how would you pronounce this first name?

[Lisa loves Pooh]

its DEE-ANN.
i'm amazed that everyone on here seems to have no trouble.

the dr i was talking about is my endocrinologist which when i am have bouts of hyperthyroiditis i see every 4-6 weeks for a good 6 months and have been seeing him since 2007 and the name he has seemed to given me is DENNY.

my GP said he will never be able to say it so he decided on ANN.

my bff's grandma has always called me DEANNA.

one of my teachers called me DANA.

another teacher called me DONNA.

another teacher called me DIANNA

another teacher called me DIANE

another teacher called me DEAN

my parents sent a pic to a news station when i was 10 and included how to pronounce it but the guy called me DANEAN.

and a lot of others have called me DEANY

there's 10 different ways right there.

it kills me cuz nobody has problems with Leanne.
there was a Leanne in school that was in almost all of my classes from kindergarten up and nobody ever said her name wrong yet when you change the L into a D for my name everyone says it wrong.

This makes no sense to me. Maybe they all had aspirations to be Starbucks Baristas.

Dean I *could* understand, but the rest make me understand why common names have such creative pronunciations.

People think I spell my daughters name odd. They pronounce if correctly. They just want to spell it like the President.

 

[cassandrap83]

Deanne

i ask because its my name and almost everyone i encounter pronounces it wrong.
and everyone seems to have a completely different wrong way of pronouncing it.

i really got to thinking about it today cuz i went to one of my doctors and he butchers it soooo bad that i never know if he is calling me or not.
there have been times where he will come out and walk over to me and gesture to me to come instead of attempt to say my name.

DEE-anne

 

[NotUrsula]

IME, Daniel/Danielle is an issue of emphasis. For the masculine version the first syllable is stressed, and in the feminine it is the second. The syllables themselves are very close to the same, it is the emphasis that differentiates it.

I haven't got a clue where "Jaime" as a different spelling of the feminine Jamie came from, but I've never seen it in anything that predated the 1970's. Whoever coined that spelling obviously wasn't fluent in Spanish, lol.

 

[wilma-bride]

My son's name is Daniel - everybody here in the UK seems to be able to pronounce it the way that we do (dan-yul) but some (not all) of our US friends do pronounce it dan-yel

Having said that, hardly any of our US/canadian friends can pronounce my daughter's name - Sian.

 

[Carina]

Having said that, hardly any of our US/canadian friends can pronounce my daughter's name - Sian.

There is a Sian in my town, (works at a Job that has her name embroidered on her shirt so I know how she spells it) She pronounces it like the male name Shawn.

 

[wilma-bride]

There is a Sian in my town, (works at a Job that has her name embroidered on her shirt so I know how she spells it) She pronounces it like the male name Shawn.

And that is how most of our US friends pronounce it, but my daughter's is actually pronounced 'sharn'; rhymes with barn

 

[NHdisneylover]

IME, Daniel/Danielle is an issue of emphasis. For the masculine version the first syllable is stressed, and in the feminine it is the second. The syllables themselves are very close to the same, it is the emphasis that differentiates it.

That's been my experience with the differnece between Daniel and Danielle as well.
I can pronounce it Dan-yell or Dan-yul though, depending on what the person prefers. Much like Laura can be have the first syllable sounds like the start of the word lord or the start of lark, and some people prefer one or the other.

My son's name is Daniel - everybody here in the UK seems to be able to pronounce it the way that we do (dan-yul) but some (not all) of our US friends do pronounce it dan-yel

Having said that, hardly any of our US/canadian friends can pronounce my daughter's name - Sian.

SO, how do you pronounce it? I would think close to Shawn but with more of a "Boston R" instead of the W (so almost no sound there but more open than just an a---I'm not sure if I am describing that right, but in my head I can hear it Think of JFK saying Harvard )

I guess it could also be Sea-Anne, or Sye-Anne

Or am I totally off base like all the other Americans?

 

[wilma-bride]

SO, how do you pronounce it? I would think close to Shawn but with more of a "Boston R" instead of the W (so almost no sound there but more open than just an a---I'm not sure if I am describing that right, but in my head I can hear it Think of JFK saying Harvard )

I guess it could also be Sea-Anne, or Sye-Anne

Or am I totally off base like all the other Americans?

I posted above but, yes, you pretty much got it in your first description

My other daughter is called Rhiannon - interestingly enough, nobody seems to have trouble pronouncing it but my dad can never spell it and has taken to calling her 'Bob' instead

 

[Lolsmum]

And that is how most of our US friends pronounce it, but my daughter's is actually pronounced 'sharn'; rhymes with barn

Is the difference you are hearing because of the difference in pronouncing that r in barn? The Sian's I know here in the UK sound like Shawn to me, but then again Shawn pretty much rhymes with the way my husband and kids say 'barn'.

I know my daughter and I had an issue when she was 5 because she with her British accent does not pronounce the ending r on Eleanor while I do. She was sure I was talking about a different child to the one she meant, one being Eleanor and one sounding more like Eleanah to me.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I posted above but, yes, you pretty much got it in your first description

My other daughter is called Rhiannon - interestingly enough, nobody seems to have trouble pronouncing it but my dad can never spell it and has taken to calling her 'Bob' instead

Bob!

Sorry I missed your previously posted description---I type slowly and was already working on my post when that went up I guess.

Is the difference you are hearing because of the difference in pronouncing that r in barn? The Sian's I know here in the UK sound like Shawn to me, but then again Shawn pretty much rhymes with the way my husband and kids say 'barn'.

I know my daughter and I had an issue when she was 5 because she with her British accent does not pronounce the ending r on Eleanor while I do. She was sure I was talking about a different child to the one she meant, one being Eleanor and one sounding more like Eleanah to me.

