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One of my friends' is called Anna (pr. AH-nah) for short. Her real name is Arianna (pr. ah-ree-AH-nah).

when I lived in America my parents would just say my name in German still but everyone I met there said it in English. so you could still just pronounce it AH-nah and everyone else says would say it ANN-ah, if you don't want to explain it all the time.(:

I pronounce it like Hannah with out the H's.

I know an Anna pronounced Ah-nah.
...But let's be real, it's pretty annoying.

If you're using it in an English speaking country Ana would definitely be the easiest for the public, but AH-nah could easily be used with the spelling Anna as long as you're fine with correcting people, and definitely since your husband would probably find the other pronunciation or spelling odd (calling his daughter "I"?) it would be a simple change to make.

Given how common Anna is in English-speaking countries, you can't expect people to pronounce it in an unusual way, especially as that spelling conducive to a short 'a' sound in English.

I think you can pronounce Anna as AH-nah but other people probably won't. You would have to accept them mispronouncing it or you would have to constantly correct them and maybe get some confused looks because Anna is a common name with a common pronunciation and some people might find it weird to change that pronunciation.

This message was edited 4/19/2011, 3:37 AM

You can do whatever you like, but be prepared to correct people. My youngest dd is Anna. When she began Kindergarten, her teacher couldn't remember the pronunciation because her best friend was Anna (pr. AH-nah) so she began using that pronunciation with my dd. Everyone began using it and by the time the next school year started (fairly small school), everyone thought of her as AH-nah. She asked us to use that pronunciation about eight months later and we did since she assured us that she'd always call herself that. She's 12 now and she hasn't changed her mind and doesn't mind correcting people. People do assume it's pronounced the American way and when I've told them differently, they sometimes ask how to spell it. So while I like AH-nah (the old way seems wrong now), I wouldn't have done it deliberately. As long as she doesn't mind, I'm fine with it, though.

This message was edited 4/19/2011, 3:24 AM

You can pronounce it AH-nah, but I suspect most people will still say ANN-ah unless they are told otherwise, or hear you say it that way first. I have a cousin called Anna who pronounces it AH-nah, she corrects people a lot. Lol!
I think both pn's are lovely, whatever you decide.