How to pronounce girls name Aoibhe

Colleen1

Hello All,

We are hoping that someone can help us out. We have just had a little baby girl and want to call her Aoibhe and pronounce it Ava, most people agee that this is the correct pronouncation but a couple of people have mentioned that it shoud be pronounced as Eva- I just want to be sure that if we choose Aoibhe that we will have the right pronouncation in Ava. If not we will have no choice but to go for the English spelling of Ava.

All comments greatly appreciated

Colleen

Occidental

If it's of any help

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=219939

I'd go with EEVAH

Raytown Rocks

Colleen1 wrote:

Hello All,

We are hoping that someone can help us out. We have just had a little baby girl and want to call her Aoibhe and pronounce it Ava, most people agee that this is the correct pronouncation but a couple of people have mentioned that it shoud be pronounced as Eva- I just want to be sure that if we choose Aoibhe that we will have the right pronouncation in Ava. If not we will have no choice but to go for the English spelling of Ava.

All comments greatly appreciated

Colleen

Hi Colleen

My sister called her daughter Aoibhe ( pronounced Ava).
I would also pronounce Aoibhe as Ava.
I suppose other people may say differently,but it is after all your decision .
I have looked at the previous thread, and personally rekon the decision is yours, I see no right or wrong, she is your daughter, go for the name you like the best.

Chef

Míshásta

'Aoibhe' is pronounced something like 'Eeva'; not 'Ava'.

simu

Aye, try Éabha - that's way closer to Eva.

Colleen1

Thanks everyone, but we want to try and avoid using fadas to prevent confusion. Could it be that the pronouncation of Aoibhe could be Ava or Eva depending of where in the country you are living?

Sleipnir

I'd say eeva. Sorry!

Vegeta

well Aoife is Ee-fa so Aoibhe would be ee-va

Colleen1

Thanks for your replies everyone but if you think if the name Aoibheann, where I live (south Ireland) this is pronounced at Av-een, thats how I thought Aoibhe would be Ava.
Any ideas

po0k

Eva (Eaova or similar, broader "e" sound, not eeee)

Colleen1

Sorry I don't fully understand, do you mean that Aoibhe is neither pronounced Eva or Ava?
sorry ot be a nuisance

simu

I don't get it - you want an Irish name but you don't want fadas and you want to bend the pronunciation to your own rules - why not just come up with a new spelling of your own that covers whatever sound you want (in English or in Irish)? Seems less confusing.

Or I guess you could leave fadas out - a Pádraig I know has Padraig on his official documents.

Dave3x

I'd say its pretty clear that technically, it's a dialect difference, but that certain names have become popular being pronounced certain ways (such as Aoibheann being Ay-veen). So, I think the more popular version is Eva, but depending on where you live in the world no-one will have heard either pronunciation, and so you can decide yourself. Anyone agree?

simu

Dave3x wrote:

I'd say its pretty clear that technically, it's a dialect difference, but that certain names have become popular being pronounced certain ways (such as Aoibheann being Ay-veen). So, I think the more popular version is Eva, but depending on where you live in the world no-one will have heard either pronunciation, and so you can decide yourself. Anyone agree?

Well, I can't think of any Irish dialect where it would be said like that - it seems that it's pronounced like that amongst some English speakers, though. There's Éimhín as a name as well - maybe people mix them up?

Colleen1

Dave 3X

Do you think the fada over the E in Eabha would have to be in place to allow for the pronouncation of Ava?

Míshásta

Colleen1 wrote:

Thanks for your replies everyone but if you think if the name Aoibheann, where I live (south Ireland) this is pronounced at Av-een, thats how I thought Aoibhe would be Ava.
Any ideas

Where is south Ireland?

Aoibheann is pronounced "Eevan".

I very much doubt if it's pronounced 'Av-een' in any dialect.

The letters 'aoi' at the beginning of an Irish language word are pronounced something like 'ee' in English.

I would be interested to know in which dialect it is pronounced differently.

Hal1

You pronounce it 'E-fah' like :rolleyes:

JaysusMacfeck

Aoibhe is pronounced ee-vah. Never in my life have I heard it pronounced "Avah". Why not just use an British name, job done.

Willymuncher

I'd go for ee-vah too, I don't see how it could be pronounced ava at all....seems totally out of it.

Colleen1

To Mishasta

I am acutally from Co. Tipperary, and Aoibheann/ Aoibhin is always pronounced and read as Ay-Veen, therefore thats why we thought maybe Aoibhe would be pronounced Ava

donaghkebab

As Míshásta said, aoi is pronounced as 'ee' and has been so for thousands of year.
If the notion of using fadas is too confusing for you i suggest you should go along with what others have said and just use and English name!

However, if you really do want to Gaelicise the name and can't bear the trouble that an accent produces try, Aodhbha. That sounds like Ava though i doubt your child will appreciate the spelling!

Inspector Gadget

I'm not a conoisseur of Munster Irish, but to the best of my knowledge (which may not mean anything ), at least in Connemara, any word I can think of that starts with "aoi" (whether used as a name or not), sounds like it starts with "ee" (as in the English word "sleep").

If you want a long "a" sound, as has been suggested on a couple of occasions above, "Éabha" (the fada turns the leading "E" into "ay" as in "hay") is the closest match I can think of.

