How would you pronounce Léa

[Ellani]

Hi all, my husband and I are French and Italian but live in London. We are trying to pick a name for our first baby girl. I’m just wondering how would you pronounce Léa?

I'd pronounce it LAY-uh/LAY-ah, and honestly I'm kind of surprised there are so many other answers! The accent makes it pretty clear, imo

I’m sure it does, if you have learned some French, which I’d imagine a majority of English people, where the child will live, don’t. I don’t know any French so while I knew the accent would change the pronunciation I didn’t know how.

Stella?
Anna?

It will not be pronounced the French way lay ah is how it is pronounced in English. It is very pretty in French and English.

@Ellani , your phonetic spelling of Léa doesn't really work because for most of us here 'Leh' is like leg without the g, not Lé.

Leh-a is very difficult to say.

Accents are not normally used in the UK and 'Lea' is pronounced 'Lee'.

LAY-ah. Like Princess Leia. Léa - c’est trés jolie!

I'm a linguaphile so I know it's Leh-ah (to rhyme with playah ... uh, player) And many Brits have learned French so if they saw the accent aigu would know Lay-ah
It doesn't have the 'y' you get in 'player'
On here eh is used to indicate the e in ten or tent.

Maddelena is usually spelt Madalena or Maddalena
Gulietta - Giulietta

accent aigu = é

Or Lay-her 😬

It will be a lifetime of people asking "is it Lee-ah or Lay-ah or Lee?"
And for her it will be correcting them and having to say "Leah with no H and with an accent. Yes the dash above the e".
Choose a simpler life for your DD!

I'm a languages person but find it incredible that people say they have no concept of what an accent is or how it might change the sound. Surely everyone knows how to pronounce café???? Or are you all going for a cuppa at the 'cayf'?

The Léa é in French is not how we pronounce café in English though as my very French friend spent much time helping me learn to pronounce her name properly.

I'd say lay-uh like the way it reads.

I have a Leah and she sometimes gets called Leia, I love both the names so it doesn't matter to me. I think it's a lovely name

leeeee ah

I usually see "Café" spelled as "Cafe" though in the UK.
It doesn't have the accent.
But we say it as "Caf-ay" because....well we do.
Language is weird 🙂

Laeya or leeya

Lots of people call a cafe a caff