If your friend had named her baby Ralph...

[surprise]

would you pronounce it Ralf or Rafe?

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"Is it in yet? Are we doing it?" ROLF!!!

I mean ROFL!

Yes, makes me think of that Judy Blume book too! It was the name the guy had for his penis. Hopefully that connotation will die out by the time the kid gets older.

why would people want to pronounce a child called Ralpf Rafe? doesn't make much sense at all....

Ralf - if she wanted Rafe she should've called him that

ralph will alway be the willy in forever for me too. hehehehehe

what is this ralph rafe thing anyways? is it just pretension or arwe there really two different names or pronunciations?

Ralph - nice name too

duh, I meant pronounce it Ralf

ralph used to be pronounced rafe i believe
the modern way is usually to pronounce it ralf, but there are still some rafes about, eg ralph fiennes as mentioned on here

right, so pron it ralf is actually the wrong way? interesting.

well, not wrong, just that it now has a modern pronunciation as well - ralf
just that the name was originally said rafe - this is sometimes still used - it isn't something the OP's friend has made up

I don't think any child of the 70s would call a child Ralph. We passed that book around constantly at school. I would also snigger.

I still don't get why Ralph ever could be pronounced Rafe...just doesn't make sense to me....at all....

I think there's a class issue here - upper classes pronounce it 'Rafe', everyone else pronounces it as it is spelt.

well, it's like cough and through and bough, I would say
just one of those strange quirks of language - not everything is pronounced phonetically

qv thread on necklace atm!

lol....trust them upper classes eh....

is it that plum that makes it so hard to pronoune things "correctly" , lol

but franny those are words that could not possibly be described as phonetic words anyway,lol

if i called my son Ralph, pronounced either way, id expect him to get a fair bit of abuse/sniggering for it at any rate.

but each to their own.

Sorry if I sound a bit thick here but how do you say. 'Rafe' Do you pronounce it 'Raff'

no, rhymes with safe

but if Rafe rhymes with safe, why does Ralph rhymes with safe, lol...to me ralph rhymes with calf...I suppose....blardy english language.....honest to get...why are the english making it so hard on themselfs and others??????? Get a phonetic language and all is well

Ah Thanks.
Couldnt think of anything that rhymed with it that way.

calf (in my accent; londoner) is pron more like carf.
ralph i would pron like Alf, but with an R at the beginning.

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