Am I pronouncing this name correctly?

[Maybree]

Our daughter is due on December 6th and we’ve decided to name her Alana. We will pronounce the name “Ah-lar-na”. I haven’t come across many people with this name so I just wanted to check.

It doesn’t confuse people who know the difference between a rhotic and a non rhotic accent!

I knew the difference before you gave me the link yet it still confused me to see it here. If I see “r” in a pronunciation guide, I think of an “r” sound as I don’t know the writer’s accent and it doesn’t make sense to use a letter when you don’t mean that letter’s sound. That’s not a pronunciation guide but a made up spelling.

@PartyStory

It doesn’t confuse people who know the difference between a rhotic and a non rhotic accent!

I knew the difference before you gave me the link yet it still confused me to see it here. If I see “r” in a pronunciation guide, I think of an “r” sound as I don’t know the writer’s accent and it doesn’t make sense to use a letter when you don’t mean that letter’s sound. That’s not a pronunciation guide but a made up spelling.

The OP asked if people would pronounce it ‘a lar na’. I think if you know the difference between rhotic and non rhotic, most would be able to deduce that she is asking from a non rhotic viewpoint, as I doubt there are many in the world who would pronounce Alana with a hard ‘r’ in the middle. I may be wrong, but as a linguist I have never come across it. It makes sense to non rhotic speakers to use ‘ar’ in this particular circumstance. It’s a casual question on a casual forum, on which many readers would understand the question posed. It’s not an academic paper.

Bheadh sé níos éasca dá labhróimis go léir Gaeilge

See I do actually think it confuses the hell out of a lot of people, given that we have the baffled ‘wtf no you don’t pronounce it baNARna/BARth’ comments every time on this type of thread. Even when it’s quite clear that people are actually trying to convey (broadly) the same sound.

The OP asked if people would pronounce it ‘a lar na’. I think if you know the difference between rhotic and non rhotic, most would be able to deduce that she is asking from a non rhotic viewpoint, as I doubt there are many in the world who would pronounce Alana with a hard ‘r’ in the middle. I may be wrong, but as a linguist I have never come across it.
It makes sense to non rhotic speakers to use ‘ar’ in this particular circumstance. It’s a casual question on a casual forum, on which many readers would understand the question posed. It’s not an academic paper.

If you read back the thread, you can see I wasn’t the only one confused by this and others have said the issue comes up often. Like I said, I already knew the difference but it still confused me. And many won’t know the difference and will definitely be confused. Especially in a baby name thread where names from different cultures can be pronounced differently than they might seem.

I’m aware this is a casual forum but you’re the one posting about rhotic and non-rhotic, calling themselves a linguist, and saying you can write in IPA. No one else is doing that. Maybe you need reminding?

My point is that if you are aware of this the difference, it doesn’t make sense for you to purposely use a pronunciation guide that doesn’t work for everyone. For posters not aware of this then it’s not an issue.

I've googled rhotic accents & still none the wiser why ppl would add the r sound. Why not say It Aloosha or Alweejo if you're gonna add random sounds not linked to the included letters & ignore other letters used in the spelling.

It did confuse me briefly, even though I'm aware of Rhotic/Non-Rhotic, as you can see from my first posts. It took me a minute to work through what it mean because my initial reaction when seeing an 'R' in something is to pronounce it, so I was saying Al-Arr(like a pirate)-na and confused as to how anyone would say it like that. But then I twigged it was the 'ahh' like in non-Rhotic 'car' and it makes more sense.

That said, I still would never pronounce it like that because that's just not a sound I make in speech. It would require me to do a faux English accent to make that sound, so I will always pronounce it 'Al-anna' because that's just how my speech is. Not being difficult or awkward - I would always try to pronounce something the way someone wanted. But in this case, it's just a sound I don't (and can't authentically) make and it would sound ridiculous in my Scottish accent and like I was taking the piss.

