Avigail?

[ballinacup]

I have a friend with the same name (from many thousands of miles away so not a point of confusion if I were to use it for DC2). She shortened it to 'Ava' but pronounced 'Awe-va' rather than the more common 'Ay-va'.

I absolutely LOVE it, but have never come across anyone else with the same name/pronunciation. I believe it's a Hebrew name, so could anyone confirm, if using the traditional Hebrew name, would it be pronounced 'Awe-vah-gal' (which is how my friend pronounced it) or 'Ay-va-gail' or something completely different?

You realise you would be forever correcting everybody that it wasn't Abigail and, even if it is a Hebrew name (not come across it personally) the majority of people will just think you were trying to be trendy / different with the spelling?

No one will ever pronounce Avigail as you want it to be pronounced. They will assume it's pronounced like Abigail and that you just have a really stupid spelling. If you want to give your daughter this name and save her a lifetime of eye rolling and correcting people, I would seriously reconsider how you choose to spell it, to give people a clue!

Why would you call your child a name you do not even know how to pronounce ?, it will come across as if you do not know how to spell and you will be constantly 'correcting' people.

But I do know how to pronounce it, and changing the spelling to 'give people a clue' would be me being 'different with spelling' which I loathe.

I have an unusual name myself, and in honesty, once I've corrected someone in pronouncing/spelling it once, they don't need to be told again and it's really not a big deal.

I was just asking, as I've only come across one person with the name, if anyone had heard of it being pronounced differently.

The Hebrew 'letter' for V and B is essentially the same (a dot makes the difference, if I can remember back to my Hebrew lessons). Hence Reuben/ Reuven, Deborah/ Devorah (pronounced D'vour'a), etc.
So I suppose, as Abigail is also an Old Testament name, in Hebrew it would be Avigail. I don't know what the pronunciation would be - you just have to decide whether it would bother you every time someone gets it 'wrong'.
We know a little girl called Ida. I assumed 'Eye-da'. Nope, 'ee-da'. And so we get it 'right' now! Same situation- it's not the end of the world :-)

Avigail/Avigael is the original version of Abigail. Avigail is closer to the original spelling, though b and v are written practically the same in Hebrew so it's all in the transliteration.

In Hebrew, it would be pronounced closer to Ah-vee-gal depending on dialect; however most in the UK would be used to more English anglicized pronunciation that it has developed. Unless you are actually within a community that regularly speaks Hebrew, I think the more anglicized way would be fine. I doubt people will try to correct you to the more Hebrew pronunciation outside of that, I've never had an issue with my kids' Hebrew names (and I have an Avi, though he's Avinathan). If you want to use the Hebrew pronunciation, then as you say, once corrected seems to do and it's easy enough to choose the other if she wishes (I took a more traditional alternative of my name when I became an adult as I disliked the English version).

I wouldn't presume you were trying to be trendy, more a language traditionalist. B to v conversion aren't really a trend that I'm aware of.

It's a proper name, why on earth would people assume you were trying to be "trendy"? I like Avigail a lot and if you're happy with it and happy with how you say it, then I agree that most other people will only need to be told how to pronounce it once.

I like Avigail and the nickname Ava. I know a (German) Ava who goes by Ah-va to rhyme with Clara. I think once told, most people are happy to pronounce a name in whichever way you prefer. Quiet a few names have different pronunciations e.g. Helena or Hel-ayna and people have no problems with that generally.

Hebrew Pronunciation is ah-vee-ga-yil.it means 'my father's joy'.beautiful name

As B and V are next to each other on a qwerty keyboard I think a lot of people will assume that it is a typo. I have never heard of Abigail spelt with a V before.