Do you know how to say this Irish name?

Merriam-Webster has managed to provoke Irish speakers on social media, after asking users about the pronunciation of a name.

The dictionary publisher took to social media to ask those on X ‘what word has the biggest disconnect between spelling and pronunciation?’. 

Known for their snappy and sarcastic posts, the post closed off with – ‘asking for our friend, Siobhan’. 

In the case of Siobhán, broken down phonetically as shi-vawn, Irish speakers were quick to point out that the name is pronounced exactly as it sounds in Irish. 

The name is also absent from their online dictionary, seeing as it is a proper name in the Irish language, as opposed to English. 

The now deleted post was widely criticized by Irish speakers, who pointed out that the name was based on Irish pronunciation rules.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a lawyer with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, posted: ‘Glad to see that this inane post by @MerriamWebster has been deleted. 

‘Once more for the people at the back: Irish names *are* pronounced the way that they are spelled. In *Irish.* It’s another language.’

Siobhán O’Grady, chief Ukraine correspondent for The Washington Post, posted: ‘Siobhán (which btw has a fada on the a) is spelled phonetically in the language in which it’s written — which is Irish. 

‘A language that still exists and is still spoken despite systemic efforts to erase it. ‘

While Seán Ó Raghallaigh added: ‘Siobhan is pronounced exactly as it’s spelt in irish. 

‘There’s no disconnect between spelling and pronunciation, unless you force a different languages pronunciation on it.’

Just hours after it went live, the publisher decided to delete the post, after community context was added it to pointing out what was wrong. 

One user poked fun at the decision to delete it, posting: ‘There’s something so heartwarming about bullying the dictionary so hard for not understanding the concept of the Irish language that they delete the post in less than a day.’

A study last year found that Irish names ranked amongst the words people found the most difficult to pronounce. 

The research found that the hardest name of all is Aoife, pronounced ‘ee-fa’, which generated the most searches on Google above all other names. 

While Saoirse, pronounced ‘sear-sha’, ranked as the second amongst names which included Siobhán and Niamh, pronounced neev.

During an interview with Stephen Colbert, Irish actress Saoirse Ronan had to teach people how to pronounce her name, which she also did on Saturday Night Live. 

Colbert had the actress read out Irish first names including Tadhg, (tag) Niamh, Oisin, (o-sheen) and Caoimhe (keeva). 

Once the host asked her to pronounce Siobhan he laughingly called the pronunciation ‘ridiculous’.