Hebrew transliteration of Irish names

Factual Questions
21

Ok, I, personally would say CLEE-oh-NA, and sort of aspirate the middle syllable to make a diphthong, but that is a definitely IRISH vowel sound, which isn’t common in English, and lies somewhere between AY and EE.

I thought is would be pretty hard to get that in Hebrew, so I’ve gone for AY on the SD, as the vowel sound is nearer to a soft American AY than an American EE, and I guessed anyone likely to help me here would be an American.

I do know that the boy’s name would properly be Sionnainne, meaning the river Shannon, but they decided to anglicise the spelling in order to masculinise it (no, I don’t know why they didn’t just call him Shannon either). Of course Irish, being Irish, doesn’t pronounce Sionnainne exactly the same as Shannon anyway, and the particular spelling and pronunciation of their son’s name is, um, individualistic to say the least.

I’m trying to filter Irish pronunciation (in this case, actually my colleague’s West Belfast pronunciation of Irish) through American English, to get to Hebrew… and clearly only partially succeeding.

But at lease I have an answer for my colleague, and Alessan’s version of Cliodhna is somewhere between Clayna and Cleena, so hopefully it’ll work.

The main thing I wanted to avoid was to say to my colleague- ‘‘here are your kids’ names’’, only to give her a piece of paper with ''boobs" and “ass” (or something worse) on it in Hebrew!

22

Oh, about meanings, Cliodhna was a fairy queen in the legends and the name means something like “shapely” or “feminine”.

Like I said, the boy’s name is a sort-of version of Shannon, which is the name of Ireland’s longest river, and has a meaning something like “wise one”.

I know a few people called Seáinín/Seánín/Seaneen- some male, some female, all shaw-NEEN.

It could be worse… I could be trying to get a transliteration of Coailte which is almost impossible for English speakers to pronounce correctly in the first place!Irish vowels are hard to get your tongue around if you’re not used to them.

23

Hm, well, I have that “y as in sky” sound in my name, and I spell my name in Hebrew with that same double yod, with the intention of making a different sound:
**
קאיילה
**
To be fair, Israelis mispronounce it as “keela” a LOT, but I could never come up with a better way. (Hell, Americans mispronounce it as “kayla” a LOT, too. THANKS, MOM AND DAD.)

IMHO, the best transliteration for Cliodhna would be:
**
קלאיינה**