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

[nannyo.livejournal.com]

I would definitely say it Don (like the first part of donald) -uh-vin or vun, depending on how Yorkshire my voice is at that particular moment. But I can definitely hear it in my head the way daegar writes it.

Stress on the first syllable too.

Mind you, my name (Nicola) was pronounced in a real variety of ways when I lived in the US, so I wouldn't be suprised if Donovan had many accented pronunciations. (For my version of Nicola the stress is on the first syllable, so I am NOT a new form of soda drink)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I presume Nic-COLA is what you say if you've only ever heard the name Nicole and then you see an 'a' stuck on the end of it.

[nannyo.livejournal.com]

I guess yes, I had never considered that, it makes me feel a little more sympathetic towards them. I have a buddy who used to call me Ni-Diet-cola, which was entertaining for about 12 seconds.

Heh, this seems to have jump started my own little rant. I also hate it when you tell people your name, and then immediatley say a nickname, and there's no way they could have misheard: "Hi, I'm Nicola" "Nicky?" "NO YOU FOOL, NICOLA (with big glarey eyes of doom)"

Generally I think that a person can be rellied upon to know her own name, and introduce herself with that.