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I went to the free income tax appointment today and when I was called for the intake the anouncer pronounced my name 'STEF-ən' Since the last time on July 3rd when people read my name they to said 'STEF-ən' I have been ina kind of obsessive research over the pronunciation of the name because the usuall pronunciation of the name is 'STEEV-ən' but unlike the Behind the Name site and other sites that have both pronunciations I ran acrossed one that just says 'STEF-ən' here's the link http://www.babynology.com/meaning-stephen-m1.html
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There is a basketball player who pronounces it as 'STEF-en' Curry. I found somewhere on the the net this is considered a counter-intuitive pronunciation, meaning another way of pronouncing it.
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A neighbor of mine growing up was Stephen, and his parents always corrected people 'It's STEF-an (long 'a')'. I haven't seen him in 15 years but I always had trouble thinking of the 'ph' spelling as 'STEEV-en'.
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In the past 3 years it has been intresting being a 'Stephen' I knew another guy through a friend of mine with the same spelling and insisted it was 'STEF-en' when people read his name they would say 'STEEV-en' I however usually 'STEEV-en' have also been adressed as 'STEF-en' when my name read. It has been happening more often. I got tired of correcting people and decided to start acquiring the pronunciation. I've never really thought about it but I can even use my own name as an alias instead of going by 'Ed' which is my middle name given by my father.
I've generically went by 'Steve' though.
Usually people say'STEF-an' or 'STEF-ahn' for Stephan and rarely even pronouced 'STEEV-an' although not in the pronunciation icons.
I've generically went by 'Steve' though.
Usually people say'STEF-an' or 'STEF-ahn' for Stephan and rarely even pronouced 'STEEV-an' although not in the pronunciation icons.
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I agree with the others. I've had my name, Michele, pronounced like Michael before.
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I think if you're in the US and someone reads Stephen as STEF-ən, it's just because they have no idea how to pronounce Stephen. It's surprising at how some people don't know how to spell or pronounce common names. I live in the US and have never heard Stephen pronounced any way but STEEV-ən.
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I agree
The only people I have heard say "Stef-en" were foreigners. Along the same lines, I recently heard someone say "Theresa" with a "TH" sound. She was very surprised when I told her it should be the same as "Teresa." It's just ignorance.
The only people I have heard say "Stef-en" were foreigners. Along the same lines, I recently heard someone say "Theresa" with a "TH" sound. She was very surprised when I told her it should be the same as "Teresa." It's just ignorance.
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It probably gets pronounced this way by people who are from rural, lack of education or foreigners or those that just don't come across the name often.
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Could it be that phonics would have ph make the f sound and not v sound.
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That wouldn't account for changing the long "e" sound to short. The "ph" and "v" sounds are actually kind of close in sound when saying Stephen and Steven (I mean when pronouncing "proper" "ph" & "v"), but I've never heard Steven said with a short "e". I've always heard Stephen and Steven pronounced the same way, and I knew some of both in school.
This message was edited 2/10/2012, 1:12 PM
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