We are expecting our first girl after two boys and are sticking with Irish/Gaelic names however we live in the United States. We both love the name [name_f]Sorcha[/name_f] but when you speak to someone in [name_f]Ireland[/name_f] they more often then not pronounce it more like Surk-ha and that is the pronunciation we prefer.
We both (my husband slightly more than me) want the name to be easily pronounced as we have had issues with our son’s name [name_m]Tighe[/name_m], which is pronounced like [name_m]Tiger[/name_m] without the “r” (In [name_f]Ireland[/name_f] spelled- [name_m]Tadhg[/name_m])
I also want the name to look nice when spelled. The spelling we have come up with is Sirca but I am just not convinced. Is it too different from the true/traditional spelling? Is it weird that it looks like Circa? Any other spelling ideas?
Does anyone have personal experience with the name [name_f]Sorcha[/name_f] that they want to share?
We have a couple other names we like so this is not our only option but we have liked this name for several years now.
Well I don’t know that much about Irish names but personally I’d rather stick with [name_f]Sorcha[/name_f] (yes, there will be pronunciation issue, but imo, so be it). Sirca looks weird to me and it does make me think of circa, sorry.
[name_f]Sorcha[/name_f] was actually my given name. I changed it as an adult, not because of anything to do with the name itself, but because I became estranged from my family. It is a very, very uncommon name in the US, although not all that uncommon in [name_f]Ireland[/name_f]. I pronounced it SOR-kuh but strangers would usually read it as either SOR-shuh or SOR-chuh. The Irish pronunciation I’ve heard is more like SOR-uh-kuh, I’ve never heard SURK-ha. Of course, there are many different dialects of Irish with wildly different pronunciation styles.
Correcting folks on the pronunciation of my name was very frustrating for me growing up, and I was self-conscious about having a “weird” or “difficult” name. I also had a lisp, and people would often think I was saying Thorka, no matter how many times I repeated my name. This definitely soured me on the name, but I also got compliments on it pretty frequently. It’s a nice name, but perhaps not nice enough to make up for the difficulty of pronunciation. It’s up to you, but I will say that when I ultimately changed my name, I made sure to pick something recognizable and easy to pronounce.
I think Sirca is a nice spelling to get to the pronunciation you want. It does look and sound like Circa, though. Surka could work too. Neither of those spellings screams Irish, though. [name_m]Even[/name_m] the [name_f]Sorcha[/name_f] spelling doesn’t scan as Irish to most folks in the US – people usually guessed that it was a Hebrew name (it’s similar to names like [name_m]Simcha[/name_m]).
Here are some Irish names that are easier for Americans to pronounce but still have an Irish feel:
There are a few names, like [name_f]Saoirse[/name_f] (SEER-sha), [name_f]Siobhan[/name_f] (shi-[name_u]VAN[/name_u]), [name_f]Sinead[/name_f] (shin-AID), and [name_f]Niamh[/name_f] (NEEV), that have more traditional Irish spellings but are still recognizable to Americans because they are more commonly used. Those could be options, too.