Irish names help!

[nothingseasy]

Hiya,
I'm calling out to all Irish speakers please.

I want to call my baby Ayveen In Irish. I've established from other threads that it's not Aoibheann or Aoibhinn or anything beginning with Aoi as this makes an ee sound. However nobody can conclusively say how it should be spelled.

I'd like to know what letters (diphthong/triphthong) make the aye/ay sound I am looking for. Do they exist in Irish?

Alternatives I've seen are

Éabhaoin
Éimhín
Aibhín

I personally favour the Aibhín but does ai in Irish make the sound ay?

Please help it's driving me mad!!

We are living in England and I want to keep a connection to my Irish heritage so I want an Irish name. We have trawled through them all and this is the only one we liked so when we found out it wasn't even said right we were devastated.

Please don't tell me not to bother with an Irish name in England or that I shouldn't give it an Irish name because they will have trouble e.t.c.

Help resolving the spelling is really all I am after.

Thank you x

@LizzieAnt

Many Irish people can't say the sounds either OP. I agree so much about them being lost ApileofBallyhoo but thought it was confined to the schools - I didn't realise it had extended to RnaG ( which I really should start listening to again). The standard among teachers (in English language schools at least) is poor, or it is in our school anyway, so the children have no hope of picking up the correct sounds. Seesaw was a bit of an eye opener in that regard I'm afraid. My Irish isn't the best, so I know it can be hard, but pronunciation is fundamental imo.

True!

@IsFuzzyBeagMise

Yes. I see what you mean.

Éabhaoin might work too, logically. Should there be a fada there?
I think Éibhín looks neater.

Your head must be melted by now @nothingseasy

I prefer the éibhín spelling tbh.

Yes it is a bit!!

I think I will contact RnaG and get back to everyone and see what they say.

It seems like there are quite a few mispronunciations though, now we have discussed it, like Niall which is making me wonder if Aoibhín is that bad? I think I like Éibhín though... I had a look on fb and there are a few who spell it like that

@Apileofballyhoo

Emer is É-ver! From my Celtic Civilization days. So the E is É and the m has a séimhiú. Orla should have a fada that's all. Like ór for gold. That's what it's from. Golden hair or something, I can't remember.

Ah, Éimhear?

Yes, that makes sense.

I've never come across an Ay-ver in my life but plenty of Ee-mers. Deir in Deirdre clearly shouldn't be deer either but I've never met one who wasn't. Conor used to be spelled Conchubar or similar, and that was pronounced something like Cruh-hoor whenever a teacher read it out . I don't know how it became Conor.

The spelling Éimhear is exactly how Máire Herbert used to say it.

I've seen it without the fada too, as Eimhear (says she quickly running away )

@LizzieAnt

OK thanks. Most people around here do say Oar-la I think, so I hadn't come across that. I thought it was just an English thing.

Órla sounds so much prettier too I think. Glad you hear that around you. I knew four growing up, which is a lot for a small town! Must have been a popular 70s name. Fairly sure one DF used to call his DD Órla but the DM said Orla. The rest of them all were Orla.

Deirdre as 'Dayrdre' and not 'Deerdree'!!

Some Irish names would leave you flabbergasted. That's quite an evolution from Conchubar to Connor.

@LizzieAnt

I've seen it without the fada too, as Eimhear (says she quickly running away )

Run! Ar nós na gaoithe!

I also heard Órla growing up and it was a popular name (Cork city school in the 1970's).

Yes, I like Órla. A friend, Órlaith, who has a degree in Irish, gets Oar-lat from her child's primary school teacher (in Ireland). She's not too impressed
(I'm being very hard on teachers today, sorry!)

I've heard Conchúr as Cun-uh-hoor too, though it's not the most attractive pronunciation now we all speak English!

forvo.com/word/conch%C3%BAr/

@IsFuzzyBeagMise

Deirdre as 'Dayrdre' and not 'Deerdree'!!

Some Irish names would leave you flabbergasted. That's quite an evolution from Conchubar to Connor.

I've heard native speakers saying dayrdreh as you've said there, fuzzy. I can't follow the Conor thing myself - sometimes I feel like I imagined the whole thing but wasn't he the man who married Deirdre or wanted to before she ran off with Naoise? I probably have that all wrong. And I think that was said like Cruh-hoor Mac Neasa.

