How do you pronounce

[DeStijl]

Alistair?
Our 9 week old is Alistair and there's been some real variation in how people are saying it.

I’m Scottish and live in Scotland and would pronounce it Al-lis-ster. Doesn’t matter what spelling is used, pronunciation would be the same. Although every one I know is called Ally

So is Alister meant to be pronounced the same as Alistair?

I say them differently. It's too confusing. All boys must now be called Bob!

@WhiskeySourpuss haha me too! Hardly rolls off the tongue!

I'd pronounce it how you say it. It's your child. If you said his name was Dave, he'd be Dave, if it's Alistair, then Alistair :p just correct people if they say it wrong

Alis-dur. SE England. I like the name Alistair, makes me think of Alistair Cook the cricketer or the Brownlee brother.

God, this is gonna sound awful but I made a 'mum friend' when I was pregnant, and she let me know she had had baby Alistair via text. I have avoided using his name in person EVER as I never know if it's Alis-tur or stair.
She calls him by a NN that I cannot use (it's a long the lines of lovey) so it would be weird if I used it.
I should've asked straight away, as now he's 9 months and it's far too late to ask

I'd probably say Al-is-stuh for Alasdair, and Al-is-stair for Alistair, think the d makes a flat 'uh' sound but the st is sharp and I'd sound all the vowels out.

Ah-liss-tur

Scotland

I'm NE Scottish and pronounce it 'Alistur' but would pronounce the variant Alisdair as it's spelled, although some Alisdairs pronounce it 'Alistur' too. It's not posh by the way, at least not here.

More importantly how do you pronounce it and then just correct people by saying oh we know there's a few ways to say it but we'd prefer it if you called him ....

Ugh I hate the Ali-staaaaiiiirrr pronunciation @op! I know an Alistair in the SE and this is what he gets from one of his own gps. It isn’t right to me.

I say Ali-sturr (rhotic accent).

Or sorry it’s more like Ali-staaaaaaiiii the the little Alistair I know seems to get; no r at end due to non-rhotic accent!

Al-is-stair, as it is written.

Ah list urr

Alice-stuh.
Long drawn out stair sounds rather irritating

Alista
I'm from the SE too

Al-is-stair (South east)

Alister rhyme with Mister

Al-is-stair

Not drawn out on the ‘stair’ part though. I’m South East too.

Alicetur

Or rather Alice-tur.

Al-is-star East Coast of Scotland

I'm finding this thread hilarious for some reason! I have heard that Alastair is considered fairly posh in England, but definitely not so in Scotland.

Alasdair is the Gaelic spelling, anything else is a Scots or anglicised spelling but they should all be pronounced the same - ALLIS-tir. The 'i' in the 'tir' ending is often a schwa. Pronouncing the ending as "stair" to rhyme with care is just wrong - the "ai" is a Gaelic spelling, not an English one so it's not pronounced as in English. Here's a link to the Learn Gaelic dictionary with an audio clip of the sound: learngaelic.scot/dictionary/index.jsp?abairt=alasdair&slang=both&wholeword=false

This thread has been playing on my mind and I’ve realised I don’t say stair at the end at all. Stur is closer to how I’d say it.