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I love them both, thought I slightly prefer Marlene.

I love them said mar-LAYN-uh. I tend to like Mar- names; there's something strong about the sound, IMO, and Marlene / Marlena has an added touch of something more exotic. Probably because it reminds me of Marlene Dietrich.

I really love Marlena, but I pronounce it Mar-LEE-Na, as does most other Americans. I like Marlene too, as a mn. I, and most other Americans, pronounce it Mar-LEEN.

I adore Marlena. Marlene probably won't be prn mar-LAYN-uh but mar-LAYN or either mar-LEEN (at least where I am). So if you're looking for that prn, I'd go with Marlena, since it's more likely to get prn correctly. Plus I just think the 'a' makes it so much more feminine.

I like Marlene, proncunced Mar-layn. I had a friend with that name!

Love Marlene

I love Marlena.

I had a teacher

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named Marlene, and she was a terrible teacher. She was so bad. Oh my god, she was so bad. And when we found out her name was Marlene, we were delightfully disgusted. How fitting, we thought.

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One day she told us the story behind her name. Her parents were from Germany and named her a pretty name "mah-LAY-na." But it was pronounced "MAR-LEEN" in the US, which was really ugly and horrible, but she was stuck with it.

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I always thought that was interesting.

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You'll never get Americans to pronounce Marlene like marlaynuh. Marlene is REALLY middle-aged woman who smokes to me. Marlena's somewhat better, but it's got the same vibes.