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?

@SeanChailleach
No, I haven't seen the play, I must look out for it, thanks

Just jumping back in because we studied Translations by Brian Friel at school, in England. Never got to see it staged, but we read it and discussed it. I found it really moving and I still think about it sometimes, nearly 20 years later.

@TatianaBis I suspect people pronounce Xavier the way they do in English because that's how they pronounce the Xavier in St Francis Xavier (which I only know from a couple of schools named after him). I think at some point, even if you don't like it, it's probably better to accept that people will often end up pronouncing introduced names into English in an anglicised way. Just as how, for example, the English language pronunciation of Charlotte, which was introduced a couple of centuries ago, doesn't really reflect the French pronunciation any more. I agree that the "Ex ay vier" pronunciation is an abomination, however.

I didn't study Translations but if you want to know about Friel's other set plays, Dancing at Lughnasa or Philadelphia, Here I Come, I'm your woman

@IVflytrap

Just jumping back in because we studied Translations by Brian Friel at school, in England. Never got to see it staged, but we read it and discussed it. I found it really moving and I still think about it sometimes, nearly 20 years later.

@TatianaBis I suspect people pronounce Xavier the way they do in English because that's how they pronounce the Xavier in St Francis Xavier (which I only know from a couple of schools named after him). I think at some point, even if you don't like it, it's probably better to accept that people will often end up pronouncing introduced names into English in an anglicised way. Just as how, for example, the English language pronunciation of Charlotte, which was introduced a couple of centuries ago, doesn't really reflect the French pronunciation any more. I agree that the "Ex ay vier" pronunciation is an abomination, however.

Avoid student productions. I must have seen four or five when I was studying in England and the mangled accents stay with me to this day…

i'm glad we never attempted to stage it ourselves at my school, the accents would definitely have been horrendous! Plus I'm pretty sure we weren't pronouncing Maire right...

Yes, call her Keeva. Then, have another daughter and call her Caitlin. Pronounced Kate-Lynn.

I have the Worst Irish Name Ever. Thankfully, my initial sounds like a name in its own right (except in Ireland, where it means a fanny!) and I generally go by that.

😂 Gotta be B or D

How should Caitlin be pronounced?

@ViciousJackdaw

Yes, call her Keeva. Then, have another daughter and call her Caitlin. Pronounced Kate-Lynn.

I have the Worst Irish Name Ever. Thankfully, my initial sounds like a name in its own right (except in Ireland, where it means a fanny!) and I generally go by that.

Does your name feature in Frank Kelly's 12 days of Christmas? G has to be the initial anyway

Every Caitlin I've ever known has pronounced their name as Kate Lynn with the emphasis on "Cait" and the Lin bit being softer. How else should it be pronounced?

I’d imagine it would be more like Kat’leen but I’ve no idea.

Keeva really isn't a name. She'd always be telling people how to spell it.

It can be kat-LEEN, but depending on area it can also be cawt-LEEN, coit-LEEN or coitch-LEEN.

Sorry, it's hard to represent on here how to say Irish names, but as you can see there's considerable regional variation depending on dialect.

@ViciousJackdaw

Yes, call her Keeva. Then, have another daughter and call her Caitlin. Pronounced Kate-Lynn.

I have the Worst Irish Name Ever. Thankfully, my initial sounds like a name in its own right (except in Ireland, where it means a fanny!) and I generally go by that.

Oh wow, a real life Gobnait! I've never met one before, in person or virtually.

@EmmaGrundyForPM

Every Caitlin I've ever known has pronounced their name as Kate Lynn with the emphasis on "Cait" and the Lin bit being softer. How else should it be pronounced?

Kate-Lyn is an Irish diaspora mispronunciation based on how Cáitlín ‘should’ sound phonetically according to English-language rules. Unfortunately it got re-imported.

@ViciousJackdaw

Yes, call her Keeva. Then, have another daughter and call her Caitlin. Pronounced Kate-Lynn.

I have the Worst Irish Name Ever. Thankfully, my initial sounds like a name in its own right (except in Ireland, where it means a fanny!) and I generally go by that.

If you’re really a Gobnait, can I just say I rather like it, you’ve a cool patron saint, and that Attracta, Assumpta and Concepta are in fact the worst Irish-used female names by far.

My childfree cousin Bríd, who has spent her adult life out of Ireland, says she gets very tired of remarks about why she didn’t ‘breed’, given her name.

@DramaAlpaca

It can be kat-LEEN, but depending on area it can also be cawt-LEEN, coit-LEEN or coitch-LEEN.

Sorry, it's hard to represent on here how to say Irish names, but as you can see there's considerable regional variation depending on dialect.

Thanks. So much nicer than Caitlin.

May I please ask the Irish (or Irish living) posters to help me with various pronunciations of Caitriona ??
I know someone called this and my own pronunciation wavers and changes a bit. Have checked with her but forgotten - would like to at least be close to a recognisable pronunciation.
I tend to say cat - reen - a with emphasis on reen.
But I often say Kay - tree- ona with more emphasis on Kay and an odd unexpected sound on the ‘tr’ like ‘chr’. That sounds ‘pretentious tosser Londoner’ trying to get it right to me sometimes.

Caitríona is pronounced ca-tree-uh-nuh but I find that the uh syllable is often skipped over and many of them just pronounce it ca-tree-na (emphasis on the tree).

Caitríona Balfe is prob the most famous holder of that name and she seems to go for the ca-treen-na pronunciation

Thanks classica yes that ‘uh’ sometimes creeps in. When I think about pronouncing it full on correctly (or my ‘understanding’ if what that might be) I imagine everyone and her looking at me as if I’d gone mad or was being disrespectful ! Apologies to derail a Caitlin thread.

I always thought Cáitlin was an interesting Gaelicisation of Kathleen, which I thought was an anglicisation of Cathailín.
Kate-Lynn sounds nice as a name but I guess in Irish you would change the vowel to á - giving Cáitlinn.

Caitlín was the Irish form of the French Cateline, a form of Catherine, I think. Kathleen is an anglicisation of Caitlín.

Cáit gives a different sound to Kate, SeanChailleach. In Munster it's more like CAW-it, but there's dialectal variation. It's a name in its own right, also a form of Catherine.

I mean like in English Mary, Irish Máire; English place, Irish plás; English state, Irish stát.

Stát isn't pronounced the same as state though? Sorry, I'm probably just getting confused here ...I know the á is said differently in Ulster than in Munster/Connacht, but the slender t there wouldn't give the sound in Kate either.