The Baby Name Wizard

@emilyrae--oh the pretentious geography names...like the people who say "Meh-hee-co" instead of Mexico, when they're obviously not Spanish speakers!

The one that really bothers me is Appa-latch-an. From K-12, when teachers taught about the Appalachians it was always App-a-lay-shin. Then I get to college, and suddenly it's App-a-latch-an. What gives? :)

I think it depends on the motivation behind the pronunciation. If it's coming from an attempt to respect how the people who live in a place actually pronounce it, I think that's awesome. Even more so if it's necessary to be understood! But I definitely hear where you all are coming from about these "proper" pronunciations sometimes feeling affected and pretentious.

As for Obama, I think that as a world leader, he should attempt to pronounce things the way the citizens of that country pronounce it. Part of his job is to get things done internationally and doing that well depends on his being perceived as respectful of different languages and peoples. Even better if he is actually respectful.

I noticed that too, Anne with an E-- funny!

emilyrae-- Good question! I mostly say "Ee-RAN" with an occasional slip-up of "Ee-rahn", and always say "Ee-RAK, no "ah" about it!

As one with dual Can-Am citizenship who has schlepped back and forth across the border a good part of my life, I HAVE succumbed to "pahsta" and "drahma"-- but love to hear the other pronunciations.

Enjoying all these examples people are giving of "aspirational" or "culturally sensitive" pronunciations, which often simply strike the hearer as pretentious.

I'm not the first to notice people who go through contortions to say "Nicaragua" in the authentic Spanish way, but they wouldn't say "Barcelona" the Castilian way, nor do they pronounce "Paris" as "Paree", nor call "Rome", "Roma". It's a selective kind of linguistic solidarity, is it not?

Oh, another name pronounced two different ways: I think I noticed Bill Donohue of the Catholic League saying "Pa-TREESH-a", rather than the more usual "Pa-TRISH-a".

I've heard this occasionally and it strikes me as charming and old-fashioned and courtly, somehow...

But, back to the slippery "a" vowel in names-- I don't especially like hearing "Dana" (DAY-na) pronounced Donna or Danna...

yes! definitely noticed the switch to appa-latch-an. very odd, i agree.

i also just remembered a pastor i knew whose daughter was in venezuela, and he always pronounced it veh-neh-zu-ay-la, separating the syllables very distinctly (never veh-neh-zway-la (which is how i say it)). i didn't find this pretentious though, just endearing and slightly amusing.

eo, i like your point about how it is selective. i definitely don't know anyone who says paris as pair-ee.

OK so why is it "erb" for the word and Herb for the name? and Bayz-ill for the spice but Baa-zil for the name?

"I'm going to use some erbs in tonites dinner. Some Bayzil and time. Herb, Baasil will you get some toemaytoes?" LOL!

re: selective pronunciation: hrm... well maybe because there are a lot of Spanish speakers in the U.S., people are more exposed to it and know how Spanish words are pronounced. I haven't studied Spanish or lived around a lot of Spanish speakers so I don't know *that* much about the pronunciation--and actually, given my limited knowledge, I wouldn't use Spanish pronunciation in most cases, but I have NO IDEA of Castillian pronunciation. I think I only learned that was a language last year.

I think Americans learn other pronunciations (and cuisines, etc.) based on who we go to war with. I mean we just have more awareness... or whatever other countries are in the news... to bring it back to names, I know I've become a lot more aware of names that are used in the Middle East.

robynt,
speaking of which, i recently met a girl from abu dhabi, named afr@h. sweet girl, and a pretty name.

I went to sleep trying to think of names pronounced two ways-- a new name obsession to be blamed on this blog!

Besides Patricia and Dana, could think of only:

Corinne-- Used to only hear "Cor-EEN", but in recent years have heard "Cor-RIN".

Theresa-- A classmate of mine in New Orleans actually pronounced it Thur-EE-sa, with the "Th" fully articulated, not silent "h" as is usual. This is the only instance of this I've encountered, though...

Lois-- Also in New Orleans, encountered more than one instance of this being pronounced "Loyce", one syllable, instead of "LO-is".

Andrea-- That wayward "A" again. Some people say "ON-dree-a", Italian fashion, instead of rhyming "an" with "can". But then shouldn't they move the emphasis to the middle syllable-- On-DRAY-a? I think I've heard the man's name Andrea pronounced this way in Italian...

