked among the most mispronounced by British people.
Pronounced ee-fa, sur-sha, neev, and shiv-awn, these Irish names can’t be phonetically sounded out, according to the English alphabet.
Aoife and Saoirse came in the top two spots, with Niamh and Siobhan ranking down the list. So, good luck if you have one of these Irish names living in the UK.
Analysing Google search data – revealing the hardest to pronounce names
According to The Times, the name Aoife over 111,000 Google searches were completed on how to pronounce it throughout 2022. This was more than any other word searched in Britain.
It wasn’t just Irish girl names that made the list. The findings also revealed Brits struggled with the correct pronunciation of Covid-19 variant, Omicron – pronounced ‘om-me-kron’ – which ranked third.
Ukrainian capital Kyiv, pronounced ‘keev’, ranked fourth, followed by the Brazilian superfood, acaí ‘ah-sah-ee’.
Meanwhile, the popular Greek food gyros, pronounced ‘yeer-ohs’, and the Vietnamese surname Nguyen, pronounced ‘win’, also ranked. Meanwhile, the word schedule, pronounced ‘shed-yool’, took the final spot in the top ten.
