To ask how you would pronounce this name?

[Notss]

Hi all,

Sorry if this is the wrong place:

My little sister is expecting her first child and if it is a girl wants to call her “Sian”.

She sent it to me in a text and I replied “What - like See-Ann?” And she told me I was being daft.

So how would you pronounce such a name?

I have never heard anyone say "car" as if it were written "ca" like the start of "Cathy". Not in any accent.

For people who say there is no long A or silent R in their accent, how do you pronounce "harm"? Does it sound exactly the same as "ham" to you?

It's a different sound to the start of Cathy but it's not a longer sound, if that makes sense?

Ham and harm sound totally different to me because the a sound would be different (but not longer) and the R would be pronounced very noticeably.

See, I pronounce "harm" like "haahm". If I try to say it with a short A and an audible R I can't do it without sounding like a pirate.

To me, Sian, harm and car are all the same vowel, and they're definitely not the same vowel as ham or cam or van.

I had a tutor at college called Sian and we called her Sharn as that's how she said it was pronounced

Short A sound I suppose? But then everything I say with an A in it has a short A sound!

Isn't a short "a" like the "a" in cat, not car?

Yes exactly. Do you say "cat" and "car" with the same vowel sound?

I know another printing press one. The word ‘the’ was originally spelled with a Norse letter at the beginning which looked like a vertical line with a semicircle coming off it to the right half way down (a bit like a p but with the stick extending further up). That letter represented the th sound which Latin and French didn’t have. Printing presses didn’t have this letter so compromised by using a ‘y’ which apparently looked similar to this letter. Hence all the ‘ye olde’ stuff which was never pronounced yee as everyone knew the ‘y’ was standing in for the Norse ‘th’ letter.

I know a Sian who pronounces it Sigh-Anne. She has to correct people all the time. I often wonder if someone saw the name written down and made up their own pronunciation.

However they choose to pronounce it be prepared for a lifetime of 'corrections' or having to pronounce it out each time you write it, and then when you say it get ready to immediately have to spell it out so that it doesn't get recorded incorrectly.

I love this one "Teachers see some wonderful sights, I once had three different spellings of Siobhan in one year group, Shivorn, Chervorn and something else.
A friend once had a new child called Gooey by Mother, when she filled in the admission forms it was Guy!
Jesus was a problem when I taught abroad, for a girl, pronounced Her-sus as they told me."

Teachers must see many names, lovely, unusual and many with very different spellings; the fashion now appears to pop random I/y/e/a in different places within names.

Sharn and it's Welsh. Makes me cringe when I hear see-ann or whatever. I think it's Welsh for Jane, though I may be wrong.

Yes exactly. Do you say "cat" and "car" with the same vowel sound?

No, they're slightly different but car doesn't have a longer A sound, it's still very short.

OMG are you still talking about this!

It’s Welsh for Jane (I was born in Wales so I know.) depending on where you come from you can pronounce it Shan, Sharn, Shaan, Shahhhhhn or even See-Ann. I don’t care. Do what you like. Give your kids names you can’t pronounce. No one cares!

Calm down.

Calm down

Okaaay if you like - but I haven’t spent the best part of this week arguing about how to pronounce Sian!

treacle your actally showing why people are putting an R or an H in to donate the type of sound the a is making in theybcan be short but the short sound is the sound made in ant cat, can ect where as the long soumd is the sound in car etc

In a Scottish accent it does, yes

As in tje first half of the word shandy? As in the beer/lemonade drink

The only shan that rhymes with fan and can i know is short for chantelle

Shaan

No, they're slightly different but car doesn't have a longer A sound, it's still very short.

"Long A" means the sound of the vowel.

It doesn't mean I go round saying, "Hello everyone, my friend Siaaaaaaaaan and I are going to drive to Newcaaaaaaaastle in my caaaaaaaar."

I’ve just read this thread through and am slightly past caring how to pronounce Sian, but could someone who knows about phonics and the International Phonetic Alphabet point me to some reading material please? Finding that very interesting! I’ve just scrolled back and I’m thinking @SuspiciouslyMinded and @JamieVardysHavingAParty were the ones, sorry if I’ve missed off other specialists! Thanks

I've only met one Sian and it was '90s Dublin and she pronounced it "Shan". I never thought there was another way of saying it until now!

It doesn't mean I go round saying, "Hello everyone, my friend Siaaaaaaaaan and I are going to drive to Newcaaaaaaaastle in my caaaaaaaar."

Yeah, I do realise it's not as exaggerated as that. But if it's not a longer sound (as everyone has been describing it) then I've gone right back to being confused .

I thought I understood why people were putting an R in, to describe a very slightly stretched A sound (which doesn't exist when I speak but which I can hear in many English accents) but now I'm not sure if that's what people meant at all. When my kids were learning to read at school they didn't learn different A sounds. They just learnt that A is pronounced 'ah' but that sometimes it sounds a bit different depending on what comes after. But it wasn't like the resources linked to upthread.

Sharn

It's so difficult to have this kind of conversation in written form when we can't hear what people's accents sound like!

In my accent (I'm from the home counties) I would use what I call a short A to describe the vowel sound in words like "van" or "can", and I don't think there's much regional variation in how that sound is pronounced.

The issue is the fact that people who speak like me use what I call a long A to pronounce different words, like "bath" or "castle". So I would say "bah-th"/"bar-th", or "cah-sle"/"car-sle" (depending on how you want to write it), and for me that is a completely different vowel sound to "van" or "can".

When I write "Sharn", I put the R in to indicate that it is the long A sound like "bath" or "castle" or "car" or "harm" or "yarn", which are all the same vowel sound. I don't pronounce it with an R in it, any more than I would pronounce the R in "harm" or "yarn".

I suspect the people saying, "No, it's Shan, like can or van" also say "bath" and "castle" with the short vowel sound.

Would everyone except the people who think it's See Ann or Sigh Ann agree that the vowel sound in Sian is the same as the A in "bath" or "castle"?

If so, that would explain the confusion.