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Nadine Gordimer, a distinguished South African novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, apparently pronounced her name as a spondee (equal stress on both syllables): nay-deen. I respected her as a political activist as well as an author, but as names go, I mostly don't enjoy spondees. I prefer Nadia, the name chosen professionally by South African ballet dancer Nadia Nerina, whose birth name was Nadine.