There are tons more that I'm missing, obviously.
Aside from "Tarquin", can't think of many male names with multiple pronunciations, but know they're out there! Maybe after coffee will come up with a few...

This stuff is a good read:)

On aunt, drama, pasta etc. I've always found them interchangeable, and find people say both in my area.

Did anyone notice what the standard for a Canadian accent seems to be based on that quiz? Out east I thought it was mostly our strong 'r'. I have a kiwi friend, who when I accused him of not pronouncing 'r' in 'car', responded "yeah, it has an 'r', just not 7 of them!"

Here's a French one - I love how when speaking English, hair becomes 'air', yet airplane would become 'hairplane'.

emilyrae, your pastor friend's pronunciation of Venezuela was just plain wrong in any language! My cousin (from Venezuela) was amused that people often thought she said she was from Minnesota. She wasn't trying to put on an affected or "authentic" pronunciation of her country; she just has trouble enunciating the letter "v"! And somehow her accent threw people off to the point that they thought she said Minnesota. I call that "listening with an accent" (if you expect someone with an accent to mispronounce words, you often fill in the blanks and make incorrect assumptions).

Eo, you can add Lucia and Alicia to the list.

Regarding names that can be pronounced in more than one way: Helena is the one that springs to my mind. There's HEL-en-ah, like the capital of Montana, and hel-EE-na. I've also heard Lena as variously lee-na, lay-na, and lenn-a. Maurice is "Morris" in the UK, but mo-REECE in North America.

A lot of these differences reflect different languages. There are loads of names that are spelled the same in English and Spanish, or English and French, yet pronounced completely differently. Genevieve and Agnes are good examples.

When I was in high school, back in the middle ages, there were two super-cool in-crowd girls named Andrea (ANN-dree-a) and Tara (TERR-ah) who switched overnight to on-DRAY-ah and TAH-ra. Funny thing, they were mortal enemies and each claimed the other copied her. Good cat-fight fun...

Any girl's name with /ana/ or /anna/ in it is subject to alternate pronunciations.

Some thoughts/questions:

Aunt- I have found living in Mid-Atlantic that the black community here say awnt, while the white community say ant. The Hispanic community say TiTi ;). I have never said aunty, but would pronounce it anty.

Nevada- I lived in Nevada for 3 years and on the news and in the rest of the country, we say Neh-vah-dah. In Nevada, they say Neh-va-dah (va like cat). Counterintuitive
To that same ilk, Pierre, South Dakota pronounce their city like Pier.

perfume, garage- how do the Brits say this?

Names-
On American Idol, Simon always mispronounced Kara D.'s name as car-ah, instead of ca-rah. (ca like cat). This is funny within the pasta context.

I knew a girl named Antoinette who pronounced her name like An-ton-net- not an-twah-net like I had always thought of it.

Andrea- is an interesting name. I can think of 4 different pronounciations:
An-dray-ah
Ahn-dree-ah
An-dree-ah
Ahn-dray-ah
Personally, I always thought the ahn beginnings sounded pretentious to my ears, but now I think it might be a regional thing.

Re Nevada...

Interesting! With my nice flat Canadian pass-ta and dramm-a A's, I've always said nuh-VADD-uh. Sort of like Montana, which rhymes with, well, Hannah. If both names come from Spanish, I wonder why most Americans (though not the locals apparently) would pronounce Nevada in a Hispanicized way, but not Montana? Is it because Nevada is more associated with Hispanic culture than Montana is?

I've also heard that Oregon and Missouri have distinct local pronunciations (as does Newfoundland).

I just finished a book on this subject by Bill Bryson called "The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way". It covers just about everything we've been talking about.

Most specifically, how so many of our words came from French (Norman) roots, but we kept the English (Saxon) pronunciation. Colonel, lieutenant being two examples.

Anyway, it was extremely fascinating to read, and he also mourns the loss of the dialects as the world gets more and more interconnected. So often, it's in the dialects where random ancient words or idioms still survive, such as the thee/thou in Yorkshire I think it was. Or in phrases like "kith and kin"--when do we ever use 'kith'?

ayaka,
for the record, though i do say pah-sta/drah-ma, i definitely say both nevada, montana, and hannah with the short-a sound. i suppose nevada is much more associated with hispanic culture than montana, though i do not know if that makes a difference.

cileag,
i think i'll be wanting to read that book!

