Yelena?

[NatMoz]

If you are British or from an English speaking nation, how would you pronounce this name?

Trying to think of names that won't cause a lifetime of drama in England. In my head this name is pronounced how it's spelt, similar to its sister name Elena (el-en-ah) but I've also heard Elena pronounced in other wacky ways including the English Eleanor and wondered if Yelena would share the same fate?

I think that’s okay - I just meant I would find it out if, for example, my sil suddenly named her child Yelena when her other kids are names like Olivia, Thomas etc. It would be a bit out of place.

But yes I’d pronounce it like Yelena Belova. So Yeh-Lay-nuh, but quite a ‘soft’ y.

This is our first (and only baby probably) husband is English but baby will have my (foreign) surname as a middle name. I don't really like double barrel. Another name we liked was Alexandra which I know English people wouldn't struggle with.

I do like Yelena/Elena but was worried about mispronunciation of it being Eleanor/Yeleanor

Ps we don't know the sex but I want to be prepared and baby is due to be born in 7 weeks argh!

Yel AY na

Yel-yay-na

Yeh-lay-nah

I'd pronounce it Ye LAY na. I'd also pronounce Elena El AY na

Helena would be either HELenna or HeLAYna. There are two different usual pronunciations of this.

@SweetBabyCheeses99, I thought exactly the same. Big tennis fan here too ! ( also...kath n Kim?!)
I love the name but think Jelena is the best spelling.

I love the name but think Jelena is the best spelling.

Even though I know it's not, my brain tells me that's with a J like Jelly.

@MyCatHatesWhiskas

Yel-AY-na. Russian-style. Am very familiar with it though!

This is not a name that is consistently recognised, pronounced or spelled the same way in the U.K.

Ditto many other variants of related names. I know someone who has an Elena (to me, this is pronounced El-AY-na, Spanish style), renounced Eleanor as she “liked to spell it a bit differently”.

To be fair, my friend has an Isaac, which you’d think was a one-option name for spelling, and he gets Issac all the time and even got Isacc the other week..

Isaac is one that I have to think about every time I write it. Even though I really like the name.

I think it is because aa is not really used in English whilst ss is a very common pairing. I know there is a “double” in there. So my brain immediately goes to use the double s.

I would pronounce Yelana and Yel- ay- a.

It’s a very pretty name.

I would go for Alexandra though personally. But that is because I adore the name. It was my choice for “Ds if he was a girl”.

Lots of nice shortenings too - Ally, Alex, Alexa, Lexi, Sandy.

People like to add sounds when pronouncing names in English.

It's Ye-LEH-na. No AY in the middle, that's adding a sound that's not even in the spelling itself.

Elena in Spanish is Eh-LEH-na, not Eh-LAY-na like some people are trying to 'confirm'.

Most Slavic and Romance languages (French not included) read phonetically - letter by letter instead of adding random vowels all over the place.

Source: I am Spanish, have a vowel-heavy name that gets butchered by every single English-speaking person I know, and one of my mother tongues is also a Slavic language, so I know how hugely different are names pronounced in the UK.

It's like Amelia and Melinda. Ah-mee-lia and Meh-lin-da. Both have the 'me' particle, but are pronounced differently due to different syllable positions. English is not a phonetic language (definition of phonetic: to represent each speech sound with a single written symbol).

English is not a phonetic language (definition of phonetic: to represent each speech sound with a single written symbol).

Phew! Thank goodness someone who isn't English has been along to point that out to us!

Seriously - could you be more patronising?

I know a Serbian Jelena pronounced ye-le-nuh so would pronounce it the same.

Eileen. (Pron. EYE-Leen) I strongly suspect that your ‘EH’ is what people are meaning by ‘AY’.

That’s the difficulty with a non phonetic language

The one I know is Russian.

@EdgeOfTheSky, @EileenGC, the problem with transcribing is that English doesn't have the e sound in the middle of Elena. The nearest is ay, but it doesn't have the 'y' sound

Yell- ay- na

I strongly suspect that your ‘EH’ is what people are meaning by ‘AY’.

It is not. EH and AY are two different sounds. I have that exact syllable in my name and if you switch them around, they make a different name. Say them out loud, they don’t sound the same.

The OP asked whether Yelena would be mispronounced (she said she pronounces it like it’s spelt - like in el-en-ah - according to her first post). People said it wouldn’t be mispronounced but pointed out they’d say ay instead of eh.

That is a different pronunciation (whether correct or not is a different question - neither option would be ‘wrong’ in my opinion). It won’t be pronounced Yeleanor, but it also won’t be pronounced like the OP would.

@WhoppingBigBackside it does have the sound. The first E in Elena is pronounced eh, the second one can also be said that way. You wouldn’t say Ay-lay-na, would you?

It’s not patronising to point out that people’s default pronunciation isn’t the original one. I’ve had people in the UK telling me I don’t know how to say my own name because they can’t work out the spelling from my pronunciation. Now that’s patronising. People saying ‘like the Spanish Eh-lay-na’ are patronising.

@EileenGC, I would say Elena as El-ay-na. Yelena,

I would say as YEL-yay-na, because that is how the Yelena I know says her name.

What I was trying to get across was that in some languages the sound that in English is transcribed as Ay is not the ay sound (as in Jayne) , or the eh sound (as in Yet). It's sort of the ay sound without the 'y' bit

If you go to google translate english-spanish, and type Elena then listen to both english and spanish, they don't sound the same

If you do english-russian and type Helena, and listen to both you'll hear why I say Yel-yay-na.

Helena can also be Hel-ee-na as well as Helen-a and Hel-ay-na. Personally I would probably think that Yel-ay-na is most likely for Yelena.

@EileenGC Im Russian and you're 100% wrong about the pronunciation. Yelayna would be the correct pronunciation in most UK accents. Definitely not El eh na.

Russian. 'E' is actually 'ye' hence the y at the front of yelena. It's not written like that in Cyrillic. See alao Yekaterina/Ekaterina. It's the same name and actually pronounced with the ye sound at the front in the second variant. The ye creates a long vowel sound which to anglophones woukd be ay. It's definitely not the short vowel sound of eh.
Before spouting off sort out your facts first

I think the issue would be the stress on one syllable: YELL-a-nuh vs yel-AY-nuh. But we have the same thing with the English Helena: HEL-un-uh or heh-LEH-nuh or hel-LAY-nuh. Elena would also have similar: EL-len-uh vs el-LEN-uh or eh-LAY-nuh. Just consider how much you mind correcting people so that they say it your way, and people getting it wrong even after corrected.

What Miranda said)) Lena is a pretty name btw but it is very dated (at least in Russia not sure about 🇺🇦) most lenas are 30+.

My partner is foreign and I am English, we live in England. We chose a name which was pronounced phonetically to avoid this issue. Especially as his surname is anything but way to pronounce or spell!!

I would pronounce Yelena- ye- lay- nah

I’d pronounce it the Russian way. But I much prefer Alexandra.