Having said all of this, if you like a name, whether it conforms to the norms or not, go with it. In the end, as long as the person being given said name can correct people as and when necessary, what's the difference?

Gadget

Míshásta

Colleen1 wrote:

To Mishasta

I am acutally from Co. Tipperary, and Aoibheann/ Aoibhin is always pronounced and read as Ay-Veen, therefore thats why we thought maybe Aoibhe would be pronounced Ava

We'll have to agree to disagree. I think you should check it out on some of the other Irish language forums.

In any case, I wish her a long, healthy and happy life.

Aard

Colleen1 wrote:

Thanks everyone, but we want to try and avoid using fadas to prevent confusion.

Prevent confusion? You seem to be adding to the confusion by using non-standard pronunciation for the name. "Aoibhe" should be pronounced like "Aoife", but with a "v" instead of "f". And for those familiar with X-SAMPA, it's /"i:.v@/. I suggest you use "Éabha", or just use the Anglicised version "Ava".

Gael

I'd agree with the majority consensus on this that 'Aoi' should be pronounced 'ee'.
But if you're still not convinced Colleen, I'd suggest you send an e-mail someone in the Irish departments of one of the universities. They'd be quite happy to help I'm sure.

Aoibheann

Re the dialect confusion here, I'm from Cavan, my name is Aoibheann (obviously ) and it's pronounced Ay-veen/Aiveen/or somesuch here. Now I think we go by Ulster Irish, though with Cavan, you'd never know, even though we do live in the province... :rolleyes:

GaryOR

Aoibhe sounds like Eva

masterK

The link provided earlier in the thread was a thread I posted with exactly the same dilemma. We called our daughter Ava but were also hoping to spell it Aoibhe. We looked under every stone and asked anywhere we could and never really got a conclusive answer.

The majority would say that Aoibhe is pronounced Eva but as far as we could see there was no correct way as there are examples of similar names that contradict either rule (ie. Aoife being pronounced Efa but Aoibeann being pronounce Ayveen, I also know somebody who called their child Eabhann, pronounced Evan).

We were eventually directed to a sister at our local church who is an expert in Irish Geneology, she told us that there was no concrete pronounciation of Aoibhe and was down to interpretation but the most common one was as Eva.

After that my niece was telling her Irish teacher about the baby and how it was spelt, she stated categorically that were were wrong and Aoibhe was pronounce Eva and no other way.

We eventually decided to just go with Ava, we thought if our niece was being corrected by a teacher imagine the hassle our daughter would have growing up having to constantly correct people and be told that she pronounced her name wrong.

Dustie

This is a bit late obviously for you Colleen but we spell our daughter's name Aoibhe and pronounce in Ava. Anyone who would correct you on how your own daughter's name is pronounced or who would correct your daughter on her own name would have to be a real know-it-all with no social skills!

Múinteoir

Sweet Jesus, the things some people burden their own kids with! As if growing up isn't tough enough already. :rolleyes:

JC 2K3

If you still wanted the trendiness of an Irish spelt name, you could make up a spelling, like "Abha".

Then again, that sounds more like an Islamic name

FruitLover

Dustie wrote: »

we spell our daughter's name Aoibhe and pronounce in Ava. Anyone who would correct you on how your own daughter's name is pronounced or who would correct your daughter on her own name would have to be a real know-it-all with no social skills!

Anyone who would call their child Ava and spell it 'Aoibhe' would have to be some real know-very-little with no Irish spelling (or otherwise pronunciation) skills!

Talliesin

Dustie wrote: »

This is a bit late obviously for you Colleen but we spell our daughter's name Aoibhe and pronounce in Ava. Anyone who would correct you on how your own daughter's name is pronounced or who would correct your daughter on her own name would have to be a real know-it-all with no social skills!

The word you are looking for is "literate".

Why not either pronouce it Aoibhe or else spell it Aobha. They're both perfectly good names.

I don't understand this trend for "oh, Mary down the road had a little boy, she's called him William, spelt A-L-B-E-R-T", rubbish.

JC 2K3

Talliesin wrote: »

I don't understand this trend for "oh, Mary down the road had a little boy, she's called him William, spelt A-L-B-E-R-T", rubbish.

jennifer_123

My Cousins daughters name is Aoibhe and her name is pronounced Ava so i would deffinatley say Ava.

Stabshauptmann

if you put the letters aoi beside each other its pronounced "ee". Call her what you want, but if you want to prevent confusion there might be problems...

for-why?

well my sister's name is Aoibheann and is pronounced Ay-vin....different dialect perhaps? Mine is Ailbhe and despite being pronounced Alva the most common attempt is Ay-il-va. It gets very annoying having people mis-pronounce your name let me tell you!

Talliesin

When my ex-wife and I decided that we liked the way Aobha was pronounced, we not only called our youngest daughter that, but spelt it that way. Aoibhe is no more pronounced Aobha than it is Michael or Engelbert or Porcupine.

The clue is that there are different letters in it.

Saibhreas

Sorry to be dragging this post up again but just wondering is there actually an irish version of the name Aveen?
Thanks

gudbuzz

beautiful name, pronounced ava in my opinion!