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?

MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Not to mention Richard and Ottilie, they say them as Ritchurd and Otteelee

It was a joke, in response to the comment about Xavier.

@B0G0F

MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Not to mention Richard and Ottilie, they say them as Ritchurd and Otteelee

It was a joke, in response to the comment about Xavier.

Apologies - it's hard to tell the irony from the lunacy on this thread.

Sounds a little like Quaver. The crisps. I like Caoimhe though. Pronounced (Qwee-va)

Quaver is nice. Quiver would make a great middle name for Orla.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow,

Irish names will go the same way as Richard and Xavier. Both are pronounced correctly, in the UK, as Ritch-uhd and Zay-vee-er.
Those names have been known in the UK for centuries.

The problem with Irish (and other languages) names is that often neither the spelling or pronunciation is kept, the names become mainstream and you are corrected or look a right tit if you use the original pronunciation or spelling.

@SeanChailleach

So is Keeveen pronounced equal stress on both syllables - or KeeVEEN?

Sorry to be pedantic but I’m interested.

@B0G0F

Xavier is a Spanish-French name. Relatively recent import to the U.K. - 18th/19thc and mispronounced here.

Equally, Anaïs becomes Annay, Maëlys becomes Mayliss.

It’s not remotely Irish! It’s also a wee bit trailer park.

It's not even pronounced the same by the French and the Spanish @TatianaBis.

The French and Spanish pronunciations are similar.

@TatianaBis
Caomhín
In Ulster Irish the stress is on the first syllable so KEEVin. In other dialects the fada attracts some stress so I think Keeveen.
Or whatever the owner of the name prefers.

@Cherries590

It’s not remotely Irish! It’s also a wee bit trailer park.

It is far more than 'remotely' Irish, in as much as it's a fairly common name in Ireland and it's based on an Irish language name.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by 'trailer park', but I doubt you mean my experience of people named Keeva, well-educated and respectable.

The French and Spanish pronunciations are similar.
No, they are not.

[quote SeanChailleach]@TatianaBis
Caomhín
In Ulster Irish the stress is on the first syllable so KEEVin. In other dialects the fada attracts some stress so I think Keeveen.
Or whatever the owner of the name prefers.[/quote]
KweevEEN in my part of Munster.

Well, ish. 'Caoi' isn't really 'Kwee'.

I don't like the spelling but least it is obvious how to pronounce it. I'm in central Scotland and my cousin named his little girl Caoimhe. I had never heard of it or the Irish spelling I think she'll be correcting the pronouncing of it her whole life.

@B0G0F

Ohhh yes they are.

Why is it only Irish names get a pasting on this site.
Any other nationality doesn't get the piss ripped out of them about names.

Whoever mentioned Peig,I just had a flashback to school.Not good.

No they don't. Bore off.

Whoever mentioned Peig,I just had a flashback to school.Not good.
Haha, yes. Nobody who'd suffered through that for Leaving Cert would ever consider it as a name.

Kevin is all the evidence we have, so it probably sounded like that
@SeanChailleach - I agree that when names are anglicised they attempt to reproduce the phonics (perfectly or imperfectly) of the name as it was pronounced at that time - and this may not be exactly how it is said in Irish today. However, I think Cóemgen is too far in the past? It's unlikely that the pronunciation the 5th/6th century saint used was the version used when the name was anglicised centuries later. That's what I meant upthread. I'm very much open to correction here though.
Incidentally, TatianaBis, like Prospering I'd pronounce Caoimhín something like QueeVEEN/KweeVEEN (the closest approximations in English). The sound isn't in English so it's hard to represent it exactly. Where I am (Munster) the final syllable tends to be emphasised.

SeanChailleach I think phonetic preservation by anglicisation is sometimes more successful than others. The Irish name of the town in which I live has not been successfully preserved, for example. When I was a child the older people in the area, including my grandmother, called it by its Irish name. The English spelling did not completely match the Irish sounds - why, I'm not sure, as they were simple sounds that could be easily represented in both languages. The name of the town is now always pronounced in English to match the English spelling and demonstrates a quite recent evolution away from the original Irish.
Anglicisation can be a useful tool in the way you mention, but it's very much an imperfect one imo.

Aren't you all charm @B0G0F

French and Spanish versions = Zavi eh and Sa vi er (Catalan is Sh)

Much more similar to each other than to Zayvier or worse Ex ay vier.

I had a colleague by that name, but she spelt it the Irish way Caiomhe!

@LizzieAnt absolutely. I don't know when Kevin was put on the name, probably Early Classical?
Place names are complicated anyway. Have you ever seen the play "Translations" by Brian Friel? It's about the Ordnance Survey men going around literally making up names to put on the maps.

@lollypoppi

I don't like the spelling but least it is obvious how to pronounce it. I'm in central Scotland and my cousin named his little girl Caoimhe. I had never heard of it or the Irish spelling I think she'll be correcting the pronouncing of it her whole life.

@lollypoppi I live in Central Scotland and my daughter's name is Caoimhe. Haven't had many issues with pronunciation as a lot of Scots understand the basics of Gaelic pronunciation. If people don't know they ask, I've no issue with that. She learnt to spell her name by the age of 4 so if she can grasp that I'm sure most adults can manage.