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stupid pronunciations...
My mum and I were on the topic of names some how yesterday and she told me about my great uncles niece (he is related through marriage, so she is not related to me)..her name is Adelle, but its pronounced ADD-ELLE with an emphasis on the D sound.also, my dad wanted to call my sister Evelyn, but said like EVE-LYNis there anyone you know who insists on stupid pronunciations like these?
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Add-elle sounds like 'addle' to me, as in addled eggs. Yuck. EEV-lyn seeems to be a fairly common pronunciation here, but I think Ever-lyn is much nicer.
The various non-Welsh weird pronunciations of Megan drive me nuts, but I think the silliest I've come across was a student I had called Vivienne, pronounced Viv-EEN.
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Viv-EEN :(what a horrible butchering of a beautiful name. Vivienne pronounced properly is such a pretty, feminine name and Viv-EEN makes the owners parents seem so ignorant.
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My grandmother is Evelyn pronounced EVE-lyn. I find all other pronunciations weird.
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I knew an Honor who pronounced her name hon-or. LOL For ages I thought she was illiterate or something, but that's how her parents pronounce the name. It's just awful.
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I know a Raffaella who pronounces her name as raf-ee-EL-la. I wonder how many Italians cringed when she introduced herself in Italy.
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I know an Evelyn whos name is pronounced eve-lyn.
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SORRY if anyone is offendedbut I don't see how completely non-traditional pronunciations aren't seen as stupid? you are all standing up for peoples rights to say names however they want..yet how is that different to people spelling names however they want?you say Chloe prn Clo is normal, but yet you'd probably jump on the name bashing band wagon if it was khlowee prn Clo-ee...I think if there are legit variations due to different regions, and dialects and accents etc. that is fine.
but why have a kid called Adelle and prn it Add-elle?
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I agree.Compared to most people on the board, I'm fairly conservative when it comes to names. I pronounce names the way they are pronounced in the U.S., so whenever I hear someone who was also born and raised in the U.S. using a pretentious and awkward pronunciation for their child, I can't help but roll my eyes. If that's the way the name is pronounced in a different country, that's fine, but if you're only trying to be kre8tyve, stop it. Your little Emma is going to be Emma, even if you pronounce it em-MAH. That's just the way it is.Now that I'm venting, I'll say that I actually find mispronunciations ten times more annoying than butchered spellings. Butchered spellings are horrible, but mispronunciations reek of pretentiousness.
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I know a Danielle, pronounced Duh-neel
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ZoeI went to high school with a Zoe, pronounce "zo". What made it worse is that her last name ended in "low," so she had a rhyming name and also a mispronounced one.I also know a Kezia who says her name "KEZ-ee-uh" rather than what I think is the Biblical pronunciation "keh-ZY-uh." I like my friend's pronunciation much better though, so I don't think it's a stupid pronunciation. :)
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Kezia=kez-zee-uh, Keziah=Kez-igh-uh.
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Keziah..It is one of my favourite names of all time and I can't see it any other way than Ke-Zy-uh.
I used to live with a teaching student, and she said at the primary school she had placement at there was a kid with the ugliest name she'd ever heard, Kezia "kez-ee-uh" and I said that is because its said the wrong way, and then informed her it was one of my favourites and she soon shut up. lol.
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KeziahI think Kez-ee-uh is also a legit prn, though not the more common one. In Hebrew names i is usually an -ee- sound.
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The only Keziah I know pronounces it KEE-zee-uh. That's the only way I can think of it when I see the name. I know kee-ZYE-uh is the correct pronunciation, but that sounds so weird to me.
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Yup, in Slavic languages (and Hebrew) it's actually with an 'ee', so it took me a while to figure out what was weird about it, LOL.
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Uh-oh. I saw Zoe and knew what was coming.This is pretty well-known already, but I just have to say it. My mother's name was Zoe and it was pronounced zo, without the final E sound. I just can't bring myself to think of it as stupid, nor can I bring myself to think of it as a mispronunciation. My college roommate Zoe pronounced it zo, also, and the fact that you've known someone else who does so makes me think that it indeed is not so stupid, and may just be a legitimate minority pronunciation.
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It has always seemed to me that Zoe (prn. zo) was just the natural American pronunciation of Zoe
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When I posted about this name and its pronunciation a little while ago, somebody suggested that perhaps, at one time, when this name was very unusual in the U.S., people did pronounce it zo. As it became more popular, people became aware of the Greek pronunciation of zo-ee.My mother was born in 1928, at a time when the name was very rare in the U.S., so this may be the reason why her name was pronounced zo. On the comments page for Zoe, there are a few comments calling this pronunciation "ignorant", which bothers me, because my grandparents were far from being ignorant people. My grandmother was an elementary school teacher. That's why I can't think of the zo pronunciation as being either stupid or ignorant. I really think that zo must have been the normal pronunciation for Americans back in the nineteenth and early-to-mid twentieth century. I've known two Zoes who pronounced it zo, and Solunastra has known one, which makes me think that it should be accepted as an alternative pronunciation.Sorry, I guess I'm a little defensive about Zoe pronounced zo!

This message was edited 8/4/2009, 9:04 AM

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Chloe, pronounced "Klo" is the dumbest one I've heard yet.
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LOL. Klo means toliet in German.
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Lol...I know someone that pronounces Chloe as CH-loh. Yes, actually pronouncing the Ch as Ch.
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That sounds like trying to say cello with a mouthful of food. Ew.
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This is one of the reasons I hate Chloe (and most other Ch- names). It’s fine for a well known names like Chloe or Charles, but with rare names how is the person supposed to know how to pronounce them without also knowing their full etymology AND half a dozen languages (French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese all pr. ‘ch’ in different ways) to figure the pronunciation out. Which might not see so bad for a name nerd, but most people aren’t into those things.
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That's awful! CH-loh reminds me of something...but I can't tell what.
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Good grief. Poor Chloe-the-name!
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I think you can say a name however you'd like (even though some really irk me), but I say Adelle as Ah-dell, and Evelyn as Ev-lyn.I hate how people say Elisha as el-leesh-ah.

This message was edited 8/3/2009, 7:19 PM

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I agree.0
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I say Evelyn as Ev-el-in (and so does my friend Evelyn)
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Well, I don't know if this counts, but my name is Hannah, and the librarian at my school insisted on pronouncing the second H, saying it like it's 3 syllables. The same guy also insisted on pronouncing my classmate Alicia's name 'a-LISH-a', while she pronounced it 'a-LEE-sha'. Also, a family friend's name is Anna, and her parents pronounce it 'AN-na', but she insists everyone pronounce it 'ANN-a'.
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