Story name.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

Anyone know how to pronounce the name "Aina"? According to BTN, it's Finnish and means "the only one". "In the Finnish epic the 'Kalevala' this is the name of a girl who drowns herself when she finds out she must marry the old man Väinämöinen." It's a lovely name, but I am not altogether sure of Finnish vowels.

Comments

[cherryboomstick.livejournal.com]

ah-EE-nah

http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Aina.html

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

Ah-EE-nah. Hmmm.

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

Not in Finnish... the emphasis is always on the first syllable.

[cherryboomstick.livejournal.com]

Strange... maybe they mean to pronounce it quickly so it sounds like EYE-nah?

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

My sister tells me it's pronounced 'EYE-nah' and it means 'always'.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

At a second glance, I got both meanings on BTN. "Always" and "the only one". "EYE-nah" is lovely, and perfect--I sorta embellished the name for the purpose of the story, as it's a bit of a fairytale.

[smallandneedy.livejournal.com]

that's how we say it in Norwegian, anyway :) Don't know about Finland though.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

I think it's really pretty, and with a lovely meaning.

Finnish is such an odd language. Lovely, but odd. It's so different from all the other European languages.

[christhiane.livejournal.com]

EYE-nah is the way I've learnt to pronounce it.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

I was banking on it being pronounced that way. I really think it's pretty.

[modified-life.livejournal.com]

Awww the "only one" meaning reminds me of an elderly woman I work with in my job as a home support worker who loves to tell me about her childhood and always reminds me she was an only one. Together with the story it sounds kind of lonely though, but in a past relationship we were considering Ofelia for a future daughter, which means help and is associated with the Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet, so what can I say except be aware but if you love it go for it.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

Awwww, what a sweet old lady. I'm actually not using it for a daughter, but rather, a character in a story. It's the nickname off the more elaborate name I kinda smushed together for the purpose of the story: I wanted something close to Anneli, but Anneli just wasn't fitting. So then I saw Aina, and I was banking on it being pronounced EYE-na, so...Ainaliele (EYE-nah-lee-el, I think; I may go with EYE-nah-leel-eh) was born. In the story, she's the daughter of the Sea King, and she can turn ocean foam into this incredibly fine lace with her tears.

[neroli.livejournal.com]

I don't see Aina on this list specifically, but you can listen to pronunciations of Finnish names here (http://www.sci.fi/~kajun/finns/female.htm) to get a sense of vowel sounds.

(FYI, I was not able to get the sound samples to play using Internet Explorer, but they worked fine with Firefox.)

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

I was able to get them to play. Thank you! That's very helpful.

[valkeakuulas.livejournal.com]

I'm from Finland! I know this! *jumps around joyfully*

Yep, it's EYE-nah.
It doesn't specifically mean "the only one", but it's a variant of Aino (the girl in Kalevala) which originates from the word "ainoa", "the only one". It does mean "always", though. Aino would be prounounced the same but the end is a short o, like in "rock".

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

Well, hello nice Finnishperson!

Thank you for weighing in on this. I was reeeally hoping it'd be EYE-nah, because, well, it just looks and sounds so pretty like that. Plus, like I said, I created a longer name using that as a root, if you will, and, well, any other pronunciation would've sent me back to the drawing board.

Fiction: where you do insane things to nice names.

[nandy-pandy.livejournal.com]

I'd say "ah-EE-na", like Aida (ah-EE-da) but with an N. I'm not Finnish, though, so I could be totally off.

[cielamara.livejournal.com]

The Finnish person has said "EYE-nah". Though Ah-EE-nah, with that emphasis on the second syllable, WOULD be rather pretty.