Of course I can picture
Mahalia on a reddish-blonde, blue-eyed girl with freckles. Why ever not?
I know a 22 year old
Mahala who pronounces it, "ma-HAY-la." She's from the northeast. Her brothers and sisters all got really cool Hebrew names like
Moishe and
Avram. Her parents are pretty up on these things so I defer to them on the pronunciation. But she does get called "ma-HALL-a" a lot. Her mn is
Katherine, btw.
I've always liked the name
Mahalia. Ms.
Jackson's pronunciation is so ingrained that I would automatically use it. But I can also see your pronunciation and if you want to derive "
Molly" from it, then go for it.
This message was edited 5/17/2006, 6:30 PM