Girl’s name, Mehri?

[Bookworm55]

A Persian name pronounced a bit like Merry, thoughts?

It's OK but sounds too much like Mary and I think that she'll spend the rest of her natural life correcting people (which, from experience, is a complete pita)

Gorgeous name. Might be a bit odd on someone without Persian heritage, though.

Are you Persian/Iranian?

@MrsFin yes I am 👍🏼

I think it's a beautiful name, but I do think it will lead to a lifetime of corrections, which may or may not be a big deal.

Really pretty 🥰

Yes it.is lovely, but she will.spend her whole life telling people.It isn't Mary and having to.spell it

I've taught a few and only needed telling how to pronounce it correctly once, it's not a tricky one to get right. I think it's very pretty!

Hi everyone! Thank you for all of your opinions. I understand that it may be confused with Mary - those of you who have met others with the name before, how have they explained the pronunciation to you? Thanks.

I’ve never heard of it (no reason why i should know all Persian names). We have a couple of Mehdis.

I really like it.

Lovely

I think it’s beautiful OP!

It's nice!

I think it's nice but I agree it will be mistaken for Mary which will probably be annoying for her.

I love it!

@Bookworm55

Hi everyone! Thank you for all of your opinions. I understand that it may be confused with Mary - those of you who have met others with the name before, how have they explained the pronunciation to you? Thanks.

I was told to try to make it rhyme with Yeh, so the e sound is a lot shorter than the a in Mary. The first student told me that and the next one didn't object to my attempt so can't be that far off although I know it's definitely not perfect!

I would have though it would be long first syllable (ending on the ‘heh’), and a short second: Meh- ri

@Heyha @KittenKong Thanks that helps a lot!
Thanks everyone, happy to see positive responses! :) I don’t know if the Mary association will be an issue for us because we are very non-religious? Do you think the similarity is a deal breaker? We love the name but slightly put off by how similar it sounds to Mary. Although Mary is a beautiful name in itself I don’t like associating strongly to any religion. What are your thoughts?

I’m English and read this phonetically before reading the comments and didn’t read it as Mary at all. Much more like the pp described although I maybe you’d still correct my pronunciation! I think it is very pretty but also a strong name so I like it a lot

I have a Meredith who we call Merry a lot so I like it. Agree about the Mary thing - in my accent they sound similar but different, but in many accents where I live now (NI) they're the same.

I'd just encourage her not to see it as a big deal, people who need to know how to spell and pronounce her name will learn it quickly, it's not difficult. And being called Mary in Starbucks isn't the end of the world.

English speakers trip their tongues over her sound but you could explain it as being like the Welsh rh in Rhiannon. In Irish you would spell it Meithrí, that would get a close pronunciation.
I don't think Mary is seen as religious at all, it was just what every girl was called plus some boys.

Doesn't sound like Mary at all, I like it though, very pretty!

Thank you everyone! Feeling reassured! :)

Maryam is probably the most common girls name. I don’t think your name is too hard to pronounce - there are some honkingly hard names to get your mouth around of you don’t speak Farsi. (Like the ‘ghreh’ sound we don’t have in English ).