Names Ethne or Florence?

[Kerala2712]

Baby due in three weeks (first baby, and we know she's a girl) DH likes Ethne (pronounced eth- knee) as it's a favourite character in an Edwardian novel called the four feathers, also derivation of gaelic meaning kernel or fire. I like Florence. All opinions please?

Oh, I'm a bit worried Florence is really popular, but I don't know.

I think it's Eithne with an i in it?

Prefer it to Florence personally but then I like Gaelic names.

also think its pronounced more as Et-nah but I am prepared to me wrong on that one.

What about Flora instead? Lovely name but strangely not too popular. Eithne will probably have lots of problems with people having no idea how to spell it. What about Daphne instead?
Good Luck!

I never know how to pronounce Eithne but I'd only need telling once.

Florence is very popular round here (south yorks).

Yay to Flora grin but as Username says, Eithne is usually pronounced somewhere beween Aytneh and Enya. Examples by four Irish speakers here - with and without additional names: www.forvo.com/search/Eithne/ It's a pretty name...

I've never come across Ethne pronounced 'Eth-nee', but it's already reminding me of the horrific mispronunciation of a basically pleasant enough Irish name, Deirdre pronounced 'Deer-DREE', as in the Coronation St character. The mere mention of which makes me want to throw things. It's 'DEER - druh'.

Eithne - pronounced roughly 'ETH-nuh' - is a nice, old-fashioned Irish name.

Don't know why grin appeared in words and not as . Sorry!

That should read 'pronounced Eth-nuh in my part of Ireland'. It's regional. But either way is better than Eth-nee. I've never read The Four Feathers - is it pronounced that way in the novel?

Thank you! The character in the book/film is actually Ethne, although the more common gaelic is Eithne (pronounced Enya) but as both I and dh are very dyslexic so high chance of dyslexic children, we wanted something phonetically spelt! We live in Scotland so people generally a bit better at gaelic pronunciation, and more used to it, but we are both English, so would be a nightmare if we moved south. There are a couple of great grandmothers called Flora, so that might be nice. I'm struggling not to listen to my mother/MIL who are both pretty opinionated on the subject.

Sorry, cross post- ratmort- that's really helpful, thank you, always helps to have someone who actually knows how to pronounce it. Don't want to make the mistake of using a name and even we don't say it right!

My mother has a friend called Ethne, which she pronounces as Eth-knee. Maybe her parents read the same book! She has a sister called Eoistre (Ee-stree).

My problem with it is the character is a bit weak willed and insipid, but it's quite pretty- not sure it passes the 'not sounding too bad when telling off in supermarket age three test' you know " Ethne stop hitting that nice lady and come here!" In the bread aisle.

Ethne was my no.1 girls name. I'd have shortened Effie as a nickname. However DH said no, so I now have a Bryony and a Phoebe instead :-)

Then why not call your baby Enya and spell it that way, OP?

If you are in London/SE, you do run the risk of her being called Eff-knee.

Enya is not derived from Eithne. It's an Anglicisation of the Irish name Aine.

Never heard of Ethnee before and not warming to it, either
Sounds like everyone where think you said Edna.
I quite like Eileen, is that Scottish?

Not so.

Enya is the most correct Irish pronunciation of Eithne. In Irish the TH would be silent, and the N is broad as it has an I preceding it and an E following, so the N is 'N'yeh'. During the Gaelic revival the name came back with a bang and was mispronounced ETH-nuh.

Aine is a completely different name (Irish for Anne/Anna) with a very standard pronunciation across all Irish accents (usually AWN-ya but more correctly AWN-yeh)

But it is never ETH-nee.
yyy and 'ouch' to 'DEER-dree.

Eileen is an Irish granny name.