Aine or Grainne

[Greendaisydays]

Aine (Awn-ya)
Grainne (Grawn-ya)

Or should we play safe now we are in England
Selene
Xanthe
Elowen
Elodie

Or what are people’s favourites. I would quite like nature or Celtic names

I wouldn't be picking a girl's name containing 'Grawn'.

Makes me think of the guardian newspaper (though that's Graun) and is not a pretty sound.

I don’t think it is that weird, @romdowa, given that threads on Irish names on Mn always go the same way, as a pp said, and are full of posters saying they don’t know how to pronounce Run of the Mill Irish Name X, therefore no one else will and the child will be bullied at school, left out at work, and die alone eaten by her cats etc etc.

Having said that, DS, born in England, has an unusual Irish name and surname and never experienced problems, so I hope Mn is just particularly close-minded.

Like you, I’ve met Áines and Gráinnes from all over Ireland, and I’ve lived longterm in Cork and Galway, and they’ve only ever been Grawn-yuh and Awn-yuh.

Not wildly enthused by either, tbh. Would chooseÁine at a push, as the proximity of Gráinne to ‘gránna’ bothers me slightly. And too much Tóraíocht D and G in my schooldays...

Out of step with the rest of the thread, I love Gráinne!
Áine is lovely too though.
I’m in London and have met women with both names.

I'm not in the UK but know both Áine and Gráinne and how to pronounce them. I like both, particularly Gráinne. I also like Xanthe, Elowen and Elodie - particularly Elowen. I'd narrow it down to Elowen, Gráinne and Áine in that order.

'the proximity of Gráinne to ‘gránna’ bothers me slightly.'

Agree with this.

Áine. I don’t like the “Grawn” sound of Gráinne.

Also like Selene (but would be mispronounced as Sel-een I suspect) and Xanthe. El- names seem a bit overdone compared to your other more interesting options.

@postern well then my child due in the winter is in for a life time of misery. Weve picked an unusual irish name if it's a boy and we actually got quite a surprise to see our girls name in the Irish top 10 for last year. My kids are also going to be stuck with a traditional cornish surname😂😂 I've every confidence they will survive having to tell people how to pronounce their names.

Aoife presumably.

Áine I've always liked but then I got shot down in flames for liking Siriol a Welsh name everyone claims they can't say!

Aine is quite nice, though personally I prefer the look and sound of Anya. I really dislike Grainne - reminds me of grain or groin. Saoirse is my favourite Irish name. I also really like Fiadh.

Selene - ok, much prefer Serena or Sabrina
Xanthe - ok, prefer Thea
Elowen - looks pretty written down, but I find it quite clunky to say
Elodie - ok

How about:

Eira
Eleri
Ffion
Imogen
Rosalie
Iris
Sylvie / Sylvia
Fern

I love both names, absolute classics.

I'm puzzled by people saying á is only pronounced "aw". teanglann.ie has "grá" is "ah" in Ulster, "aw" in Connacht and Munster, however, the 1961 version of "Teach Yourself Irish" gives the following West Munster dialect pronunciations:
áit like Eng. "art" (but with palatal t)
cás rhymes with Eng. "farce"
The recordings that go with TYI match this - the author meant the way art and farce are pronounced in RP English, with a silent r.

doegen.ie/LA_1070d2 is a recording of Seán Ó Conaill from Co. Kerry reciting An tÁivé Máiria in 1928. He is definitely saying "ah" not "aw".

I love doegen.ie (voice recordings) and dúchas.ie (stories written in the most gorgeous handwritings) - if you love Irish, take a look.

@SeanChailleach

I love both names, absolute classics.

I'm puzzled by people saying á is only pronounced "aw". teanglann.ie has "grá" is "ah" in Ulster, "aw" in Connacht and Munster, however, the 1961 version of "Teach Yourself Irish" gives the following West Munster dialect pronunciations:
áit like Eng. "art" (but with palatal t)
cás rhymes with Eng. "farce"
The recordings that go with TYI match this - the author meant the way art and farce are pronounced in RP English, with a silent r.

doegen.ie/LA_1070d2 is a recording of Seán Ó Conaill from Co. Kerry reciting An tÁivé Máiria in 1928. He is definitely saying "ah" not "aw".

I love doegen.ie (voice recordings) and dúchas.ie (stories written in the most gorgeous handwritings) - if you love Irish, take a look.

I think people have just gone with the pronunciations the OP gave, because the OP gave them so presumably they're the ones she'd use.

Love the name Áine OP.

SeanChailleach is correct in saying that á is not pronounced as aw in Ulster. Áine is said differently in the north and south of Ireland as a result. I say Áwn-yeh myself.

@SeanChailleach
doegen.ie/LA_1070d2is a recording of Seán Ó Conaill from Co. Kerry reciting An tÁivé Máiria in 1928. He is definitely saying "ah" not "aw".

Accents are funny though aren't they? I just listened to that recording by Seán Ó Conaill and to my ear he is clearly saying 'aw' for á.. it's the same sound I'd use in yawn or awning.

I'm a bit confused about cás rhyming with farce etc as given in TYI...is that a different pronunciation to the one given for Munster in the link here @SeanChailleach?
www.teanglann.ie/en/gram/c%C3%A1s
Similarly áit...

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

@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"?

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

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

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 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.

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

I like all your list though

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.

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.)

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

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

'Sive' is spelled Sadhbh.

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