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.

@YeOldeTrout

How many kids now age 13+ remember anything about digraphs they were taught at age 4-7?

Well clearly enough of them that there’s people who think ar is logical as a long a sound....

I mean, like I said I always assumed it was people with a very specific accent who wrote that because they do in fact put an r in some words with a long a.

So if they’re not actually putting an r in, but it seems to be a thing that indicates it better than ah or aa then people must pick it up from somewhere?

@YeOldeTrout

How many kids now age 13+ remember anything about digraphs they were taught at age 4-7?

Well, I'd say they do remember, because it's the basis of how they learn to read, isn't it? I mean, they mightn't know the term digraph, but they'll know what sound 'ar' makes.

What they probably won't realise - unless they think about it, or are told - is that the sound 'ar' makes depends on accent and can vary depending on location etc.

This is my name that I wanted for a dd but dh was a firm no. Its sooo pretty.

I say it like you do op but know others say it differently ultimately they will learn how to say it after how you pronounce it.

A bit like Helena and Sophia can be said differently and still be right

OP: How old are you?

Were you thinking when you started this thread "Of course I was taught to phonetically spell the sound as "ar" but not say the r sound in school because my teachers said the r denotes a specific way to sound the a in that part of the word and everyone else was taught that too" -- is school the place where you learnt to spell phonetically like that, early school years?

Put an H on the end Anal A isn't great.

Alana not Anala!

Al Ana.

@YeOldeTrout
I don't know about the OP but many people were taught to pronounce 'ar' something like this -
www.bing.com/videos/search?q=ar+jolly+phonics+song&&view=detail&mid=1B92B2686F1F838193941B92B2686F1F83819394&&FORM=VDRVRV&PC=SWG01
I think it's the 'ar' sound the OP meant when she wrote Ah-lar-na. Those who didn't learn it formally in school would pick it up anyway if it's the accent the people around them use, as a pp said.
I have a rhotic accent so I don't say 'ar' like this btw.

DD has a DF called Alana. I'd pronounce it the same way as you

It should be pronounced al-anna / ahl-ahn-na, but the problem is that many English people in particular don't pronounce the name Anna properly, they seem to add the letter r and pronounce it ar-nna, therefore they also assume Alana / Alanna is pronounced Al-ar-na.

Depending where you live or your accent may influence how it is spelled or pronounced and may make a difference to your decision.

The one I knew was pronounced how you said

It's Al-anna.

If you want to avoid mispronunciations, spell it Alanna or Alannah.

Spelling it Alana will result in the pronunciations 'Alaina' and ALAN-ah.

many English people in particular don't pronounce the name Anna properly, they seem to add the letter r and pronounce it ar-nna

Really? I've never heard Anna pronounced with an R?

@Blubells

many English people in particular don't pronounce the name Anna properly, they seem to add the letter r and pronounce it ar-nna

Really? I've never heard Anna pronounced with an R?

Only in Frozen!

I’ve never heard an English person pronounce Anna as Arrna (except in Frozen, as @ReeseWitherfork said!)

I've looked after a couple, and they were both

Ah- Lar - na

I really don't understand the R thing..

@PrivateParty- what sort of accent do you have? If you are southern English, or are familiar with London/South East accents- think about the vowel sound in the word ‘car’. A southerner will make that a long vowel sound. And although there is an ‘r’ in the word, southerners won’t pronounce it, because southern English/London accents are ‘non-rhotic’ which means we don’t pronounce the ‘r’ in a word like car, whereas those with a rhotic accent (eg Scottish or American) would pronounce it.

Southerners have posted on the thread saying that we would pronounce Alana ‘Alarna’. This is just an attempt to write our pronunciation phonetically. Other posters (those with rhotic accents) have understandably been confused by this phonetic representation because their reading of it is with an ‘r’ sound.

NB- Lots of other accents are non-rhotic, not just southern English but I’ve just used that example as most people can imagine or ‘hear’ what that accent sounds like.

The one I know is pronounced A-lah-na