So I think the answer, OP, is that it will be pronounced differently depending on where the person saying it is from, but if you're in an 'Al-arr(ahh)-na' part of the country then that's presumably how you, her, her family and peers will refer to her. If she moves to a part of the country or another country where people have Rhotic accents, she'll most likely be 'Al-ah-na' to them.

@YeOldeTrout

I've googled rhotic accents & still none the wiser why ppl would add the r sound. Why not say It Aloosha or Alweejo if you're gonna add random sounds not linked to the included letters & ignore other letters used in the spelling.

Not actually adding an R. Just making the third 'a' a long vowel. Like in "father".

Bheadh.

A-larna. A as in a phonetically

@Margotshypotheticaldog

Bheadh sé níos éasca dá labhróimis go léir Gaeilge

Bheadh. B'fhéidir go ithfidh mé ba-nar-nar ar feadh tamaill mar tá ocras orm ;)

@HandScreen

For example, the name "Dara" is pronounced "Dah-rah" by Irish people, but in an English accent, this becomes "Daw-raw", which is fine and correct to the accent.

I've noticed, from being on these threads a while now, that 'ah' and 'aw' are pronounced differently in different accents too. They've caused confusion on threads before, though not as much as the dastardly 'r'

The name Alana may come from a few different sources, I believe. One is Irish, where the term 'a leanbh' (child) was used as a term of endearment. It's pronunciation is given in this link - the second version is the way the name's pronounced in Ireland.
forvo.com/word/a_leanbh/

“It makes sense to non rhotic speakers to use ‘ar’ in this particular circumstance.”

See... if someone puts banarna, for instance, then yes, I assume they say it like that and also probably pronounce Southend as sarfend.

I mean, yes, I also realise they’re non rhotic as well, but most non rhotic accents it sounds more like ah, so that’s what I’d assume people would put tbh.

Fuzzy

Is the OP coming back?
It's an awful, dated name. Made worse by the appalling mispronunciations.
Choose again!

😂🙊

A-lar-na

Alana, Alanna, and Alannah as Scottish and Irish names are all pronounced (roughly) as ah-LAN-ah or uh-LAN-uh. I understand that in your accent it's ah-LAR-nah, and that's OK, but you really cannot enforce that pronunciation in general. It's like if I had a Julia and insisted that people pronounce it JOO-lee-urr, or a Cora and I insist on Corer. If you can't handle people pronouncing it the traditional Scottish/Irish/Gaelic way, don't use it.

I would say ala r na otherwise it's Alan a .. Alan is an old man name. Letters together make different sounds, names aren't all pronounced phonically.

The 'a' sound will be different depending on accent.

Eg, the word 'grass'. My DH is northern, so grass rhymes with ass

My mother in law is posh so grass rhymes with arse

And Im from Devon so grass is said like graaaas

Anyway, I would pronounce the name Al-ah-na, and northern DH would say al-anna

I'd pronounce it uh-lar-na if I saw it. Can't tell if you are suggesting an uh sound at the start or a A (as in the start of A-nimal

I have a Spanish friend whose DD is Alana, so I think its not just an Irish name. They pronounce it Al-anna. Its correct either way but this tread shows you can't assume everyone else will pronounce it the same way. If that doesn't bother I think ots a lovely name.

@MirandaBlu

Alana, Alanna, and Alannah as Scottish and Irish names are all pronounced (roughly) as ah-LAN-ah or uh-LAN-uh. I understand that in your accent it's ah-LAR-nah, and that's OK, but you really cannot enforce that pronunciation in general. It's like if I had a Julia and insisted that people pronounce it JOO-lee-urr, or a Cora and I insist on Corer. If you can't handle people pronouncing it the traditional Scottish/Irish/Gaelic way, don't use it.

Genuine question - how else would you pronounce Julia?

Genuine question - how else would you pronounce Julia?

Lots of people say Jool-ya.

I'm American and would pronounce without the r. Totally confused why it would be added in there.