Aiyanna

[dancingleaf]

I have made a decision.

I have posted it on my flyers.

I will put it up on my website.

I am announcing it at my open house.

I have chosen a dance name.

After many years and much deliberation -  the final choice is  Aiyanna.
 
This is a North American name and means - forever flowering.  Since I haven't really pinned down my style yet and I'm not likely to be dancing for strictly Arabic audiences I like it.  I like it a hell of a lot more than my real name.

The second runner up was Ayannah - which in Hindu means innocent and in Swahili means flower  (and honestly although spelled differently is almost the same as the one I did choose. )

Comments

[tangyapple.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a nice name!

[maibe.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! Gimme a pronunciation guide, so I don't cow it all up... [w]

Very fitting for a dancer! North American - I'd never heard of it before. Is it American Indian?

[dancingleaf.livejournal.com]

I'm pronouncing it (eye)(y)like yellow (anna) kind of like the drawn out German pronounciation of it. Eye-yanna

I've found different things on it - only giving country of origin as "American"- but I don't care anymore. Names mean what you say they mean.
Good enough for me.

I can't find a lot of other bellydancers using it- a few but not a lot and that's what I wanted. I needed something with colour but a feeling of mobility? something that would apply equally to egyptian or tribal. gentleness or a riot of action. Like a flower garden. soft little white phlox or intense summer lilies. (Plus my costuming ranges from purples to blues, to reds, and blacks - not exactly trees and leaves.)

Name: Aiyanna
American meaning: eternal blossom
Gender: girl
Origin: America
Continent/Source: North America

AIYANA: Baby name books claim Aiyana means "eternal blossom" or "forever flowering" in Cherokee. This is false. It does not have any meaning in Cherokee that we know of, and as far as we know it's not a traditional Native American name at all (we've never heard of anyone with this name born before about 1970.) Probably Aiyana is really just a spelling variant of Ayanna, which is an African-American and Jamaican name that's been used for at least 50 years. Ayanna is said to come from an Amharic (Ethiopian) word for a flower or blossom; we're not familiar enough with African languages to verify that, but it seems like a likely source of this name to us. (One person has emailed us to say Ayanna is a man's name in Ethiopia, but of course, many originally masculine names are today used as women's names, particularly in America.) There's also a Hindi name "Ayana" which may have contributed to the error--Hindi names are frequently mistaken for Native American names by baby book authors because they are simply identified as "Indian."

[kelsey-lynne1.livejournal.com]

I love it and I love what it stands for!