Aoife


Aoife is an Irish and Gaelic feminine given name. The name is derived from the Irish Gaelic aoibh, which means "beauty" or "radiance". It has been compared to the Gaulish name Esvios, which may be related to the tribal name Esuvii and the theonym Esus.

Irish mythology

In Irish mythology, Aífe the daughter of Airdgeimm, sister of Scathach, is a warrior woman beloved of Cuchullain in the Ulster Cycle. T. F. O'Rahilly supposed that the Irish heroine reflects an otherwise unknown goddess representing a feminine counterpart to Gaulish Esus.
Aífe or Aoife was also one of the wives of Lir in the Oidheadh chloinne Lir, who turned her stepchildren into swans. There is also Aoife, a woman transformed into a crane, whose skin after death became Manannán's "Crane-bag".

Biblical rendering

The name is unrelated to the Biblical name Eva, which was rendered as Éabha in Irish, but due to the similarity in sound, Aoife has often been incorrectly anglicised as Eva or Eve. Aoife MacMurrough was a 12th-century Irish noblewoman.

First officially recorded use in 20th-century Ireland

The first officially recorded use of "Aoife" as a given name in 20th-century Ireland was in 1912. However, during this period, despite many parts of Ireland speaking and writing in Irish, names and places in official records were typically recorded in English.

Given name

People