"ll names are made up because language is made up"

Apart from Esperanto and a couple of others, languages are not made and neither are names. They develop.

@Gwenhwyfar

"ll names are made up because language is made up"

Apart from Esperanto and a couple of others, languages are not made and neither are names. They develop.

Yes I know they aren't always set in stone but we did make up rules for languages, some are bendable and some aren't. Just trying to find which ones I can and can't bend 🤔

I think I will contact RnaG and get back to everyone and see what they say. Let us know!

Yes, let us know how you get on @nothingseasy

@applesandbananasandoranges

I think I might be able to help here. I worked with a girl called Éimhín who was from the Gaeltacht. She pronounced it Ayveen, and I've always understood that this was the authentic spelling "as Gaeilge" of this name. It makes more sense to be honest, as the fadas are over the E and I. I find all the other versions confusing and never know what way to pronounce them!

In the book I linked upthread, this spelling "Éimhín" is listed: "Perhaps from éim 'prompt, ready'. The best known bearer of the name is St Émíne, Bishop and founder of Monasterevan.

Cáelfind, Cáelainn: Caoilinn the book says is pronounced ké-lin'

BUT

Cáemfind: Caoimhín pron kív-in'

The listing headed
Aíbinn, Oébfinn, Aébfhinn: Aoibhinn (í-vin') includes those old spellings which would have been é-vin' with an initial broad glide vowel.

So the authors aren't consistent about how to treat ao words that join to -finn.

No veens if they don't have a ín at the end, though, Sean! Caol is ay in Munster all right, though it's a broad sound rather than the slender é. Finn seems to be determined to stay as i rather than í.

SeanChailleach
'Aids to the Pronunciation of Irish' Chapter XI(Christian Brothers, 1905, Wikisource) lists the following words where aoi is pronounced é in Munster.
naoi, naoimh, faoi, faoiseamh, caoi, saoi, daoi.
The words were listed as exceptions to the usual rule.

However, as I mentioned upthread, at least some of them may have been spelled differently in Munster too. Faoi was spelled fé I know, but I'm really not sure about the others.

Interestingly, teanglann.ie shows the Munster speaker saying caoi as kwee, but forvo does have a Munster speaker (Conchúr) pronouncing caoi with an ay sound. I'm sorry, links don't seem to be working for me today.

Aoibh is not listed as an exception to the usual rule, OP, in that work at least.

On Deirdre upthread, I thought of the word geimhreadh, which is an ei pronounced as í too, in Munster anyway. No help re Aoibhinn but it just popped into my head after mentioning it before.

I wonder if there is much variation between Kerry and Cork. I know Mayo is a good bit different from Connemara, but there's variation in quite short distances in Connemara too. Though I can't for the life of me remember any examples now. My ignorance of our language astounds me sometimes. Anyone remember doing Stair na Litríochta in leaving cert?

Must have a listen to Conchúr, Lizzie. With naoi on teanglann I thought yesterday I could hear the i at the end slightly so né-ih nearly. Might have another listen to that too. I wonder if Conchúr is from Cork or Kerry, or Waterford to blow our minds altogether! The one word I remember from there is die-nayer. Maybe they are the ones spreading the Ayveen pronunciation and it's the right way for Waterford.

'Die-nayer' for 'dinnéir' is it? Never heard of it.

Yes, I remember 'Stair na Teanga' too. I can't remember any of it now, it's too long ago (!).

Yeah, it's dinnéar, should have said. I don't know if they say all the i words like that or if it's something to do with the double n, like the way nn changes a to an ow sound in ann/crann etc. A really makes a lot of sounds.

I teach two different girls called Ayveen
One spells it Éimhín and the other Aoibhínn

The í is the important part for me to distinguish between these girls and Aoibhinn (ay-vin) and Aoibheann (ay-van) who I also teach!

@Apileofballyhoo

Yeah, it's dinnéar, should have said. I don't know if they say all the i words like that or if it's something to do with the double n, like the way nn changes a to an ow sound in ann/crann etc. A really makes a lot of sounds.

Apologies, spelling mistake. 'Dinnéar' in the nominative case, 'dinnéir' in the genetive case.

I wonder if Conchúr is from Cork or Kerry, or Waterford to blow our minds altogether!
The little accompanying location map on Forvo seems to indicate Kerry Apileofballyhoo.