I am half French and even though there is a difference, to me personally it is just too subtle. I only really noticed it after saying the combo out loud but they are still way too similar to sound nice together to my ears. But if you like them that's all that matters :) In
France you will find people who pronounce
Louise more like loo-EES (even though most say loo-EEZ) and also with
Athénaïs you will find people who pronounce it in a sloppy way and it will end up with more of an EEZ ending (this will be the case quite often). When I say it slowly because I want to explain the pronunciation it definitely comes out with an EES ending but in the middle of a sentence it slurs more to EEZ.
This message was edited 3/5/2017, 12:25 PM