How Do You Pronounce These?

[sunyla]

I recently heard Elijah pronounced different to how it's usually is and it made me think of how some people pronounce Maya - My-ah and others pronounce it May-ah.

So for fun, how do you pronounce these names and what other names often get different pronunciations?

I'll add that I pronounce them
My-ah and E-Lie-Shah

May - a
Ee-lie- jer (with a hard j)

Ee-lie-jah

May-ah

My-ah
Ee-lie-ja.

Other names with varying pronunciations -often names with foreign roots, which are most of them - include:
Elena
Levi
Eli
Aurelia
Aaron
Nicola
Helena
Juliette/Juliet
Vivienne/Vivien

My-uh or May-uh
El-eye-juh

Helena - Helen-uh. Hel-ain-uh Hel-eena
Eleanor - Ellinuh or Ellen Or
Sofia - So-fee-uh or Sophie -h
Sophia - So-fee-uh or So fie-uh
Maria - Mar-ee-a or Mar-eye-uh
Georgiana - Jor-jayna or Georgie-Anna or Georgie-Ahnuh

there are 2 names

Elijah and Elisha.
Both Biblical names, Elijah was the teacher/mentor of Elisha.

I am up with most variations, but to pronounce Elijah as Elisha means you are actually just saying another name

I'd pronounce Elijah roughly elle-eye-ja, with a hard j. I reckon that's the standard pronunciation.
Although, less commonly, I've heard it with a soft j too, so more like elle-eye-ah which I think is what the OP is thinking of.

el-EYE-jah (hard J)

MY-uh

@FourPlasticRings

Ee-lie-jah

May-ah

Like this

’E-Lie-Shah’

Do you mean you sound the Shah part to sound like a soft j, like the french je, rather than a hard J like in jam? I say it like that too.

Uh-LIE-jah

Maya could be either. I’d go My-ah as a first guess.

My-ah
Uh-lie-jah

El lee ya

May ah

A quick google describes the french je as sounding like the S in treasure. That’s how I pronounce the J in Elijah.

eh-LIE-jah with a soft j.

If I heard E-Lie-Shah with a /sh/, I'd think the name was Elisha

I'd read Maya as Mai-ah unless started otherwise.

Most of the names, like these ones, that I can think of with multiple pronunciations are ones that have filtered through a lot of languages (as Elijah and many Biblical names has) or a name written in the same way at least in when the same alphabet but from different languages (as Maya is).

Other few names I can think of:
Asha - ai-sha or ash-a
Ayla - eye-lah, ay-lah, eh-lah
Dalia - dah-lee-ah, dah-lya
Danai - dah-nah-ee, dan-ai
Dara - dah-rah and dare-ah - similar with Cara, Mara and similar
Dian - dee-Ehn or as a variant of Diane

Carolina
Andrea
Yasmine
Liza

My-ahh
E-lie-Jah

El-eye -jah with a hard j
My-ah like the Mexican Mayans

Elijah is el-eye-jah. Elisha is el-eye-sha

El eye jah

May ah

Ell-EYE-jah. Usual English J, not 'sh'.
MY-ah

ill-eye-juh because that’s how Elijah Wood pronounces it and that was my first frame of reference Same with Maya: My-ah because that’s how the first one I knew pronounced her own name.

Elijah is el-eye-ya

Elisha is el-ish-a

Maya is May-a

My-ah for Mya
May-ah for Maya

E-lie-jah for Elijah

I love the name Mya
But my Dp kept pronouncing it May-ah and it put me of thinking others would lol

I always liked Marisa, but whenever I heard it out loud it was pronounced Marissa. I wasn't having that, so I gave birth to male children.
Mya
Eh-lie-jah