Anna

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Is this name pronounced different in England and America? I would say Anna rhymes with spanner but watching Frozen it seems to be more like "Arna" in that film....

Anna rhymes with Hannah which most certainly rhymes with spanner. If spanner is spoken with a rhotic accent that pronounces final 'r' sound then it won't rhyme but nonetheless it is very unlikely that Anna would be pronounced as Ahn-na in UK accents

Anna
spanna

Harper, though, I would promounce a bit more 'er' rather than 'a' or 'ah' at the end, don't know why.

Londoner with stupid RP accent over here.

Spanner is not pronounced spann-a . How the fuck could it be?

Token American here. Here's the general breakdown:

Anna = Ann-uh
Ana = Awn-uh
Anya = Awn-ya

I've never heard Anna pronounced like Ana. And it certainly doesn't rhyme with spanner!

just as rosie says, it all depends on how you say the 'r' after a vowel. Think of the difference between 'buttuh' and 'butter'.

How you say 'r' depends on your local accent. With RP for example, you say 'buttuh' and 'spannah'. With most Scottish accents - and in several other parts of the UK -you say 'butter' and 'spanner'.

So Anna sometimes does - and sometimes does not - rhyme with spanner!

My accent is e-rhotically rhotic.

From my experience, I think in the US Anna is "ANN-a" and Ana with one n is "ON-a" (or "AWN-a").

The Anna in Frozen is said in a European way not a British way. My sister is called Anna, rhyming with Hannah (and imo spanner but not going there!!) It's a great name and she's always loved it.

Spanner is not pronounced spanna but Anna is pronounced Anner. It doesn't make any sense.

This is a rhotic vs non-rhotic accent difference. Rhotic accents (Irish accents and Scots accents among them) pronounce the letter 'r' wherever it occurs ('butteR', 'haRD'), but non-rhotic accents (prob majority of English accents, though not by any means all) only pronounce it in some places, and not in a word like spanner, butter or hard. Rhotic a would say 'butta' or 'buttuh' and 'haad'. So to a non-rhotic accent Anna sounds like spanner (pron 'spanna'/'spannuh'), but as the rest of us say 'spannER', it doesn't sound anything like Anna.

One of my greatest friends in an American Annie, said exactly the same way as over here.

I am finding it really tricky to imagine how to say spanner without it sounding like "spanna" but obviously I am too southern to hear it! Even though half my family are from Scotland!