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

Thank you @IsFuzzyBeagMise

I think I favour Éibhín too out of those if people think they look right.

You're welcome @nothingseasy.

Yes, I think so. Fingers crossed! It looks very sweet, in my opinion!

@nothingseasy

Thank you *@IsFuzzyBeagMise*

I think I favour Éibhín too out of those if people think they look right.

It will definitely be easier to spell and I would pronounce that as ay veen

oh this is exciting we might have it! thanks @Crazybirdlady it it a bit easier to spell x

I've pretty much established Aoi is an ee sound only

I can't get over this, and the Irish speakers here agreeing with it.

It's entirely incorrect & @SeanChailleach nails it in her post.

I'm an Irish speaker. Live in Dublin, work in Kildare, grew up in Limerick 😀

Aoibhinn is absolutely pronounced 'Ay-veen', and I know plenty. It's the most common version of the name I know of.

As Sean has said, it's linked to dialect. The shuddering replies from some posters - who should know better! - that it should never be heard are just baffling.

it just doesn't sit right with me if hardened Irish speakers say it's wrong and with the aoi in all other names being ee sound, it seems very blatantly incorrect.

This is 100% incorrect & quite infuriating to read! As I understand it you are not Irish yourself, don't live here but have Irish family background? I think it's lovely that you are trying to choose a name to reflect your heritage.

However, I think, kindly, you are over-thinking it & at the same time, ignoring the practice of Irish that is happening right now in this country. And before you take from that that's it a recent thing, to change pronunciation of this name, nope, I'm 44, and with Munster Irish, have always pronounced it this way, have known many called this name, including academics, news readers & Gaeilgeoirs of all kinds!

Given that some use Aoibheann pronounced as Ay-veen, won't she end up having to correct the spelling?

@EarringsandLipstick

I've pretty much established Aoi is an ee sound only

I can't get over this, and the Irish speakers here agreeing with it.

It's entirely incorrect & @SeanChailleach nails it in her post.

I'm an Irish speaker. Live in Dublin, work in Kildare, grew up in Limerick 😀

Aoibhinn is absolutely pronounced 'Ay-veen', and I know plenty. It's the most common version of the name I know of.

As Sean has said, it's linked to dialect. The shuddering replies from some posters - who should know better! - that it should never be heard are just baffling.

I did say that I'm not a fluent Irish speaker and that I'm completely open to correction.

I apologise if I put the op off track with her decision.

I won't comment on this or similar threads again.

Have a good day, for the day that's in it ☘️

I won't comment on this or similar threads again.

Sorry @IsFuzzyBeagMise I didn't mean you, actually! You didn't say that (re pronunciation & what was 'definitively' correct.). You offered your opinion, of course, fine & I didn't mean to suggest you shouldn't.

I was referring to others but equally, anyone is entitled to comment.

About myself, I speak Irish, in my work I use it somewhat regularly, but I wouldn't claim to be a an expert at all. But I can say definitively that 'Aoibhinn' is pronounced 'Ay-veen', and that's not the Irish themselves displaying ignorance about their own language, as OP had suggested!

This part was quoting Fuzzy & should have been in bold:

I won't comment on this or similar threads again.

Sorry, @EarringsandLipstick, I'm getting my knickers in a twist

I was trying to be helpful to the Op. I'll bow out and let Sean and others advise her.

okay @EarringsandLipstick

So I think Sean might be a boy first of all and I don't think they said anywhere in their post that it was pronounced ay... This is their post....

Dia's Muire duit agus Pádraig, a OP.

Is é "Aoibheann" an t-ainm. Mar seo:
Dia duit, a hAoibhinn! ( Gairmeach)
Leabhair Aoibhinn. (Ginideach)

One name, two forms. Often in Ireland the vocative/genitive form is spoken but the nominative written when in English.

The pronunciation of both forms is different in the dialects.

In Munster inn is said with a long nasalised i. In Ulster it's a short i without nasal sound. I do about Conamara.

The aoi is various sounds unspellable in English. Reducing it to ee is a Learner Irish simplification. The i is merely a glide vowel to facilitate the slender consonant. It's sad when we allow the shoes of writing to crush the soft feet of the spoken language.

