Names you aren't sure how to pronounce

[whatausername]

Since we're all inside for the foreseeable future...

What are some names you're not quite sure how to pronounce? We'll see if we can help each other. But do take answers with a pinch of salt given the wide variety of accents we all have!

For me: Hebe (hee-bee?) and João leave me feeling uncertain.

Per-se-phon-ee beautiful name.

@Heygirlheyboy "read" as in "red"? Maybe should have typed that 😂 Lady in question is first language Gaelic and didn't speak English until school, even now only speaks English when required, so old fashioned quite possible. Also quite possible that my accent isn't quite the same but it's definitely how I picked it up from her... now hoping she isn't cringing every time I say her name!

Juliet - JOO-lee-et.
Keziah - keh ZYE uh (whereas the spelling Kezia is more likely to be Kezzy-uh, in my experience)
Leonie - only heard it as Lee-OH-nee in Britain
Madeline - Mad-uh-lyne. This is the only spelling version where I would use the "lyne" ending unless told otherwise. Madeleine = Mad-uh-lin or Mad-uh-len or Mad-uh-lane...
Isaiah - Eye-zye-uh in the UK (In the US, it's more often pronounced Eye-zay-uh).
Thaddeus - Thaddy-us

I think Bride would probably be pronounced like the English word bride. There are St Bride churches and organisations in the UK, and afaik they all pronounce it as Bride. I don't think it's necessarily a mistake, lots of names were pronounced with a hard letter I sound in the past here. It's where we get Eliza from Elizabeth and why we pronounced Maria like Mariah and Sophia like Suh-FY-ah (those last two pronunciations are disappearing fast these days).

@margotsdevil Is your Mairead Scottish? I've heard the name pronounced like that in Scotland, with 'red' as the second syllable. I'm not sure of the pronunciation in the North of Ireland. In the South the second syllable is definitely pronounced 'aid'. The Irish language spelling is Mairéad. The é gives you that 'ay' sound.

@Guttersnipe my late bil was called Jaime and was Colombian - it is pronounced hi-may and is Spanish for Jamie. May be different for girls though!

@IVflytrap
I'm in Ireland and all Madeline's I know are pronounced Mad-uh-leen. It's how the French pronounce that spelling of the name too, with the Madeleine spelling being pronounced differently there (more like Mad-uh-lyn). My understanding is that the Madelyne pronouciation has come from the literary rhyming scheme used by Keats, and the author of the Madeline books, when they used the name.

How do you pronounce the the surname, ‘Waugh?’ I’ve had to use this name recently at work.

Thanks @rosieposies, that is what I feared. As I remember it, I mumbled something like Jame, which would have been totally unrecognisable to someone listening out for 'Himay'

Waugh = War.

@Boscoismyspiritanimal
@IVflytrap
I agree, Bride is probably pronounced as it looks so. Had never really come across it, only Bridie (Bride-ey), which I suppose is a diminutive/ pet form. In Bríd (pronounced Breed/Breej), it's the í that gives the ee sound. Often, though, people leave out the accent and pronounce the name as if it were still there, but in this case probably not.

I always pronounce Waugh to rhyme with Paw.

"Aneurin,
Is it AH-NYE-RIN , UH-NYE-RIN or something else entirely?"

Complicated. Aneurins who don't speak Welsh will pronounce it like your first example AH-NYE-RIN. Think of Nye Bevan and you get the middle syllable.

Welsh speakers would be AH-NEIGH-RIN with neigh as the horse sound, but there can also be regional differences.

"Jaime is Hime I thought with a sort of hawking 'h'."

In Spanish the j is pronounced as Scottish ch so CHAY-MEH I think. That sound would be a H in Latin America.

"Rhydian
Is it Ry-dan?"

Rh is its own letter in Welsh - the r and the h pronounced together, although not all Rhydians will do this and some might just pronounce the 'r'.

RHID-IAHN is the closest I can come to describing it without phonetics.

We really should have a key to phonetic symbols at the top of these threads with all the misunderstandings around the rhotics' r's etc.

"Waugh = War."

You see, that will confuse those with rhotic 'r's. The r in war is not pronounced to give the sound for waugh.

"My faves are

Padraig - Porrick"

The one I know has a 'g' sound at the end.

"Angharad is Ann ha rad. You don't pronounce the g."

Not correct. The 'ng' is like the English 'ng' in singing so it's pronounced how other pps have said.

Padraic: Paw-rick
Padraig: Paw-drig

"Joaquin

Wa-KEEN. (In the US)."

Based on Latin American rather than Spain Spanish.

"Padraic: Paw-rick
Padraig: Paw-drig"

I know one who is Porrig.

@Heygirlheyboy yes, she's an islander

Oh yesthere's that too

The Pawrick we know is Páraic

All the same name as such.

My housemate's girlfriend was called Keziah. It was pronounced Kee-sha (rhymes with belisha!)

@LizzyAnt I admit I only know Madeleines (that spelling) here in the UK, and they are mostly Mad-uh-lins, with one Mad-uh-laine.

My pronunciation of Madeline probably does come from literature, so I think you may be on to something there with the literary thing. Maybe PG Wodehouse, in my case!

Alternatively, it could be a remnant of the past tendency in English to use that hard letter I in names, even ones that we've adopted from other languages who have different pronunciations (as with Bride, Sophia, Maria mentioned above).

@IVtrap
Yes, maybe that's it too. I just love PG Wodehouse btw. Thanks for the reminder. Think I'll go and dig out a few for a re-read!