I met this girl this morning, and in the course of conversation I asked her what her name is. She said is was Keeva. Simple enough. How is it spelled? Cabwindfg…
It’s Irish. Like Shivan, or Shaymus.
What’s the Irish spelling of Keeva?
Caoimhe – it’s the feminine form of Caoimhín (Kevin)
and they’re Siobhán and Séamus
I just asked my coworker Siobhán. She’s never heard of it. I sort of remember a B being in it. We agreed that it might be Caebha or Caegha.
She spelled it for me three times but it couldn’t get past the “WTF?” part of my brain.
I remember once meeting a very nice guy from Africa that had a ! Or (click) in his name.
I asked him to say his name about three times, finally I just apologized for the fact that my non-sophisticated brain wasn’t getting it.
Thanks to my little brother’s ex being from an Irish Catholic family, I can spell Siobhan, even if I’m too lazy to go look up the punctuation for it.
But Caoimhe is new, and I would have, of course, spelled it ‘Kiva’.
I really like the name, btw, so thanks for asking, and thank you, Acsenray, for answering. 
Me too, and me too. But she didn’t spell it Caoimhe. It was definitely C A E and then some other stuff.
I used to be a substitute teacher, and often worked at a school in which there was a girl named Siobhan. When I called attendance, she said I was the first teacher who’d ever pronounced it correctly on the first try.
I didn’t tell her I watched (and read about) a soap opera with a character of that name, which is how I got the pronunciation right.
But it’s pronounced Throat Warbler Mangrove.
(Oh, come on! Someone had to post it!
Just a guess, 'cause I don’t speak Gaelic, so I’m not sure how this is pronounced, but could it have been Cèabhar?
(For that matter, could it have been this Ceabhar?)
Doubtful. I’m pretty sure she said C A E, not C E A. And she’s a med student, not a deviant artist.
Then I suspect you’re into the realm of creatively spelling parents. Sorry.
That’s what I suspected. I wonder if her siblings are Keighleigh, Phlourfle, and La-a.
Irish spelling is hard for English speakers, and they seem to interpret “these rules are different from English” as “anything goes! It’s Irish!”
Other than -CH-, C is always like English K (though there are two versions of it).
AE is comparatively rare, and it won’t be like English “ee”. Nor would EA. Acsenray’s AOI, on the other hand, is exactly like English “ee”. (I’ve never heard of Caoimhe, but it fits). You can also get that sound with I, Í, AÍ and sometimes other combinations with I.
English “v” can be BH or MH or BHF. You wouldn’t have BHF in the middle of a word, though.
Final “a” is (usually) A but good Lord, it could be anything here.
It shouldn’t be Ceabhar because (1) final R is pronounced clearly in Irish, and (2) “Cea” is more “Kyeh” than “Kee”. And perhaps (3), it’s not an Irish word but a Scottish Gaelic one: cèabhar, “Light breeze; state of being slightly intoxicated” (Dwelly).
What about Caoife? Although that would be pronounced Kifa rahter than Kiva.
Despite being more Irish blood than anything else, I still would absolutely butcher the Gaelic language.
Even KNOWING better, I still pronounce Boston’s basketball team as ‘Sell-Ticks’.
Well, mentally, anyway.
That’s how it’s pronounced. You’d figure that in a mostly Irish city we’d pronounce it with a hard C, but we don’t.
“Sell-tick” isn’t wrong. Academics prefer “Kell-tick,” because that’s the historically correct pronunciation from 2000 years ago when there wasn’t any English to pronounce it in, but both modern pronunciations have solid historical justifications, and neither comes directly from any of the modern Celtic languages.
Instead, “Boston Sell-ticks” is wrong because there’s no such word as Celtics. “Celtic” is an adjective, not a noun: it should be the Celts, pronounced either as “Boston Sellts” or “Boston Kellts”.
Fighting Ignorance advertisement: “Gaelic” these days usually refers to Scottish Gaelic, a different language than Irish Gaelic. For Irish Gaelic, just say “Irish.”
In this sense, it’s no different than “Reds,” “Blues,” “Browns,” “Nationals,” “Athletics,” “Cardinals,” or other names that don’t make logical sense, such as “Magic,” “Lightning,” “Wild,” “Thunder,” or “Heat.”
The Scottish football team is pronounced “sell-tick” too.
Just to really confuse everyone, Gaelic is pronounced “Gallic” in Scotland.
Caoimhe= Keeva/Kiva
Niamh= Neve
Baoithein= Booy Yen
Which leads me to:
It’s not?? 