Aine or Grainne

Caoimhe would sound like Keeva to English ears.
The mh isn't actually a v, it's an m with your lips not quite touching. Sometimes it comes out sounding like v, w or f.
The aoi is always the same sound as ee in English, but the m makes it nasal.

Sorry to be ignorant - how do you pronounce it?

I remember name spellings like this but repeating the vowels. Surely he would pick it up?!

I love Caoimhe but dp said he’d never be able to spell it

Rogue 'I' there. I didn't laugh about it. It was certainly bloody unfortunate though!

I'm well aware it's a popular Irish name. And why would the French not manage Irish names in general? It was the particular meaning of 'aine' in French that I was highlighting, not that it's some unpronounceable Irish name! As such with the best will in the world it might well raise an eyebrow in a francophone country. If you're an international kind of family you might well want to know such things.

I once knew a woman who moved to Thailand and had a name which means 'pubic hair' in Thai. Luckily everyone was much too polite to mention it, so she never found out, but I they certainly laughed about it in private.

It's an Irish name, very widely used and popular, not an 'Irish pronunciation' of something else, and it has the initial capital and the fada to distinguish it from aine.

The French managed my Irish name and the names of friends perfectly fine during French exchanges in my youth.

I love the Irish pronunciation but in French 'Aine' (pronounced like the letter 'N') means groin, which rather puts me off! Doesn't necessarily matter except if your future DD develops Francophila and wants to move there.

Gráinne was the name of a goddess of grain. Imagine how unbelievably wonderful it must have been to have porridge or barley soup, and how mindblowing bread would have been after living on a diet of meat, nuts, roots, fruits and leaves. It's also the word for granite. So, a good name for a tough cookie (ho ho ho!) like Cormac Mac Áirt's daughter, or Gráinne Ní Mháille.

Áine means "delight".

I'm in the uk and have a Niamh, even though it's an extremely well known and popular name she still gets all sorts of odd spellings and pronunciations 🤪
I love maeve, caoimhe and aoife oh and orla

The Irish spellings and names are fine, even in England. People will learn, if they really don’t know. Foreign names were extremely common in my DC school, so completely normal to know that some letters are pronounced differently in different languages. Would people make such a fuss over Jorge?

Maybe because
(1) You underestimate the general stupidity of the people you live among.
(2) Ditto the rudeness.
(3) The name reflects your heritage, something that is important to you.

I never understand giving a child this kind of name in England as you spend your entire life correcting people and explaining your name. Why would you do that?

I met a little Aine recently and it is a gorgeous name but I could tell in the room no one has a clue about her name.

Anyway if the principle of this doesn’t bother you then why not to for the name beginning with “c” - sorry I can’t spell it - as it makes no odds really if you prefer that name as the child will have to spell her name out regardlesss

Siabh
This would be pronounced Shee-uv. (Like Sliabh without the L).

'Sive' is spelled Sadhbh.

I just asked my Donegal friend born and bred for a million generations and he says in his area they would pronounce it Ann-ya, those closer to Ulster would say the softer Awn-ya but the old folk where he is pronounce it En-ya like the singer even though obviously her name is actually Eithne

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_vowel_chart_with_audio

I think that in RP English (BBC English) "aw" is [ɒ] an "open back rounded vowel", or [ɔ] an "open-mid back rounded vowel".

In this lovely piece of documentary: youtu.be/6pc-KeWG03U the commentator is speaking in a Munster dialect for sure, but he always says the a fada as an "open back unrounded vowel" [ɑ] or maybe [ʌ].

(With an apology to those of you who aren't into minute detail on phonics, I just love this stuff.)

Aine or Fiadh. Aine with fada is aw. Fiadh is fia d and h silent. Siabh is another one prounced Sive as bh sounds to v.

I nearly forgot plain ole "grain" (like wheat!)

I like all your list though

I get:

Grin-ya
Grain-y
Granny
Grun-ya
Graw
Grin-nye

And occasionally Grawn-yeah (as it should be)

Irish, but deal with a lot of UK and continental European people generally.

On a mailing list at work, we regularly get messages from a lady called Grainne. I only came on here to find out how to pronounce her name. I think your baby would struggle with Grainne having asked other adults around me how to pronounce it (we can manage Aisling, Aoife etc. so not completely hopeless but none of us knew how it should sound).

I suppose the next question is, how are you saying "aw"?

@SeanChailleach
I say it as Seán Ó Conaill says á in the recording you mentioned. His pronunciation of tá, for example, rhymes with my pronunciation of saw, raw or paw in English. That's why I tend to use 'aw' in English to represent á in Irish. But accents are different so that representation doesn't always work as we see here...I must learn ipa sometime

Not keen on Grainne sorry. Think it would be pronounced as granny by some. It's not a nice sound. Aine is much better but there are nicer Irish names... Maeve, Aoife, Ciara, Orlaith... But that's just my opinion

@lizzieant is ait é sin. The teanglann.ie pronunciations for cás sound to me like the á is aa (Ulster) ow (Connacht) and aw (Munster)
For áit the á sounds like eh (Ulster) aw (Connacht) and ah (Munster).

Now this is interesting that both you and ShoppingPrecinctPrincess hear that as "aw" in the recording. I can say three long a sounds - aa, ah, and aw, and I'd definitely say that's ah. I suppose the next question is, how are you saying "aw"?

I'm confused too. I've just listened to that recording and he definitely pronounces á as aw.