Irene - pronunciation?

[smartypants1000]

We love the name Irene, but want it pronounced eye-ree-nee. Will she spend her life correcting people who say eye-reen?

Would you spell it Irenie to avoid confusion? I think so but dh thinks not as it "looks made up"!

Irene is eye reen

Your dh is right re your suggestion

I'd go Ireny like Irony

It’s definitely eye-reen everywhere I’ve ever lived. I think you want a different name, so perhaps spell it differently. Ireney or Irenie?

I think also, people will assume if you call your child ireney that her actual name is irene and ireney is her nickname

I had aunts and neighbours known as Ree-ne which I'm guessing was a pet version of Irene, which is pronounce Eye-reen

Love the name! My DD has it as a middle name after a relative.

I knew a few woman born in the 1920s called Irene - all pronounced it Eye-ree-nee, but also shortened it to Rene (Ree-nee). It's a recognised pronunciation, but you'll likely have to put up with people pronouncing it Eye-reen.

However, many names have ambiguous pronunciations. My friend is called Maya and everyone assumes she pronounces it My-a. Actually, she pronounces it May-a. She just corrects people and it's no big deal.

A friend's daughter, Hermione, often had people pronouncing her name Herm-ee-own. Then Harry Potter came along and solved that one. It just takes someone to popularise the Eye-ree-nee pronunciation and you'd be fine.

She will, yes. I like I-ree-nee too, but would usually expect I-reen.

I'm not british but I'd pronounce both Irene and Eirene the same way, Eye-reen.

The russian name mentioned above is Irina and the proper pronunciation for that is Ee-ree-na.

I really like the name Irene (pronounced Eye-reen). Sadly in my language it'd be pronounced Ee-renn which I don't like at all.

The pronunciation Eye-ree-nee looks weird to me though.

My grandma was Irene (Eye-reen)
Never heard of it being pronounced any differently.

Although this is a zombie thread Irene really should be revived.

The proper pronunciation is Eye-ree-nee and I think as it hasn't been used for such a long time hopefully it will come back like that. Much nicer than Eye-reen.

Totally agree with Luredbyapomegranate above. Though 'zombie thread' implies dead people walking with jerky uncoordinated moves. When it's just a case of people feeling passionately about this:

Irene (3 syllables) is a living name not a dead one. It's Irene (2 syllables) that is no longer the living name. As the Oxford Dictionary includes both ways to say it, equally, and as the lovely 3-syllable version is generally preferred by people in this thread, we could declare the 3-syllable version the winner and be happy to call our children Irene as in I - Rene, goddess of Tranquillity.

Me too. You can still use it Op but you will have to spell it phonetically it the Greek way. Irene by itself isn't great but Irinee is pretty in a similar vein to Margot which I love.

I love "Eye-ree-nee" but hate "Eye-reen". The only "Eye-see-nee" I ever knew spelled her name Irenee, if that helps (even though I know if pronounced correctly that would be "EE-re-nay"). Sorry, accent won't show on this post.

This little Irene will be seven or eight now.

Ireenie!!! Are you serious? Never ever heard of that pronunciation.

My great-grandmother was 'Irene' pronounced how you'd like. My grandmother and mother have her name as a middle name. My mum hates it. I think it's quite beautiful!

Irene Adler from Sherlock. Irene Handl the actress (showing my age...). If I saw it written down, I would probably go with Eye-ree-nee first off and see if I was corrected.

Also, if anyone is interested in checking 'Irene' in the Oxford English Dictionary, all the people who have 'never heard of it' will find out that just because they haven't heard of it it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist as a three-syllable alternative. It's just so simple to check if something is correct.

On a similar vein, the French may insist that 'The Weekend' should be pronounced 'louis Ke'n'. It doesn't mean that this is the only acceptable pronunciation in the whole of France.
😉

PS - not the simplified learner's dictionary but the full dictionary, or the printed version

I came to say Irene Handl but you really do need to be of a certain age to remember her.

One of grandmother's closest friends (born around 1915, both now long deceased) was Irene pronounced Eye-Ree-Nee. Midlands area. It wasn't until adulthood that I realised it could be pronounced any other way. Such a pretty name and she was a really wonderful lady too, brings back many happy childhood memories for me.

You're pretty confident in your wrongness

AaRGH zombie !

You need Eirene for that pronunciation

Irene is always "ire reen".

My immediate reaction was to pronounce it the way it would be in Spanish..