How to pronounce...?

[flyingcloud]

If you've read my thread below re a name for possible DD2 you will that I am Irish and DH is French. We live in France.

We both like the following names (much much tearing of hair and indecision and disagreement):

Ciara & Athena

Are French people bound to call Ciara: Kee - Ah - Ra (like the Italian Chiara?) Are we being unfair to her lumping her with a name like this. As an Irish person I'm not hugely keen on the anglicised spelling Keira (as in Knightly) which is more phonetic.

Athena: The French pronounciation is A-Tay-Na (or we go for Athina, A-Tee-Na)
Again we both love the name, but not the French pronounciation, prefering the soft Th sound in the middle rather than the hard.

What do you think? Ciara is a fairly simple name... it's not like a Ghislaine, Guillaume or even Aoife (names which are often mangled by non-native speakers of respective languages). Really loving the name and we seem close to making a decision!

Hiya - I've heard Ciara pronounced 'Cara' (when I lived in Dublin) and 'Sierra' (the American singer)
Athena is pretty phonetic and that's the only way I would think of spelling it. :) Love Athena cause I love the possibility of using Thea x

I would also say pronounce Ciara as "Chiara" but I do speak Italian so that maybe why...how would you like it pronounced?

Ciara and Athena are both lovely names.
In the beginning you may have to spell or pronounce either name for family, friends etc but they will get used to it and then your occasions for spelling etc will decrease until childcare/school. She wont be "lumped" with the name - it's not like you're calling her Concepta or Dearbhforgaille.

Hi, I would like Ciara pronounced the Irish way! Kee-ra (like Keira Knightly) However all the different pronounciations are pretty.

Athena is not phonetic in French though - the Th is a T sound...

Montsti it's pronounced Kee-ra

I think that in southern mainland Europe, Ciara will default to Kee-ar-a and Athena to either At-ee-na or At-ey-na (depending on what Greek they studied).

Thanks dublindee - how do you pronounce Ciara? Just out of interest as polkadot said she heard it pronounced Cara in Dublin, which in all my time in Ireland I never heard, Cara being a different name with a different meaning.

I do sort of feel that mispronouncing either name is not going to result in a mouthful or too many raised eyebrows.

I'd pronounce it the same as you flyingcloud, as Cara is (as you said) a totally different name. I had wanted to use that or Caitlin if the current bubs I'm baking was a girl - but we are expecting boy number 3 :)

It means ray of sunshine :o

I'd say Kee-ar-a and Ath-eena with the 'th' as in 'think'. I'm Welsh and as Welsh is a phonetic language I say what I see. It's never ocurred to me that it might be pronounced with a 't'.

I hear your pain, OP - we are expecting a little boy, and both of us are Irish but living in the UK (and will probably be moving on somewhere else in the next few years), and many of the Irish names we come up with are going to be unpronounceable to most non-Irish people - we both love Naoise, but I'm not sure I can condemn our baby to a lifetime of spelling it... (Pron 'Neeshuh' for those who don't know- same vowel sound as the more popular Aoife.)

On the other hand, I suppose there's the option of brazening it out, and just correcting pronunciations until your friends and family get it. Both your names are lovely.

Agreeing that Cara and Ciara are entirely different names, too.

Thank you all.

I love Ciara, the more I think about it, the more I want to use it. I think the 'th' sound of Athena is going to stump most French people. They usually default to 'f' or 't' when faced with 'th'!

I love Naoise HardCheese - but DH has to be able to pronounce the name first and luckily we're sorted if DC2 is a boy.