Yoana or Yohanna? Registry office tomorrow!

[CandidPlum]

I’ve recently had a baby girl and DH and I have really struggled to come up with a name we both liked and that felt ‘right’ and like her - so much so that we had to postpone our registration appt. Added complication is that the name has to work in both our native languages (English and German).

We now have just 24 hrs until the appt, can’t postpone again, and I’m still dithering between Yohanna and Yoana. I love both and am slightly panicking that I’ll go for the wrong option - lack of sleep probably doesn’t help! DH is happy with both so has left the decision to me.

Does anyone have thoughts on either name please before I drive myself completely up the wall going back and forth between them?

Is Yohanna the easiest spelling? OP says it's to be pronounced "Yoarna"

I'm pretty sure the OP is choosing between two slightly different names.

Yoana - to be pronounced 'yo-ah-na'
Yohanna - to be pronounced 'yo-hannah'

I would go with Johanna (with Y pronunciacion).

Johanna (pron. Yohanna). (I knew a Johanna growing up and no one had a problem with pronunciation once they’d been told.)

So why add an “r” that is not being pronounced anyway if you are trying to represent a phonetic spelling?!

Anyway OP says she’s German and doesn’t say where in the UK she lives.

And why assume that all readers don’t pronounce their “r”s? I pronounce mine (Scotland).

I wouldn't be trying to spell it phonetically in UK, or when she goes to Germany, speaks to relatives etc, they will get it wrong too. Just go with the name you like amd the proper spelling. Once it has been pronounced to people they will get it for next time.

Sorry, I should have said in the OP!

Yohanna:Yo-ar-nna (German pronunciation)
Yoana:Yo-arna (so like Moana with a y)

That reads to me that they would be pronounced the same - no h and long a (ar)

I love Yohanna I lived in Czech Republic and met a lot of Johanna's pronounced with a y and lots of little girls names where shortened to Johi also pronounced with a Y with the J spelling

Because then there's no ambiguity. I could write Mo-a-na but that could still be "a" as in apple or "a" as in mast. Which in some accents is the same, or could be different. I'm from the SE and would write that I say "Barth" "grarss" "marst" even though there isn't technically an r sound, it's the closest way to write it.

Why are you pronouncing it with an 'ar' sound? No one would know that from Yoana or Yohanna, so as a PP said, you'd have to add an R.

So you think that just “a” can be pronounced in several different ways according to where you come from, yet you think adding an “r” removes ambiguity?!

How on earth can it do that when all of Scotland, the West Country, Northern Ireland, the US (and many more areas I have no doubt forgotten) sound out the “r” sound?

What you mean is it “removes ambiguity” if you only look at everything from the perspective of the way YOU speak. Sorry to break it to you but it ADDS ambiguity form my perspective!

Do you want Yo-anna or Yo-arna?

I prefer the arna ending so Yoana

I think Joanna and Johanna are great names. I really don't like the Y spelling at all.

Is it really spelled with a Y in German?

If your daughter is living in the UK she will have to spend her whole life explaining spelling and pronunciation if you go with the Y

Apologies.

A failing on my part then as I cannot think of any other way to write that sound, that makes it clear what I mean.

Not intended to be offensive!

Fair enough. All OP (and you) need to do is to specify at the beginning which variety of English is being used as the reference point rather than assuming that all readers speak the same way.

The best approach is, of course, to use the International Phonetic Alphabet but that is not readily available on most keyboards and not easy to understand without the accompanying key.

Definitely Yohanna! It's beautiful. The other is just not as pretty. I would read Yoana as rhyming with loner.

Although there is absolutely no need to spell it phonetically, reading the (slightly bickery!) comments above re pronunciation, there is definitely scope for non-German people to pronounce Yohanna wrong, if they have only seen it written not heard it spoken. They'll rhyme it with manner rather than farmer. But that is easily corrected and not a problem.

I would use Yohanna, but would prefer to spell it Johanna. My dc had a German friend named Johanna but pronounced Yohanna.

Yes - I also have a German family member spelled Johanna. It is pronounced Yo-hanna. I've never seen it spelled with a Y.

I prefer Johanna too. I wouldn’t know how to pronounce the other versions mentioned (even after reading this thread!)

With those spellings I would say
Yo-Hannah
Or Yo-Anna

Why not go for something simple like Yanna?

This

I knew a Johanna and it was pronounced Yo-hanna, but sounded more Yuh-hanna really. I prefer Johanna over Yohanna and Yohanna over Yoana which I think will get really horribly mispronounced as Yo-ner as 'oa' generally makes an O sound as in boat.

In this case, I advise Yoana. It's spelt pretty much as it's said (even though I've never heard of it before). You'll get a mix of "Anna" and "Arna" pronunciations, and maybe even the odd "Yona", but I think a good chunk of people will read it as intended. The Moana analogy helps.

Yohanna is almost always going to be read as "Yo Hannah". Which just makes me think of someone shouting "Yo, Hannah!".

That's from an English perspective, I can't speak for Germans. I also can't work out what the difference is between your two intended pronunciations - they both read like they rhyme with Moana to me.

@TimeandMotion , you forgot the Welsh.

@CandidPlum , write it as Johanna. Yohanna looks wrong and Yoana looks like Yo-na.

I do think on a UK centric site that it's the "least bad" way to assume non-rhotic pronunciation. A small minority of people in the UK have rhotic accents, and many people who haven't studied this get mixed up about where rhotic speakers even place their Rs... Just listen to any child trying to do an American accent. Very few people are familiar with the international phonetic alphabet, and almost any vowel sound, when transcribed in normal letters (like "ar" or "ah"), is open to multiple interpretations.

DH is German and his sister is called Johanna

they pronounce it Yo hanna - no ah sound