Louis?

[royaljames]

What do you think?

[randomimposter]

I always assume Louis is Louee? Which is not the pronounciation I prefer.

I like Luis, but not Lewis.

HTH!

[evamummy]

The English (and German and Spanish) pronounciation is Lou-is. Like the town St Louis.

The French wouldn't pronounce the s so they'd say Lou-ee.

[Bucharest]

I think you have to be quite posh to carry it off well.
Otherwise it sounds awful. (the Louis pronunciation)
Lewis is just awful full stop.

[cece]

Depends how you are going to say it. Don't like the Lewis way of saying it but like the Louie way of saying it... But it is fairly popular.

[chocadoodle]

Like it if pronounced Louie
Don't like it if pronounced Lewis

[rachel1970]

In an English speaking country, I'd spell it Lewis. If you spell it Louis, there will always be the question as to whether to pronounce it the French of English way.

[rachel1970]

Or spell it Louie - no ambiguity there

[tammytoby]

The English (and Spanish & German) pronounciation would be Lou-is like Louis Armstrong or St Louis. Yes, you could pronounce it the French way but why?

[caz05]

There is a Louis in my son's class and when I first met him I did think it was Lou-is but they do in fact pronounce it Lou-ee (but his Dad is French).

I like it and once people realise it is pronounced Lou-ee I don't think you will have any problems.

If you like Lewis then I would go for the spelling Luis (also one of these in my son's class)

[clearsaint]

Love it, Louis is our top contender for a boy. We would say Looee

[singersgirl]

We know loads of Louis's here in posh SW London (acceptable use I think of the apostrophe for a non-standard plural) and they're all called Lew-ee. I know a few Lewises too.

[pickler]

I've never heard of it pronounced Lewis before. Lovely name. Classy and regal.

[poppydaisy]

The Louis I know pronounces it Loo-is, like the US town of St Louis.

Sure, you can pronounce it the French way if you want (Lou-ee) but don't expect people to automatically pronounce it that way.

If you're set on the Lou-ee pronounciation, why not spell it Louie - no ambiguity there .

[mayanna123]

Louis is fairly popular in Germany (top 10) where it s pronounced Loo-is. In Spain it is spelled Luis, again pronounced Loo-is.

Yes, in France it is pronounced Loo-ie but why should we English pronounce it the French way? In English we pronounce our 's' so it should be Loo-is.

[brittan76]

Louis is pronounced Lou-ee because it's a French name and that's how it's pronounced. I have never met a Louis pronounced Lewis.

Wonderful name !

[mayanna123]

From Wikipedia:

Louis (pronounced [lwi] in French, /ˈluːiː/ in British English or /ˈluːɪs/ in American English) is the French and English form of the German given name Ludwig[1]; another English variant is spelt Lewis. The German name is composed of the words for "fame" (hlūd) and "warrior" (wīg) which may be translated to famous warrior or "famous in battle

[mayanna123]

sorry that didn't come out very well... I'll try again:

Louis (pronounced [lwi] in French, lu-is in British English or /luɪs/ in American English) is the French and English form of the German given name Ludwig[1]; another English variant is spelt Lewis. The German name is composed of the words for "fame" and "warrior" which may be translated to famous warrior or "famous in battle

[brittan76]

Exactly!

lu:i in British English! lu:i = Lou-ee!

[brittan76]

You have fiddled with it. It does not say "Lu is" it says "Lu i" in British English.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_(given_name)

[Thissideofchannel]

I've heard both: Lou-is and Lou-ee and I think both are acceptable in an English environment. The Germans and Spaniards for example don't pronounce it the French way either, so there is no need for the English to do so . Lou-is is perfectly acceptable in an English speaking environment imo.

[brittan76]

www.askoxford.com/firstnames/louis?view=uk

And we can't argue with The Oxford Dictionary.

[usualsuspect]

I have heard both ..does it matter?

Its just a name

[Thissideofchannel]

Unless you're posh and want to pronounce it the French way .

[clearsaint]

I thought Looee was just the most popular way of saying it? We're definitely not French or posh.