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I love Eithne. Probably like most non-Irish people, I first heard of it as Enya's birth name, and I love Enya so as a result I immediately felt drawn to the name as well, even though I didn't even have a clue for years about how it should be pronounced and guessed it must be something like EETH-nee. :D But I liked how it looked and the mysterious pronunciation only gave it more appeal. I like both the Enya and Ethan pronunciation though the latter makes more sense and seems a LOT more common in Ireland. Perhaps it's just because of Enya, but this name is very distinctly ethereal, otherworldly, very spiritual so to say. I imagine this name being very fit both for someone like a very pious and humble nun from a contemplative order who is all immersed in prayer all the time (there is a St. Eithne actually), or some sort of eccentric hermit psychic and fortuneteller who seems more in touch with the paranormal world than the real one. It's a bit of a pity that it wouldn't work outside of Ireland, the spelling Ethan isn't nearly as evocative, as is usually the case with Anglicised Irish names, and Enya is too tied to the singer.
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin is the full name of Irish singer Enya. She was named by her grandfather, after Eithne from Irish mythology.
Eithne Ní Uallacháin was an Irish traditional singer, songwriter and flute player.
Eithné is a minor character in the fantasy saga The Witcher. She is the Queen of Dryads from Brokilon forest.
Beautiful and foreign to me.
Pronunciation: http://forvo.com/search/Eithne/
Eithne Ni Bhraonain, most commonly known as Enya, an Irish new age singer/songwriter and producer, most famous for the song "May It Be" from the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
I heard that singer Enya pronounces Eithne AY-nya.
In some stories this is given as the name of the mother of St. Columcille.
In the Irish language, th is pronounced like English h, though it is usually dropped at the end of a word. In this case, it may or may not be dropped, depending on dialect.
Eithne, Ethna and Ethnne and other spelling variants are generally pronounced ETH-na in Ireland. However a confusion has arisen among non-Irish speakers and people who live outside Ireland about the pronunciation of this name. This is because a lot of people first encounter it through the singer Enya. En-ya is a regional, minority pronunciation of Eithne. The singer is a native speaker (Irish as first language speaker) from Donegal. The most notable effect of this dialect is a slurring of consonants. Thus Máire becomes Moya, Eithne becomes Enya, etc. However not all Eithnes from Donegal pronounce it Enya. The only Eithne I've met under 50 is "Eth-na" and is from County Donegal. [noted -ed]
ETH-na is the English pronunciation. The Irish language does not have the "th" sound. (Indeed, a good many Irish have trouble pronouncing the sound in English, as is well known.)
I know it pronounced as EEN-a, my gran's name.
Eithne Ní Bhraonáin of Gaoth Dobhair, Dún Ghall, Éireann, bears this name. Or she is known by the Anglicized version of it: Enya. Enya is perhaps the queen of Celtic new age music.

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