Our son's name is Soren, and when I'm speaking to Americans, I pronounce his name 'SOAR-en', but when I'm speaking Swedish or in English to Swedish speakers, I use the Swedish pronunciation, which sounds more like 'SIRR-en'. He responds to both pronunciations.
Pronounced Sir/n or Ser/n... like the word "Sir" with "nnn" sound at the end. I find that if people find it hard to understand, I just tell them "So (long o sound) Ren" is fine.
I was friends with a Danish Søren who lived in Denmark, was born there, etc., and he pronounced his own name SOR-in (with the first syllable stressed and rhyming with SOAR/SORE (English lexical set "force", for you phonetics junkies out there) and the second syllable unstressed and pronounced more as a "schwa" sound or a dipthong from a more rounded schwa (English lexical set "strut", to a short, close, flat "i", (English lexical set "kit") or somewhere between the two. Obviously any name can be said with different stress or lengthening or shortening of vowel sounds based on context, emotion, etc. We don't always pronounce our OWN names the same way every time.That said, I have recently encountered the name Søren in an audio book, and the American (GenAm) narrator pronounces it "Sir-in" with the first syllable being in the English lexical set "lettER", and that just doesn't sound right to me, given my close association with a Danish Søren who did NOT pronounce it that way.She probably looked up the pronunciation on Forvo or something, I don't know. But it would seem that northern European countries where this name is more common have a variety of acceptable pronunciations, as in English with names like "Anne", which I have heard variously pronounced by their owners as "Ann", "Annie", "Ah-nah" and "Ah-neh" in America.I like the name Søren quite a bit, but less when it is pronounced with a SIR as opposed to a SOAR.
In Norwegian: Sør - sir En -inThe -en sound is very short.
― Anonymous User 11/30/2011
4
I have a friend named Soren, without the umlaut. I'm from Belgium, and here the name is pronounced like Sooren, in Dutch pronunciation. It's not like the English one.
Ylva left a comment about the pronunciation of Sören, which was correct. Obviously if you anglicize the name and drop the umlaut it will be pronounced differently, more like in sorry.