Keeva for a girl

[shuz1980]

Whats people's opinions on Keeva? I love Irish names and like that Keeva looks like it sounds unlike other Irish names. Whats peoples opinions?

@PleasantBirthday

Keeva is not an Irish name. There's no K or V in the Irish alphabet. It is spelled Caoimhe.

This.

I wanted to use Caoimhe for DD, I love the name. However, I am not Irish and could not reliably spell it and I think it would have been rather odd to have used it really.

Reminds me of a micro loan set up (think American). Used to hear a lot of ads for it on podcasts etc.

Caoimhe is a lovely name. It comes from Caomh which means gentle (and apparently noble too) which is also where the male version Caoimhín (Kevin) comes from. I'm just saying this to counter all tne rude comments about the name from people who aren't familiar with it.

Regarding it not being Irish when the spelling is anglicised, the same could be said for Conor, Brian, Shaun, Aideen, Alva etc. They're still originally Irish names just anglicised.

I love it but I would spell it properly, don’t like the anglicisation.

It’s not an Irish name. The Irish is Caoimhe.

Not spelt like that. Surely?! 😳

I went to school with a Caoimhe in England about 20 years ago and everyone managed to say and spell it once taught.

There is no K in the Irish alphabet so I wouldn't anglicise it to Keeva and would stick to the original spelling.

Ew, ew, ew. It's not Irish, it's a horrible Anglicisation of a beautiful name. And Caoimhe looks exactly as it sounds - it uses Irish phonics. Keeva looks like a mess.

It's funny how the people who bang on about Irish names being unpronounceable don't go around whining that Phoebe should be pronounced Fo Eeb.

@Somatronic

Caoimhe is a lovely name. It comes from Caomh which means gentle (and apparently noble too) which is also where the male version Caoimhín (Kevin) comes from. I'm just saying this to counter all tne rude comments about the name from people who aren't familiar with it.

Regarding it not being Irish when the spelling is anglicised, the same could be said for Conor, Brian, Shaun, Aideen, Alva etc. They're still originally Irish names just anglicised.

I think there's a slight difference between anglicising names using letters that can exist in the Irish alphabet to simplify the spelling and introducing letters that don't exist at all.

So Conor, Brian and Aideen are possibly OK, but Alva and Keeva are not in any sense Irish names.

pronouncedunciation is my new favourite word.

I thought "Keeva" is spelled Caoimhe?

Nice is spelt the proper way

Just have sausage fingers Bridetreilly and you can have all sorts of weird words.

I like it spelled Keiva or Kaeva. Keiva looks more Irish.
Keeva is okay, it just looks like a transliteration from Hindi or some other writing system.

And Caoimhe looks exactly as it sounds - it uses Irish phonics. Keeva looks like a mess.

Technically, Keeva looks exactly as it sounds too.

It is not an Irish name though.

I like Keeva and I also like the original Caoimhe. I think if you like the spelling Keeva, go for it, but I probably wouldn't go round tell people that it's an Irish name, as I think a lot of Irish people wouldn't agree. But Keeva in it's own right is nice, imo... It wouldn't occur to me to think of chicken kiev as some pp have said, lol, as I don't pronounce Kiev "keev".

It's funny how the people who bang on about Irish names being unpronounceable don't go around whining that Phoebe should be pronounced Fo Eeb.

Fo Eeb made me laugh. but yes, this is a very good point. I remember reading an article about someone with an "unpronounceable" (i.e foreign to English speakers) name being told by her mother that if English speakers can learn how to pronounce Tchaikovsky, they can learn to pronounce her name too. I'm not Irish but I've come across enough Irish names to be able to at least take a stab at pronouncing ones I haven't seen before. I think it's ironic when monolingual English speakers label other languages unpronounceable, considering the mess that is English spelling vs its pronunciation. At least Irish name spelling seems to have internal consistency.

What have people got against the letter k?
I love the Irish language with every cell in my body but the spelling was designed in about 400CE by an autistic monk obsessed with minimalism.
I think it's got the most consonants in any language in the world, written with the fewest letters. Using k would make it way easier to read.

Thank you all for opinions. I have a Irish name (Niamh) which i love now but not as a child because everyone would always mispronounced it. Even now into my mid 30's it's rare for someone to pronounce it correctly.

@EmmaGrundyForPM

I thought "Keeva" is spelled Caoimhe?

It's not. Caoimhe would be pronounced Kwee-va not Kee-va.

I think it's a nice name, but it's not remotely Irish , as pp have mentioned two out of the five letters aren't even in the Irish alphabet.

My kids have a Kweeva in their class. It sets me on edge every time I see it.

Keeva if you have to, but the traditional spelling is nicer looking and it's not difficult for people to get their heads around, the same as any polish, Spanish Portuguese, insert whatever other country you like name.

Caoimhe can be pronounced both queeva and keeva. I believe the keeva pronunciation is the norm in Donegal.

No one ever seems bothered about Kevin being far more common than Caoimhín so I can’t get too outraged over Keeva.

Isn't it funny that the 'there's no K in the Irish alphabet' argument never extend to surnames. All those brazen Kelly and Kavanaghs and Keanes and Kennedys wandering around flaunting their Ks...

The sunames are all anglicised @Classica.

I'd consider Keeva an anglicised version of an Irish name too, and I'm afraid Keeva doesn't really look like how Caoimhe should sound, OP.

The pronunciation of Caoimhe isn't exactly Keeva, Kweeva or Queeva - they are all approximations. In Irish the broad c sound is made at the back of the mouth/throat, then there's a glide sound to reach the aoi sound (like ee) made at the front of the mouth. The glide can sound a bit like an English w but is made without rounding the lips. So the way the lips move when saying quee or kwee in english is quite different to how caoi is said in Irish - or it should be anyway. It's quite a difficult name for an English speaker to say correctly. Most Irish people have English as their first language so the approximated pronunciations are sometimes used in Ireland too, even when the Caoimhe spelling is retained.

It sounds like you are looking for an Irish name that's simple for a non-Irish speaker to read and pronounce easily. Something like Fia, which has recently become very popular as a name, maybe? Keeva is pretty too of course, but it's not really the same as the original, if this is something that you consider important.

The sunames are all anglicised @Classica.

Yeah, that's kinda my point...