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Thanks everyone who responded. I wanted to express some rigidity in order to get some real arguments on whether my opinion could be changed in Renee, and it has. I can see now that the spelling without the accent mark is valid, as with some of the other examples given.

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- Cakes

I actually prefer the spelling Renae. Renée is nicer than Renee, imo. I get tempted pronounce the “nee” ending like the word “knee”. However, Renee is a somewhat common name in America. I think it’s fine.

This message was edited 11/12/2022, 9:34 AM

I'm attracted to the Renee spelling more. Same with Desiree instead of Désirée. As long as they are the valid English version of the names, I think it's fine.

Accent marks aren't even allowed on birth certificates in some (most?) US states. That makes it not French (because, we write in English officially here?) but obviously derived from French; a name (or word for that matter) isn't incomplete just because it's derived from a word. Words change depending on how they're used and who by; it's just a thing? Like if someone wanted to use Renaissance as an English name (then perhaps "Renai" as a NN) and claim it was meant as a version of Renata, they could, but it's not as direct a connection as Renee seems.

This message was edited 11/11/2022, 4:39 PM

I prefer Renée, but if you are called Renée where I live it will be defaulted to Renee in a LOT of scenarios. I guess you could say Renee is a typo or a common mistake, but it's so common that most people view it as a legitimate variant rather than a mistake. It's normal for a name to have different spellings in different languages, even if it's the same pronunciations (although usually the pronunciation changes too, like Martin and Martín. But with Renée and Renee, the pronunciation is already different because of the R, so it's not even a case of "same pronunciation different spelling".)

é is not a character in the alphabet used in English, so Renee is transliteration.
If transliterations to English are not real English names, then Katherine, Alexander ... zillions of English names are all to be defenestrated?

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I guess that what bothers you is that the transliteration is of a name that is a word in modern French?

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Compare Ariel ... when it is written like so, not written with Hebrew characters, is it not still a proper original name in English? Since it literally means lion of God in Hebrew, but "Ariel" doesn't have any English meaning.

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Or, is it because you are biased against borrowing to English in particular? Would it bother you to see the name Liv transliterated to Hebrew and used as a name in Israel? It's on the most popular names list. (Maybe it's also a word in Hebrew, but not to my knowledge. Someone inform me if so, I'm curious)

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Anyway, to me Renee is a legit English name - it's just especially obvious that it's transliterated from French, because of the relationship between the letters é and e. A lot is lost in borrowed terms between languages. They take on a meaning in the new language without carrying any of the literal meaning in the original one. Or often the grammar, or spelling, or pronunciation. Renee is just a name ... names don't have literal meanings except academically. They refer to people, right? So who cares if an English speaker's name means reborn in French? It's not appropriate to address her as Reborn because that's more "correct." It's incorrect.

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You are welcome always to back-transliterate the name of every Renee you ever meet, to Renée, and to pronounce it correctly as the word "reborn" in French. As French speakers usually do, inoffensively, when they encounter a name that has an equivalent in French. What good does it do you, or anyone, to find fault with the English name Renee in general?

This message was edited 11/10/2022, 7:14 PM

Renee - without the accent mark - charts in the US and the UK, so yes, it is an English name.

Surely there must be some limits? Or would you insist on Shlomo rather than Solomon? And what about Beatrice: would you be OK with it, or might you insist on Viatrix? You're welcome to do so, of course, but others are equally welcome not to. The days of prescriptive grammar are gone.

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I knew a Renee at school: her names were Suzanne Renee but she went by her mn and with that spelling. We called her RENay, and so did her mother, but her husband preferred reNAY and she didn't mind.

I prefer Renee but if you prefer the French way stick with it, here accents are rarely used

Hopefully you all realize I did a typo in my original message!
RENEE, not RENNE. :-)

I also think that Renee is a English name.

I think Renee is better because I am English and only choose the French one if your French