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

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

meep!

You should go try out names you know how they sound and do a comparison of THEIR pronunciation. It is not accurate in any technical linguistic sense... but it is pretty good to me. If I heard it from an irish native it would be as given... slightly dahn/dawn-a-van; think lilt and sing-song. I'd expect a british/scots to be donno-vin. I'm influenced by the pop-star, of course, and he, in Ontario English, in between, as you'd expect; no so 'oo' as in "so what?" and not so 'ah' as in "waaaaaaaaa". Donovan is, IMHLO (in my humble linguistic opinion) is Dannavin; 'anna' as in my home town of Toronto (which I pronounce Taranna). Of course, in Japanese it could be Donnoban in the west, and in the East with a different intonation, with no emphasis.

Thank god there can be no good answer to the question.