To tell parents about pronunciation?

[HelpaSILout]

My SIL shared their favourite name with family for their soon due DS.
It’s a beautiful name, Fionn. We live in England (no strong Irish heritage on our side of the family, not sure about hers) but being an obviously Celtic name I wondered about its meaning and put it into google.
Now the problem arises, they are pronouncing it Fi-on and I’ve found it’s pronounced Finn. Do I say something or just keep my beak out!?

Finn is also a Middle Irish language spelling.
It's an older spelling of Fionn.

Also, I'm not sure why people seem so reluctant to believe that there is more than one correct pronunciation of Fionn?

There are different dialects in Irish. Lots of words are pronounced differently in the different dialects. Fionn is no different.

I posted links upthread where you can hear these differences. At least 6 of the speakers on those links are native or fluent speakers. They haven't got it wrong. Instead, many posters on this thread do have it wrong when they say their way is the only right way. Sorry, but that's just not true.

OP, you have probably seen by now that Fyun is the most well recognised and uncontroversial pronunciation, at least in the south of Ireland. As far as I know Finn is the pronunciation used in the North, but you would need to double check that.

I've only ever heard it pronounced Fi-on in Ireland.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn Could I ask you where in Ireland you have only heard Fi-on (as opposed to Fyun)?

And that's why when I named my kids rule 1 was no names from any other culture.

Fi-on or FYUNN here in Ireland. But I don’t think Finn is wrong either - it probably depends where you are. I know lots of kids called Finn spelt Finn as well.

But fi on and f yun sound the same?

I'm also curious, whereabouts in the country is Fi-on used @JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOnand @mollyfolk ?

Fyun is like yun with an f in front, so not like fi-on @Boomboom22.

And, just checking, but when people say Fi-on, does Fi rhyme with Di, Hi etc?

Or Fi as in Fiona ( so the same as fee)?

This ^

I assumed Welsh and fee-yon. I have more Welsh and Irish inheritance than I do English lol.

I didn't know it was pronounced Finn. I've only ever seen it written down.

Where we live Fionn is pronounced Fe-on.

Byug
Kyown (rhymes with down)

How are they the same?

Fee-on is not at all like Fyun.

It's not pronounced Finn.

It's pronounced Fyun.

F-i-n-n is 'finn'.
F-i-o-n-n is 'fyun'.

Yeah I don't know of a single English person that would guess this is pronounced Finn. Unless you've heard the name before.

We would assume Fion 100%.

And there you go.
I mostly say "beg" and "kyan" (sounds like "chan"). But I can understand people talking different dialects too.
Más aoibheann libh an Ghaeilge, ba chóir daoibh na cánúintí a fhoghlaim.

Out of interest I just googled and there is some eejit on YouTube called Julian Miquel completely mispronouncing it... for anyone Irish, it's HILARIOUS. Sadly for anyone not Irish it is incorrect 😆 Here is how NOT to pronounce Fionn...

The correct pronunciation is indeed F-yun runs off to start own YouTube channel on how to pronounce Irish names

@Gooseysgirl did you even read my post? Stop trying to make the language smaller. There are three native dialects, two learner dialects, four distinct historic eras each with their own spelling.
You can find some at teanglann.ie and dil.ie
The Old Pedant would like to add that the spelling "Finn" is usually sound like "Feen" in Munster. The Anglophones in the house say it sounds like a whistle followed by a moan. So not Anglicised at all.

No you are right. On second thoughts, I only know one Fi-on and his parents are not Irish. Fyunn is how I would pronounce it and there are loads here in Dublin.

Not always.
How do you pronounce Fionnuala?

Sometimes one of the dialectal pronunciations of a name becomes the dominant one in the rest of the (mainly English speaking) country. It doesn't mean it's the only correct pronunciation.

As is always the case on MN threads where people with varied accents try to describe sounds it all ends up a bit of a muddle. I've lived in the UK for ages and thinking about it can now see that an English person hearing fyun might describe it as fee-on.

It would make things easier, and threads shorter, if there was a little button where we could press and record our voices.

We in Munster feel all other gaeilgeoirí should just say things as we do.

(I’ve seen fights almost break out over the plural of ‘ubh’.)

www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/fionn www.forvo.com/word/fionn/ fionn pronunciation

The link I posted is to the amazing Irish dictionary which is one of thebest online dictionaries in the world. One of the tabs has the pronunciation by different dialects so u listen and hear "fin" "fyon" and"fyoon".