Sara

In England (and many other countries worldwide) Sarah and Sara are pronounced differently. Sara rhymes with Lara, Sarah rhymed with fairer. I love both of these names.

In England Sara and Sarah are different names. Sara rhymes with Tara, Lara, Zara, Cara etc.

In Britain we generally pronounce it to rhyme with Cara, Clara and Zara.
Sarah is sair-ah
Sara is saah-ra.

Sara is pronounced: SARE-AH.

Americans pronounce Sara in a very strange way. Pretty much everywhere else (to my knowledge) says it Saah-ra, not Sare-ah. They're different names!

People often seem to forget that adding an extra letter to a name, like Ann vs Anne, Rachel vs Rachael, Barbra vs Barbara, Megan vs Meghan etc, is usually just to make the name more complete and prettier, and not to change the pronunciation. So Sara and Sarah are the same.

To the folks who are commenting on the pronunciation of Sarah vs. Sara... what?! They are pronounced the same!

In Arabic Sara (سارة) is pronounced "SAA-rah", sounding different from "Sare-ah". [noted -ed]

To me Sara is pronounced differently to Sarah;
Sara = Sah-rah
Sarah = Sair-ruh
Just from experience with people I've met named Sara or Sarah.

Sara is pronunced both "SER-ə" and "SAR-ə". The pronunciation is simply determined by which country you're in or the origin, the spelling has in most cases nothing to do with it.

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Because in some countries they pronunce it "SAR-ə" even though it has a H in the end.

I pronounce it more like Cara or Tara than Sarah.

I have a friend named Sara. She pronounces it SER-ah. I have another friend in New York named Sara, but she pronounces it SAH-rah. I think it depends on where you're from to pronounce your name, because they get angry if you pronounce it the other way. And it is a beautiful name. Bless all that bear it.

It's pronounced sa-rah in Italian, too. My Italian teacher is from Italy and there's a girl named Sarah in my class. We think it's funny, because he says Sarah the Italian way.

How you pronounce it depends on your country of origin, and has very little to do with the origin of the name itself.

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If you are using it based on its English history then Sair-uh is an entirely appropriate way to say it. If you are going with a Romance language for its origin it should be Sahr-uh. Different strokes for different folks, and no need to throw stones. My best friend in first grade had this name and pronounced it Sair-uh.

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Why is anyone offended by how someone else pronounces a name? If you name the kid, you can pronounce it any way you want.

Listen to the German pronunciation of Sara here:
http://www.nordicnames.de/Aussprache.html.

My name is Sara, and I pronounce it literally as it is spelt "sa-ra", not like the version with the -h, but still loads of people try to call me Sarah. Both mean princess and there are quite a few people with this name. It is actually a Welsh name as well.