Yeah, that is the "Boston R" sound I was getting at.

 

[wilma-bride]

Is the difference you are hearing because of the difference in pronouncing that r in barn? The Sian's I know here in the UK sound like Shawn to me, but then again Shawn pretty much rhymes with the way my husband and kids say 'barn'.

I know my daughter and I had an issue when she was 5 because she with her British accent does not pronounce the ending r on Eleanor while I do. She was sure I was talking about a different child to the one she meant, one being Eleanor and one sounding more like Eleanah to me.

I'm pretty sure a lot of it has to do with regional accents. My dad is from the West Country and really emphasises the 'r' sound (even though there is no r in her name).

I would pronounce your daughter's name as el-an-uh but I know my friend (whose daughter is an Eleanor) pronounces it el-a-nor.

How funny we are with our accents and dialects

 

[JVL1018]

My kids names are easy, but the Jaime/Jamie thing reminded me of my kids' pronunciation of Joel.

Our kids each have a couple of Joel's in their grade. All boys, all Hispanic, so the name is pronounced Jo-ell.
My daughter says to me, a few years ago. I love that singer, Billy Jo-ell. LOL
I was like nooo, for him, it's Billy Joel, rhymes with hole.

 

[NotUrsula]

My other daughter is called Rhiannon - interestingly enough, nobody seems to have trouble pronouncing it but my dad can never spell it and has taken to calling her 'Bob' instead

That's easy: famous song connection. Fleetwood Mac had a huge hit with a song called Rhiannon in 1975; it still gets a lot of airplay in the US.

Sian is one of those names that trips Americans; they think it is just another way to spell Sean; which is a weird enough for them to start with I've always said it with a bit more length to the A (almost like Sharon, except flattened into one syllable), but I'm Irish, not Welsh, so what do I know? (I do have a connection by marriage with a Welsh family; and a nephew named Tzon -- does that count for anything?)

My favorite trad name to watch an American try to pronounce? Got to be Caoimhe, hands down! I threatened to name my daughter that just so I could watch DH twist in the wind for a while. (She did get a trad name that's hard for Americans, but not THAT hard.)

... And for those who've never heard Caoimhe and want to guess, the answer is in white below; highlight to see the answer:

KEE-va

 

[NHdisneylover]

... And for those who've never heard Caoimhe and want to guess, the answer is in white below; highlight to see the answer:

KEE-va

now that is one I was not even close on

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

Must be your half of the state... I only ever knew one other Jaime, and she was also female. Lots of Jamie's, male and female. Apparently, my mother got it from Jaime Sommers, the bionic woman.

LOL! My sister (born in 1977) is JAIME also. And...our mom named her after Jaime Sommers as well. Now why she couldn't have named her Lindsay after Lindsay Wagner, the actress who played her, I'll never understand, but people ALWAYS spell her name Jamie...

 

[lovesmurfs]

My kids names are easy, but the Jaime/Jamie thing reminded me of my kids' pronunciation of Joel.

Our kids each have a couple of Joel's in their grade. All boys, all Hispanic, so the name is pronounced Jo-ell.
My daughter says to me, a few years ago. I love that singer, Billy Jo-ell. LOL
I was like nooo, for him, it's Billy Joel, rhymes with hole.

Well, it's a weird thing. Noel in Christmas terms is no-el, but in name terms is nole.

 

[EMom]

Well, it's a weird thing. Noel in Christmas terms is no-el, but in name terms is nole.

I've had friends named Joel and we use two syllables, although they flow into each other. JO-ul The second syllable sort of slides off the first, but it is there. Not like hole/jole. Noel would be the same. NO-ul. (maybe JO-uhl/ and NO-uhl)

 

[Jaime4004]

LOL! My sister (born in 1977) is JAIME also. And...our mom named her after Jaime Sommers as well. Now why she couldn't have named her Lindsay after Lindsay Wagner, the actress who played her, I'll never understand, but people ALWAYS spell her name Jamie...

Happy to know it happened to someone else. I was born in 76

 

[khertz]

When I saw the title of this thread, I was just sure the name in question was going to be La-a.

The OP's plight did make me remember why I am really glad I decided to give DS Gabriel as a middle name instead of a first. A lot of people I have noticed seem to pronounce it the same way you would Gabrielle.

I have run across some crazy name pronouncing situations, mostly where names were spelled incorrectly on a birth certificate and the parents didn't want to pay to fix it. I used to work with a girl whose name was Levettie but pronounced Lee-vee-ette. Never could figure that one out. And a Shearro that is pronounced Sha-nare-uh. One of my mom's friends was supposed to be Cherie, but it was spelled Cherrie on her birth certificate so everyone pronounces it like Sherry.

My favorite though was a kid named K'evan whose mom didn't answer when they were calling his name at the doctor's office and the nurse had the audacity to pronounce all of the letters. The mom was totally offended and told them rudely that his name was EVAN, the K is silent "as in knowledge." I love when people thing the rules of phonics don't apply to them!!

 

[wilma-bride]

That's easy: famous song connection. Fleetwood Mac had a huge hit with a song called Rhiannon in 1975; it still gets a lot of airplay in the US.

She is named after the song

My favorite trad name to watch an American try to pronounce? Got to be Caoimhe, hands down! I threatened to name my daughter that just so I could watch DH twist in the wind for a while. (She did get a trad name that's hard for Americans, but not THAT hard.)

... And for those who've never heard Caoimhe and want to guess, the answer is in white below; highlight to see the answer:

KEE-va

I almost got that one right, I normally pronounce it Kee-fa though.

A lady at work has a grandaughter named Niamh. Anyone want to take a punt?