Aoibheann

My sister has this name. But due to it's rarity and different people saying it should be pronounced differently, my family simply chose to call her by Yvonne, which is the English equivalent. So she spends her life explaining that even though everyone calls her Yvonne her name is spelt Aoibheann. Although I think she liked being different in a way. We thought it was pronounced A-Veen, for years. But a baby book we got recently says it's Ee-van.

My name is Aoibheann (with a fada on the e) and I pronounce it A-veen. I know that technically speaking it should be pronounced Ee-van but that's the way my parents always said so it's stuck. I would however just like to clear up that it is not the equivalent of Yvonne which is a French name meaning Yew (a type of tree). It might sound similar but it certainly is not the equivalent. The meaning for Aoibheann is fair of form, radiance, beautiful etc. Nothing to do with trees. I think it would be nice to forget about finding English equivalents for Irish names and just enjoy them in their own language, for their sound and real origin meaning.