Yoana or Yohanna? Registry office tomorrow!

What did you decide on OP?

I think the thread's shown that there's no magic fix for this name. The answer could be to choose a different name, or it could be to decide that compromise is futile. Lots of children nowadays have unfamiliar names from different languages and cultures. It's always going to be a bit of a pain to have to explain your name, but it's not like every other child is going to be Sarah/Claire/Becky.

I would choose a different name. I think this thread proves that it doesn't work in both languages.

Oh! I see. We were taught all sort of weird and wonderful things in primary school but the focus was on the 3Rs.
I see reports on here of teachers writing incorrect e-mails and 'correcting' things to make them incorrect.

Yeah, I was joking about making schools teach the IPA or Esperanto!

@MegMarchHare , I don't particularly agree with it, but that seems to be the convention.

I have always read a lot so learnt how to pronounce many words from looking them up in the dictionary. If I didn't understand the IPA, I'd look for a word that I thought would sound similar, so I just sort of picked it up. (not showing off - there are lots of quite common words that don't get used often in daily speech).

I think schoolteachers have quite enough on their plate with adding IPA or Esperanto to the list. Teaching English properly that would be a start.

**I'm not criticising teachers, but not all teachers have good English-teaching skills.

See, I totally disagree with you about "ah" and "oh"! That's why this is impossible and we should instead be campaigning for schoolchildren to learn the IPA, or maybe Esperanto 😂

They’d learn but you’d need to say it once each time for each new audience.

I wouldn’t personally read “kaht” as a short “a” cat but if you would then I agree it doesn’t work. Double the letter then, baath?

This has become a huge derail, all my fault OP, apologies.

Funny you say about recognising vs doing accents @MegMarchHare . I reckon I have a really good ear for different varieties of English and often play the game with DH of guessing where someone on TV comes from then checking it on Wikipedia (sad!). However I cannot imitate any English accent to save my life, despite living in the SE for most of my adult life. Yet I am really good at doing the accents in languages I have learned (I speak 3 European languages to a high standard through study and living abroad and always got complimented by my teachers). So I can’t shake off the ingrained Scottish unless I am starting from a completely blank slate. Fascinating.

@TimeandMotion , I don’t think it can ever be assumed that people would know what “rhotic” means, so you’d have to say something more cumbersome like “assuming a dialect in which “r” after a vowel is silent but lengthens the vowel” .
I think think they'd soon learn, and the cumbersome description isn't particularly clear.

Or just use an “h” instead?
But ah is used to indicate a short a (cat is kaht) not ah like in 'Ah! Bisto'.
Same with oh - mown is not mohn, dog is dohg.

I think that's also very optimistic... I have had grown, educated adults tell me things like that Cockneys (as opposed to posh Londoners) pronounce "bath" with a short "a", and that Americans pronounce Diana with an R at the end. And these are accents they have heard on TV every day. A lot of people are just not very good at imagining how other people speak. Think how bad many of us are at doing accents!

I was actually suggesting that the writer pick an accent other than their own for reference. How about using a well-known person’s accent as the frame of reference then? Joanna Lumley?

(I hesitate to say “the Queen” though because there is a long debate about “the Queen’s English, RP and how QEII actually spoke and how her pronunciation changed over the years, not to mention that people now get confused about who “the Queen” is referring to!).

I understood what you were saying @TimeandMotion but I'm pointing out that your suggestion wouldn't necessarily help. You're expecting posters to understand their own accent and how it may differ from all other accents . Geography is not necessarily helpful.

Haha, I get like this with bath/grass/fast (which I don't say the RP way), so I can empathise 😅

@BridgeOverTheRiverWye right on cue, haha! It's a minefield 😂

I don’t think it can ever be assumed that people would know what “rhotic” means, so you’d have to say something more cumbersome like “assuming a dialect in which “r” after a vowel is silent but lengthens the vowel” . Or just use an “h” instead?

@MegMarchHare I think it's the sad fate of rhotic speakers (you) and pedants (me) to have a slight heart-sinking feeling when we see pronunciations transcribed this, and then to shake it off!

True dat 😀. I think I am both.

@MegMarchHare , me too. I'm a Welsh speaker and the a in Siân is a long aa sound so the description of it as Sharn looks absurd to me.

@TimeandMotion , How about Moana (Mo-ar-na, non-rhotic) or something?

I think you have misunderstood, I said clearly that the person trying to represent a word “phonetically” should say what type of dialect they were using for reference, in other words, their choice of “standard”. So for example, saying “If you are from SE England, it would be Mo-ar-na”.

You actually see it in foreign language learning sources which use English dialects as a reference for sounds that don’t exist in RP, for example an instruction in a Spanish learners’ text to pronounce “j” like the “ch” in Scottish “loch”.

See, the IPA works for me, but most people aren't familiar. (Wouldn't it be nice if we could have it as a sticky on the Baby Names topic 😂)

Of your other two versions, I think the bracketed (r) would raise questions, and the "aa" could be interpreted as a longer version of the "a" in "cat", rather than the more open vowel at the start of "father". (Cue someone saying there is no such distinction in their accent 😅)

But the problem is, @TimeandMotion , that there has to be a reference to a 'standard' for there to be a common understanding. You yourself suggested the International Phonetic Alphabet. But in order to understand the sound indicated by the IPA symbol, there have to be key word examples. And these examples are given in received pronunciation which is non rhotic.

So the symbol for the vowel sound we are discussing is the long vowel ɑ: and the references words include fast, car, hard, bath. And we're right back at the beginning! Many people in real life will not pronounce these words in RP (either using a short a sound or including a rhotic r). So you need to know RP in order to use the key.

It would be most accurate if all attempts at spelling phonetically were using received pronunciation because then at least there is a standard to refer to... But I don't imagine that happening.

Quite outing but we have a Yanna - and also made the decision to go for a spelling with a Y, even though in my home country it would be spelled with a J.
I didn’t want her name to have the English J sound but the Dutch J sound .

I think I prefer Yoana from your list, as it’s quite quirky, whereas Yohanna looks more ‘misspelt’ with a Y.