Donovan

[ivyblossom]

I was looking up the history of the name "Donovan" (because I was considering it for a character name, and I wanted to know when it first came into regular use as a first name), and I found this:

The boy's name Donovan is pronounced DAH-na-vun.

Can an Irish person (or English person?) help me out with this one? Is this an American pronunciation key, or do you really say it that way? I would have thought it was DAWN-a-vun.

Comments

[sevensickles.livejournal.com]

In my half-baked British accent (because quite a bit of American east coast is also thrown into the mix), I say either Dah-na-vun or Dah-na-vin, depending on which accent is fighting for control (vun for the British half, vin for the American half--and it sometimes comes out more dahn-a than dah-na, which mostly depends on where in the sentence Donovan shows up, but on its own, it's always dah-na and usually vun).