Worst spelling of a name ever

Castiel said:
My wife is a native Irish Gaelic speaker.....

Conchobhar, when she says it sounds more like choc-ker with added phlegm. Caoimbh (their spelling) is pronounced Kee-va by everyone. And Aoife is just like I said, EE-Feh...the Gaelic lexicon also gives that pronunciation amongst others.

If I was to spell it it would be Eefer.

Like I said, probably just down to regional variation.
Click to expand...

More than likely. My wife was confused when I first spelt Conor in Irish. My gran is from Tory Island in the far north west, miles away from the deep dark area that is Kerry ;) Aoife originated from Eve I believe so it's probably been regionally distorted over time.
 
They had some crackers on Qi once. My favourite was Featherstonehaugh which is apparently pronounced Fanshaw :confused:
 
SpeedFreak said:
More than likely. My wife was confused when I first spelt Conor in Irish. My gran is from Tory Island in the far north west, miles away from the deep dark area that is Kerry ;) Aoife originated from Eve I believe so it's probably been regionally distorted over time.
Click to expand...

I think Eve is the anglicanised version of Aoife.

A good example of how pronunciation changes according to region is the Irish hero Cúchulainn, which commonly has two depending on which part of Ireland you are in. Other names from Irish legend also have various spellings and pronunciations, Madb for example, half a dozen spellings and several ways to pronounce it....

Just to be more complicated of course.

Whenever I'm in Kerry, I let my wife introduce me first and then wing it. ;)
 
Last edited:
Castiel said:
Aoife = EE Fey
Click to expand...
I met a girl in a club called this and it confused the crap out of me. Spelling it out on my phone did not help in the slightest.

"Ee - fah"
"WTF?"

One should not have to deal with this scale of skulduggery when inebriated.


Also, Mr Nitefly, is it gin Monday?
 
Siobhan confuses me also, it seems like it should be spelt Chevaughn as it sound similar to Chevron. :p

I have no idea how you pronounce Aoibheann however...
 
Last edited:
MoNkeE said:
Not a spelling per se, but I only in the last year or two found out that Ted is short for Edward! I mean, what?!
Click to expand...

Apparently, from the quick bit of research via Google I've just done Ted for Edward comes from a 13/14th century trend of using rhyme & changing the first letter.

It's best to understand this as part of a much wider practice of "rhyming nicknames".

There was a trend of creating rhyming nicknames (arbitrarily changing the first letter) in the 13th and 14th centuries. That's where we get all these surprising forms like Dick (and Hick!) from Richard, Polly from Molly (for Mary), Bob, Dob and Hob from Rob (from Robert), Bill from Will (from William); and Hodge from Roger.
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdic…

In some cases the substituted letter has some relationship to the original. For example, the "P" of "Polly" and "Peggy" is phonetically akin to the "M" of "Molly" and "Maggie", etc. (Just try saying "Molly" as if you had a cold!) But in many cases the substitution is arbitrary. (Perhaps, though, there were favorite letters to use -- note all the uses of B,D and H as subsitutes for men's name in the list above.)

For other forms of "letter swapping" to create nicknames, and a variety of other methods by which English nicknames developed see:
http://www.geocities.com/edgarbook/names…

Apparently ONE impetus for all this letter swapping was a dislike among the native English for the harsh Norman French "r". (Note how many nicknames made substitions for r's -- not only at the beginning of words [Richard, Robert], but in the middle of them -- Mary > Molly, Sarah > Sally/Sadie, Dorothy > Dolly; Harold/Harry > Hal).

Another reason for rhyming nicknames was the limited number of different personal names at the time. Changing the first letter was one way of distinguishing people who had the same given name. (Consider especially the case of a parent and child with the same first name. Even today it is not unusual for the child to be called by a different nickname to distinguish them from their parent.)
http://www.behindthename.com/bb_gen/arcv…

Given this practice of letter-swapping (especially at the *beginning* of a name), it is not too surprising that the 'Ed' name (Edward, Edgar, Edwin) would end up using a nickname with various arbitrary consonants at the beginning, not only creating "Ned", but borrowing the pre-exising nickname "Ted" (for Theodore).
Click to expand...

Granted that's from Yahoo Answers but it's plausible.
 
It's a little known fact that the ridiculously obscure Irish* names of people caused the Potato Famine! No one could properly pronounce the name of the guy who'd planted them and knew where they all were...

*My Irish friend Ierghanghanoghid Gnirghinjioklloghn (Dave Jones) told me this.
 
SpeedFreak said:
I have to step in here.

My first girlfriend was called Caoimbhe pronounced keave ee
My niece is called Aoife pronounced ee fa
My name in Conor, in Irish it is spelt Conchobhar pronounced crow hur

I hope that clears it up. Just to add, my gran is a native Irish speaker, it was her first language.
Click to expand...

You name is Conor, in Irish it's Conor. Conchobhar isn't Conor, it's Conchobhar. I don't understand why people feel the need to "translate" names.

If your name was Joe, would you start calling yourself Yusef if you went to a country that spoke Arabic? Also, before you say, there's a difference in translating a person's name, and writing it in a different language.

What I don't get about these Irish names is that a lot of people have them, when they don't actually speak the language. It seems pointless opting to spell it in a language you don't use, or even understand.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom