I used to know an
Ione who pronounced it eye-OH-nee; her mother was a school teacher, don't remember what father did, but they would have been careful about pronunciations, I'm sure. And the island is eye-O-nuh, so there's a pattern.
ETA, in my dialect, EYE-o-nee sounds like an adjective formed from 'iron' - not the same as 'irony' because the R isn't sounded, but perhaps something could smell or taste iron-y?
This message was edited 9/17/2021, 11:59 PM