Aaron/Arron - How do you pronounce them?

[upinaballoon]

When I was at primary school we had scripture lessons. I learned that Moses had an older brother whose name was Aaron. It was pronounced with a long 'a', because there are two 'a's there and it sounded more or less like this - 'air-on'.

For decades I have heard and seen people being called Aaron - spelled like that with the two 'a's at the beginning, but pronounced 'Arron', more or less rhyming with Karen, Darren et cetera.

If a parent wants a child's name to sound like 'Arron', why do they spell it/have them baptised 'Aaron'?

You are mistaken. Aaron is traditionally pronounced "Air-on". That is the biblical name. Some people now pronounce it "Arron", but that doesn't mean the other way is wrong.

As a teacher I tripped up over this, using the traditional pronounciation, which I have checked with a Jewish friend, not wrong. Naturally I used a child's favoured pronounciation. The boys had previously been written Arun and a variety of other spellings.
I was eventually told that the erroneous spelling as Aaron was due to Elvis Presley, whose middle name it was, and spelled so on his tombstone.
I think heated arguments about correct spellings and pronunciations is pointless, and the pp above saying that teachers were wrong are themselves ignorant of the history, as I was about Elvis.

That's interesting, I have an SE England accent and I can't seem to make "A-rran" and "A-rron" sound noticeably different!

Yes we were taught 'Air-ron' in RE at school, but all the boys/men i have met in real life named Aaron pronounce it Arron.

I've once come across it used as a surname and the pronuncation they used was was 'Air-ron'.

In Scotland and the north of England we pronounce 'a' as a sharp 'ah' sound in words like 'bath' whereas in the south of England it is more like "baothth".

In the Torah - the original Hebrew Bible - Aaron is spelled Aharon (in Hebrew letters, of course). It is pronounced that way, with short vowels.

I don't know why the H was dropped in English, but the result is that Aaron in Hebrew is pronounced either UH-ron or UH-huh-ron. In English IME it is pronounced AIR-ron. Arron, with a flat A (like in 'flat) is a different name.

But people get to decide how their own names are pronounced.

This thread has made me smile op! I spelt my sons name Arron as I didn't want it to be pronounced Airon , who's is how I heard it the most. This was 30 years ago so it's interesting that now the pronunciation seems to be more commonly Arron.

It's A-run. Different pronunciations probably come with different accents/cultures, that's all. Like Anna in Frozen, who goes by Ahhhhn-a.

....and it's 70 years rather than 30 years when I was hearing it at Sunday school.

Now I'm wondering what a Church of England vicar, in 1800, would have said when he met the name 'Aaron', but I don't think I have time to try to find out.

Well I don't know about CofE usage in the 1800s but I do know about Congregational usage in the 50s and 60s, and that was by people who learned it in the 1920s, and then from people who learned at the turn of the century.
Funny how the Arronites are so emphatic that the Aaronites are wrong, without the history themselves to prove they are right.

I am married to an Aaron, it rhymes with Darren
And yes he got the name as it was the first in the baby name book!

I went to school with an Arrun (spelt Aaron). Wasn't aware of the alternative pronunciation until I was older.

I'd pronounce Aaron as Air-an, but Aaron is an anglicised spelling anyway so pronouncing it Aron can't be "wrong".

I agree with you, OP. I would pronounce it Air-on.

Is it new? I know a man in his 50s who pronounces his name Arron. Maybe it's a regional thing?

Dang, you beat me to it!

Can anyone show an Arron version before Elvis? It popped up in school in Kent I think no earlier than the 80s, and there were no Aarons as Airrons before that. There were Aruns and some other four letter spelling variants I can't recall, but they didn't continue.
When everyone went to church or chapel before WW1 would have been an influence.

I think the pronunciation of Aaron has changed in my lifetime. I'm in my late 50s and everyone I've known of my own age with that name has pronounced it Airon. The Biblical character was always called Airon when I was young. There was a rareish name pronounced Arran, but it was usually spelt Arran. When my CD were little in the late 90s I was surprised to meet someone whose child was called something spelt Aaron but pronounced Arran. The dad explained that they didn't want to pronounce it Airon because that was "the American pronunciation." Well, I can see how anyone who thought it was correctly pronounced Arran would hear Airon as sounding American - after all, Americans famously pronounce Harry more like Hairy, or enough like Hairy that they think a child called Harry would be teased by it. But ever since then, the Arran pronunciation has seemed to be much more popular. The oldest person I know who uses it is about 35. I have no idea how young people pronounce the one in the Bible because I haven't been in any situations where that would come up for many years.