How would you pronounce this baby name?

[MondaysFunday]

If you saw the name Mariana written down with no context provided, how would you pronounce it? DH and I completely disagree on the pronunciation, and we both think we’re right. I reckon there’s also the possibility that we’re both wrong.

1. Mar-ee-on-ah
2. Mar-ee-ann-ah
3. Mary-on-ah
4. Mary-ann-ah

Marry-Anna

Being Scottish i would extend the argh sound!

They may well do, but they don't to everyone.

I'd say Di-ANN-a, B'n-AR-na (without sounding the R, it is only there to lengthen the A).

I don't say Marianna (e.g, Marianna Spring) like Mariana (e,g. Mariana Trench)
and to me Lana doesn't rhyme with Anna or vice versa.

If you do, then I have no problem with that. Your accent is probably different to mine.

What I was trying to highlight was that if you spell a name -anna, you can't guarantee that everyone will say it as -anna.

Mariana and Juliana have longer a sounds for me, though banana doesn’t.

The IPA uses symbols to represent sounds though.

It doesn’t use ah, ar etc to represent vowel sounds. There’s no convention there, which is what I meant when replying to your earlier comment suggesting that ah is universally understood in English to mean a certain sound.

I certainly don’t think there’s a consensus on what sound ‘ar’ represents (as can be seen from the endless confusion it causes on MN)😅

@Katelinda , I try to give the IPA but some criticise me for doing so.

If I use ar to indcate the a sound in car or barn, I say so and say "non-rhotic R"

My first post on this thread is the one quoted here.

I got a torrent of 'Why are you saying it with an R'. I say ARE (as in you are, they are etc) without sounding the R, which is why I said non-rhotic R.

the AH-nuh pronunciation is a way of representing the sounds in Anna.
Anna is like Ann with an a on the end.
I say Ann like everyone else, but when one explains how to say Ann, the convention is AHN

This was the post I was disagreeing with, not the one you quoted above @NamingNoNames.

I agree you did your best to explain how you were using ar in the post above!

When I first came to MN I had no idea what rhotic vs non-rhotic meant though…it takes a bit of time to get used to what people mean, especially as people often don’t explain, or perhaps are not aware of the differences.

The only trouble with IPA is that most people don’t know how to read it. I don’t either.

At first glance I thought Marry-ah-na but seeing as my cousin is called Ariana and I pronounce that as Arry-anna, I might change it to Marry-anna.

@Katelinda , It's what I've read on here in lots and lots of threads but you get the odd ah is ah as in aaargh!.

IPA isn't perfect but at least it gives an idea and it shows where the stress falls.
Something like Mar-ee-ah-na or A-meel-ee-a to me doesn't.

The only trouble with IPA is that most people don’t know how to read it. I don’t either.
If you look at the Wiki page it tells you. If you look up a word in a dictionary, it gives the IPA.

e.g. (see image)
It shows you and tells you how to say it. You might say it slightly different because of your accent but you'll get a good idea.

An example post from another thread:
Page 2 | How would you pronounce the baby name Idalie? | Mumsnet

@Katelinda I don't understand IPA symbols either.

Also, do IPA symbols relate to RP of words as being the "correct" pronunciation?

I've been shouted down on here by people claiming that IPA shows how a word should be pronounced but not everyone in the UK speaks the same way.

I think dictionaries give one British English pronunciation as a standard and it often doesn’t match how many people in the UK say the word. Not really the fault of IPA, but I know exactly what you mean about the way you say a word not matching what the dictionary says (I have an Irish accent).

@NamingNoNames
I know dictionaries give a pronunciation in IPA and I know I can look the symbols up. I sometimes do, but often I’m just skim reading things (eg on MN like now) and nearly always have something else I should be doing instead so I usually don’t 😁
One day…

In NE Scotland we have a vowel sound that doesn't seem to exist - don't know if IPA would recognise it.

If I say "fish" the vowel sound isn't i or e, it's something in between but very difficult to explain.

This.

@RaraRachael , it's how it should be pronounced in terms of the sounds and where the stress goes.

You're not going to be saying disaster wrong if you say the a as a short one because of your accent, but you would be if you'd never heard the word before and had been saying it as* *DIGHS-as-ter (same pattern as Lancaster).

Better example might be Hyperbole. If you'd never heard it, it looks like hyper and bole. You look it up because you want to know what it means and you listen to it or read the IPA,
hyper·bole [hʌɪˈpəːbəli].

hyper·bole [hʌɪˈpəːbəli]

Where is the r gone though @NamingNoNames!?😉

@Katelinda , It's limited. Just apply common sense as regards local accent. Speak in your own as long as people understand you.
If you want to sound the r in hyperbole, go ahead.

@RaraRachael , Scottish fish sounds like fish but the i is more like the i in fin than in fish but the accent I'm thinking of isn't NE.

@NamingNoNames
That all sounds a bit patronising!🤔

Why? If you say the r in hyper say it in hyperbole. It's your accent.
You are looking for offence where none is intended.

If someone wants to poke fun at me because I say bath as
[baθ] not [bɑːθ] then they're not worth worrying about.

If they want to laugh at me because I said awry the way it looks then maybe they could be more tactful but it they'd have a point.

Agreed !

Kamala is a South Asian name. There are two very similar names which are transcribed in English identically but have different roots. In the UK I think we are more familiar with the Urdu name which stresses the second 'a' but Kamala Harris's mother has given her the Hindi name where the stress is more evenly balanced across the name but Kamala Harris has Americanised it so to British people it sound more like how we say Pamela with the first syllable stressed. Then her nieces told us all it was like 'Comma-la' and we were all confused by the first vowel sound. Of course in the US there's the race obsession so because her Dad is b/w mixed she is read as black (even though she's more Indian) and gets all the racism from Trump which complicates the discussion about how to pronounce her name.

Mar ee ah an