How would you pronounce Anthony?

[igglepiggle599]

I'd love to use the name 'Anthony', but I've heard a lot of people (especially in the States) pronounce it using the 'h', which I really dislike. Is this likely to be a common problem?

I do get very bothered by certain pronunciations. I've already ruled out the name 'Anastasia' because I hate the way many people pronounce it with four syllables (An-uh-stay-zhuh instead of An-ah-stay-see-ah).

I'm aware that it can also be spelled 'Antony', but it just doesn't look quite right to me!

A kid near me growing up also was Anfernee, though actually spelt Anthony i believe. Regularly shortened by everyone to Anff.

We have family members who spell it Antony. They sometimes get Anth-ony but mostly people say Ant-ony. I also know and Antoni

I think I prefer the spelling without the h.

In London: it would also be AntKnee. Me ex-BiL has this name and exH calls him AntKnee. His friends call him Tony. In Bridgerton, Lady Bridgerton calls her son AntErKnee. People who say AnTHunny sound odd to me.

I refer to the Roman politician Marcus Antonius, or Mark Anthony, who went on to partner Queen Cleopatra in Egypt and have three children with her. The T is prominent in the Roman pronunciation.

We know lots of people called Anthony (in the 60 to 75 bracket). All pronounced with a hard "t", an occasional Antnee (the Antnees we know have Irish roots). None of them are shortened to Tony.

St Anthony was the patron Saint of lost things which is rather charming.

I would pronounce it without sounding the h, but my husband’s family (where Anthony is a family name) pronounce it as a ‘th’. They are west coast of Scotland.

however, people should pick up on how it is pronounced when you tell them.

The only people I’ve ever heard pronouncing it with the ‘th’ in the UK and Ireland are my BIL and his European wife (he and one of their sons are called Anthony, which is a family name in his family), and in their case, I’m pretty sure it’s an overcorrection like ‘Heighth’ or ‘That would be myself, Lord Sugar’. I’ve known my BIL since my teens, and he always pronounced his own name without the ‘h’, so I imagine it’s her telling him he’s mispronouncing his own name (as he is from a WC family who horrify her), and ‘correcting’ him to what she imagines is the more genteel pronunciation.

https://forvo.com/word/anthony/#google_vignette

I'm irish and here it cam vary but the worst pronunciation here is ant nee. It really depends on the accent local to you

An-thon-ee

I’ve genuinely never heard it pronounced another way.

I thought antony was a different name?

th pronounced in my family - Scotland if that makes a difference. And I've never known him to have to correct people don't must be fairly common.

I've noticed this more on television programmes. I did wonder if it is due to the spelling - some would put Antony to lower confusion but we all know people tend to stick to whatever they've heard before.

Maybe pick a single syllable name to avoid issues?

@Mariannassa , 'Antony' is the usual English pronunciation of Anthony.

Why on earth would we say Antem and Antology when those are not the usual pronunciations?

DH says An th on ee

Drive me mad if he ever says that name. It's An ton ee

I'm in the North East and have only heard it pronounced with the th sound. Even the local girls school is pronounced that way.
I noticed in the Royle Family, Jim always produced it Anthony, while the others used Antony.

How old are those saying it as Anth?

It has been a popular name in the UK for a long time - for actors (Hopkins,Newley etc), Prime Ministers (Eden, Blair..), noveilists (Horowitz, Trollope etc), schoolteachers, historians (Beevor), school principals (Seldon), etc.
All are referred to as Ant-ony.

Concur with Scottish PPs that the 'th' sound is what's most commonly used here.

Saying that, I acknowledge that the original pronunciation was the 't' sound, in line with other European language cognates, but the name has fallen victim in some areas to the same change that befell Catherine (formerly pronounced Kat-rin). Other names like Thomas and Esther have preserved their 't' sound and so has Anthony in some areas, but given that Scots, Irish, American and Australian speakers of English on this thread have said they mostly use the 'th' sound, it appears the 't' is a decreasing minority now.

In my experience the majority of British Anthonys say it with a t rather than a th. And most of them end up being called Tony.

I think part of the confusion is that there are two spellings so some will assume two pronunciations. (I stand by the hard t sound being correct for both though!)

I thought the posters who mentioned Anfernee were joking and I had to look it up. It's a real name! Though considered a variation due to phonetics. I wonder if the same has happened with names like Niamh and Neve (although I'm willing to be corrected if these are both original names in their own right). I've just remembered that I once met a "Sharlotte" as well.

I'm an Elizabeth and although I like the name, it gets subjected far too often to sloppy pronunciation. I now use a diminutive as I got sick of being addressed as "Lizberf" - my secondary school teachers were the absolute worst for this. Hopefully it won't give rise to a new phonetic name!

Anthony comes from the Latin Antonius and is pronounced with a "T" instead of a "TH" in Europe.

This is also why the common nicknames are Tony and Ant, rather than Thony or Anth.

Now, the confusing thing is, our British version throws in an H for some reason, whereas most other European countries skip that H.

The obvious fix is to just drop the H if you want to call your kid AnTony.

(I stand by the hard t sound being correct for both though!) Me too.

I don't think MN is a true representation of how a name is said usually in the UK.
All the youngish Anthonys I know go by Ant, the older ones Tony.

An Antony will probably be saying 'no H' a lot.

My cousins son is called Anthony and his name has always been pronounced with h he h. He was named after his dad but he's always known as Tony.