Thérèse

My grandmere's name was Therese. She was born and lived in France her whole life. She pronounced it Tay Rez. NOT Thay Rez! If you people are not French please try not to act as if you're experts! It's insulting and annoying.

My name is Thérèse and I wanted to comment on that post up above that said
'My grandmere's name was Therese. She was born and lived in France her whole life. She pronounced it Tay Rez. NOT Thay Rez! If you people are not French please try not to act as if you're experts! It's insulting and annoying.'
― Dominique
Dominique, maybe you should have your grandmere come comment on here because you cannot be a true expert on a thing if you are not that thing. Even if you and your grandmere are really close, you are not her. I used to find it really annoying when people pronounced it the American way, TER-ees but now I have gotten used to it and your grandmere probably has too. I would correct them, they would say TER-ees. I would do it one more time. And they would finally put emphasis on the 'z' sound and say TER-ezz. I do not bother them pronouncing it the completely right way, which is TAIR-ezz unless they are really close friends or family members that I will know for the rest of my life. I do not take it as insulting but it is sometimes annoying. It is not their fault, they are just doing their best way of pronouncing it and please do not expect them to get it right right away. I love the name Thérèse and I do not really like the name Theresa. Even though you have to be trained to type Thérèse on a keyboard, it pays off. It is really unique and rare. It is not very insulting to me at all because I have heard harder names, like Cizsahiah to pronounce.
Also, mariej2, I agree with you.

My name is Thérèse (note accents) and it has always been pronounced ta-RAZE. Obviously this is the way I prefer it to be pronounced and my French friend told me that this was probably the closest English equivalent to the French. Maybe this is just the Aussie way to say it, but I like it- it's an absolutely gorgeous name.

In the French spelling of Therese, the first accent over the first e is called accent aigu, which means acute. It is pronounced shortly and bright. The second accent over the second e is called an accent grave, which is almost but not quite a hard A. The correct pronunciation of Therese is ta-rez. It is also often pronounced Ta-Raiz. It is hard for English speakers to get it just right. But I have never heard Tay-rez, that is clearly incorrect, as is thay-rez.

My interpretation of your pronunciation can't be right - I'm perceiving your prescribed pronunciation to be "tar" (as in English) with an "ez" (as in "fez") ending. Please correct me if that shouldn't be the case.
Alternatively, I have a feeling you might be using the letter "A" to denote a vowel that should be pronounced in exactly the same manner, in which case we'd both be correct; I was following the pronunciation guide, and hence denoted the first vowel as an "ay" - it's closest to that, or so I feel.

"Thérèse" may also be pronounced "thay-REZ" (note the inclusion of the "h" - implies that it isn't a silent "h"). (The letter "é" should be pronounced with an "ay" sound, while "è" is pronounced almost like the word "air".)

Actually, judging by the placement of the accents, it should sound a bit more like TAY-res (instead of -rez), but I could be wrong.

Correct French pronunciation is ter-EZ.

I'm pretty sure it is tay-REZ. I like this name better than Theresa.

I am positive that it's pronounced ter-EZ.