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Lesley Foley
| Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 11:17 am: |
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Hello all! This is my first time posting here though I've lingered for some time now. Some background - I'm 27, living in Florida, and trying to conceive my first child. I'm of Irish ancestry and slowly, slowly struggle to learn Irish because I've always felt a special connection to the land of my forefathers. I want to pass on that love of Ireland to my children as well. As a young girl, I dreamed of naming my future children (as young girls do), and I have always known that I wanted them to have Gaelach names. I picked out a nice man with a strong Irish name to marry (ha!ha!), but unfortunately, his family has the tradition of naming all of the boys so that their initials are JRF. No "J's" in Gaeilge, so that's been disappointing. However, if we are lucky enough to have a girl, we still plan to give her an Irish name to be proud of. With both of our mothers being named variants of "Anne", we thought the name "Áine" would be nice. I researched the Internet for "Áine" and have found links to various people as well as stories of a fairy goddess. I was hoping that the native speakers here could give me some feedback on the name such as the general feeling about the name in Ireland. For example - is it considered old-fashioned and suitable only for 90-year-old women like "Mildred", or is it classic and fashionable like "Emily", or is it the trendy name that every fifth child in school is likely to have like "Katelyn" or "Madison"? The most common pronunciation for Áine I've seen thus far has been [AHN-yah]. Are there other possible variations in pronunciation based on dialect? Go raibh maith agat! --Lesley |
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Oliver Grennan
| Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 07:45 pm: |
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Áine Still a very popular name in Ireland - my eight year old niece is called that. We pronounce it AWN-ya If you go to the forum on http://www.irishgaelictranslator.com and go to the section "Find Irish Names" you will find a good collection of links to sites listing Irish names. |
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