Pronunciation of the name Melissa
Hello everybody. I have a little doubt.
The name Melissa is usually pronounced Me-LEES-sah, I suppose. But I used to watch an American cartoon in which there was a character named Melissa, and everybody pronounced her name Me-LIE-ssah.
Why does this fact happen? How do Americans pronounce the name Melissa? Thank you very much.
P.S. Melissa is actually one of my favourite names.
You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. ~Marie Curie
��My name list: behindthename.com/pnl/223545 �
The name Melissa is usually pronounced Me-LEES-sah, I suppose. But I used to watch an American cartoon in which there was a character named Melissa, and everybody pronounced her name Me-LIE-ssah.
Why does this fact happen? How do Americans pronounce the name Melissa? Thank you very much.
P.S. Melissa is actually one of my favourite names.
You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. ~Marie Curie
��My name list: behindthename.com/pnl/223545 �
Replies
Muh-liss-uh.
Melissa as me-LIE-sa (with the vowel of "sky") is anomalous. I've certainly never heard it and it can't be inferred from the spelling. Melissa was a very popular name several decades ago, and is virtually always pronounced me-LISS-a (rhyming with "kiss") by English-speakers in the US and elsewhere.
Do you remember the name of the cartoon?
Edit: Is it possible that the name you are recalling was Eliza? That's pronounced with a "long I" (e-LIE-za), very much the way you are remembering Melissa but without the M-.
Do you remember the name of the cartoon?
Edit: Is it possible that the name you are recalling was Eliza? That's pronounced with a "long I" (e-LIE-za), very much the way you are remembering Melissa but without the M-.
This message was edited 3/19/2021, 7:58 AM
Milo is indeed normally pronounced with the first syllable as the English word "my".
At least when it was shown in the United States, though, the name of the character Melissa in "Milo Murphy's Law" was pronounced with the middle syllable rhyming with the English word "kiss", as shown in the following excerpt from You Tube at about 1:38:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKL3Xlequic
At least when it was shown in the United States, though, the name of the character Melissa in "Milo Murphy's Law" was pronounced with the middle syllable rhyming with the English word "kiss", as shown in the following excerpt from You Tube at about 1:38:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKL3Xlequic
Maybe some characters pronounced it in different ways or maybe I didn’t remember well -it’s a long time I haven’t watched the show. :-(
Thank you.
Thank you.
I would say neither. In English the normal pronunciation is in BtN annotation mə-LIS-ə, while Me-LEES-sah is closer to classical Greek.