@EarringsandLipstick
I am Irish, all my family is Irish and I moved here maybe 15years ago. I think if you do a little research you may change your mind. Why don't those letters (aoi) sound like ay in any other Irish word?

@EarringsandLipstick
"However, I think, kindly, you are over-thinking it & at the same time, ignoring the practice of Irish that is happening right now in this country. And before you take from that that's it a recent thing, to change pronunciation of this name, nope, I'm 44, and with Munster Irish, have always pronounced it this way, have known many called this name, including academics, news readers & Gaeilgeoirs of all kinds!"

I'm not sure what your on about here? What do you mean "the practice of Irish that is happening right now in this country"

There are loads with this name as I have said but with various pronunciations. I don't particularly, personally like the right one for this spelling.

I don't think you should discourage others from the helpful opinions they were giving me. Just because something has been adopted and is how you've known it all your life, doesn't mean it's right.

Can you give me examples in Irish where the letters aoi make the sound ay? To back up you being 100% sure?

@SeanChailleach was talking about the ending having two forms if you read it @EarringsandLipstick eann or inn

@IsFuzzyBeagMise I appreciate your input thank you.

Thank you @nothingseasy.

Best of luck, again.

@EarringsandLipstick
I'd consider the Ay-veen version of Aoibheann a very widely used anglicised pronunciation of the name. The Irish language pronunciation of the name is not Ay-veen in any dialect afaik. There's nothing wrong with anglicised versions of names and it's personal choice whether people prefer them or not. (Personally, I love Irish, but still prefer the anglicised Nye-al pronunciation of the name Niall, rather than the Irish language Neil pronunciation, for example.) However, in this case the OP wants an Irish language spelling to match the Ay-veen pronunciation.

forvo.com/word/%C3%A9imh%C3%ADn/
OP, I've linked to an Éimhín pronunciation above. Though it was used as a male name and translates as Evan, this does give the pronunciation you're looking for and has the advantage of being an established Irish language name/spelling (though Eimhín without the fada is also found -as used in the translation for Monasterevin -so there's a bit of confusion here too maybe?)
Éibhín at first glance makes me think of Eibhlín (Eileen), though I know the fada makes all the difference.
Éabhaoin seems fine (though possibly a bit made up for me, but again that's just personal choice.)
The letter combination Aodh also gives the 'ay' sound you're looking for but adding a 'veen' sound to the end would be tricky. (Aodh is a male name, Aodhamair is one feminine version.)

I love Irish, but am not a native speaker OP.

Just quickly:
"Sean chailleach" means old woman. I'm not a boy.

Apologies @SeanChailleach 😂😂🤣

@LizzieAnt

Thank you. Yes I prefer Nye-al to Neil as well for Niall.

Éimhín is also a contender. Would you know the significance of the bh or mh? Is there a reason one would be used over the other? From what I have read they are interchangable, would you agree?

@LizzieAnt

"Éabhaoin seems fine (though possibly a bit made up for me, but again that's just personal choice.)"

Yes, I think I am making peace with the fact that we are kind of making up the spelling as there seems to be no natural name (except maybe Éimhín like you said)

I think making it correct to Irish is what I want even if it is a little "made up". I don't think altering letters that sound the same, e.g. Éimhín, Éibnín or Éabhaoin (as long as they do sound right) is as bad as using a totally different sounding letters. For example some people change Ciara to Kira, not something I would do but at least they sound the same and the actual name isn't changing. Does that make sense?

I meant Éibhín not Éibnín oops!

Not Anglicisation @LizzieAnt much more exciting.

@SeanChailleach Really? I'm intrigued, please elaborate

OP, I'm afraid I'm not nearly enough of a linguist to be able to recommend whether you should use a bh rather than an mh, or vice versa, in this case. Their pronunciation varies with their position in a word, on the nearby vowels and also depends on dialect. I'm not at all an expert, but either seem to give your required pronunciation here. Éimhín is an old name already, albeit a male name. Éibhleann (pronounced Ave-lyn with ave rhyming with Dave) is an old Irish female name thought to mean beauty/radiance, so by analogy Éibhín would seem to be pronounced Ave-een.