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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Daire Fitton & Cathal Ryan

Starbucks uses 'cheat sheet' to help staff with tricky Irish names

Nearly everyone has been there, just after getting their coffee and rushing out of the shop only to look down at your flat white to see a mash-up of letters that is supposed to be your Irish name.

Although many people can see the humour in occurrences such as these, for many who face the problem often it can become quite annoying. To help curb this, one Cork coffee shop has introduced a system for all of the Cathals and Nialls out there.

Behind the counter at the Prince's Street Starbucks store in Cork, staff have hung an extensive list of Irish names and their phonetic pronunciations to help baristas when filling out people’s names, CorkBeo reports.

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The sheet is designed to help baristas when it comes to spelling and pronouncing Irish names, and making sure they aren’t wrong on the cup for customers, something that might seem easy for people who grew up around Irish names but for those just learning them, however, it can be a bit more difficult.

The list behind the counter of Starbucks on Princes Street (CorkBeo)

Recently, Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds proved this when Always Sunny In Philadelphia actor Rob McElhenney posted a video on Twitter in which the Deadpool actor struggled to pronounce Eoghan, after the signing of Cork City FC star Eoghan O'Connell to Wrexham FC.

It seems to be generally accepted outside of the country that Irish names are a bit difficult to pronounce. Earlier this year research revealed the 10 hardest names for people in the UK to pronounce, with Irish names dominating the list.

The most difficult name for people in the UK to pronounce is Aoife, with Saoirse coming in second.

Want to test how good you are at translating the phonetic pronunciations at Starbucks back to their traditional spellings? Check out the list below and let us know in the comments how many you could get.

  • Tie-G
  • Ka-Hal
  • Ny-Le
  • Coll-Um
  • Ay-Va
  • Si-Ve
  • Shiv-On
  • Durv-La
  • Noo-La

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