I also say Nevada with /vad/ to rhyme with bad rather than rod. Similarly, I say Colorado with the same /a/ sound as Nevada rather than the /ah/ sound.

My personal take on the flat pronunciation of foreign words/foreign countries has always been that it stemmed from a mix of provincialism and imperialism--that is to say, "we don't know how those foreigners pronounce their word/country, and frankly, we're not really going to concern ourselves with it--we're just going to say it however it sounds best to us." So, I tend to put "past-ah" and "Nick-ar-ag-yoo-ah", et al. in the same category as Bombay (Mumbai) and Peking (Beijing), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Bechuanaland (Botswana), etc. I'm not saying that people who use those pronunciations today necessarily have any such negative intent (although I think some do, such as with the intentionally derisive "Barry" comments)--but that's my guess about the origin of those pronunciations. So, I agree that they sound old-fashioned and therefore rather quaint and charming in a way (I'm generally a sucker for all things old-fashioned), but to the extent that I hear people today making an effort to pronounce proper nouns similarly to the way that native speakers would say those words, I generally feel heartened that we are becoming a more educated and respectful society, at least in that one small way.

I agree that it can be overdone (trying to change one's whole accent, or pronounce sounds not common in one's language, is unnecessary), but simple things like switching the flat A to ah seem to be in order. I also can't explain the inconsistency (why not "Paree"?), except to say that change happens a bit at a time, and something that sounds pretentious today may well sound normal tomorrow, while something that sounds normal today may well sound hopelessly provincial tomorrow (like the people I mentioned earlier who say "EYE-tal-yen").

In Arizona we say Ne-VADD-ah, not Neh-vah-dah. But maybe 500 miles away is close enough to qualify as "local" in terms of Nevadan pronunciation!

@hyz, I think maybe the reason why no one says Pair-ee for Paris, is because French freaks people out! :) The Spanish pronunciations are simpler, switching from a flat A to "AH" isn't very hard, but French orthography intimidates people. I was a French major in college, and whenever I tell someone that they act really impressed, whereas my sister, who is a Spanish major, gets no such reaction.

@cileag, I LOVE Bill Bryson. For years I've been saying that I was going to name a son Bryson in honor of him, but now it sounds too darn trendy, so I don't think I can do it. Have you read Made in America (his take on American English) too? I think I might like that one even better than Mother Tongue.

I wonder if some of the discrepancies in English speakers trying to approximate the correct (as said by native speakers) pronunciation of a place name have to do with the length of time English speakers have been referring to the specific place. As an example, English speakers have been talking about Paris for ages, while Pakistan is a much more recent place name.

Personally, I vacillate on Pakistan, always say Afghanistan in the English way, and say Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan with the /stahn/ pronunciation.

Good points, Anne with an E and Amy3. And I should say, I follow the same pattern as Amy3 with Afghanistan and vacillating on the other -stans. I say Mex-ih-co, but Chih-lay (not Chilly). I agree there's something about how familiar we are with saying a name a certain way--I don't expect people to start saying Moskva for Moscow, Firenze for Florence, or Geneve/Genf for Geneva any time soon--these just seem to be the English words for those cities at this point, not English mispronunciations of those cities.

The only American I know who prounounces herb with an h is Martha Stewart.

What about bruschetta? I say broo-SHET-ah because I think broo-SKET-ah (with a short t) sounds affected, but I'm hearing the latter pronunciation more and more. Perhaps I should stop frequenting pretentious Eye-talian restaurants?

Another Bill Bryson fan! I highly recommend "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (nothing to do with language, just a good book).

Jillc, how funny that you should bring up bruschetta. I use the same pronunciation as you, and my husband and I were dismayed to hear that broo-SKET-ah is actually correct. We haven't been able to bring ourselves to switch our "incorrect" pronunciation!

Hyz- I like your POV. The Brits traditionally were renowned for that 'imperialist' attitude you mentioned. There's a great recording somewhere of former Prime Minister Edward Heath trying to deliver a speech in French without making the slightest attempt to change his very plummy British accent.
Mostly the Brits have not attempted to speak other languages, and immediately forget any French they learn in school, as well as being very resistant to pronouncing things authentically. Hopefully, things are changing a little.

One funny thing I've noticed is that the Brits seem better with Italian words, but worse with Spanish. I think more people know about bruschetta, for example, or tagliatelle (TAH-lee-ah-TELL-eh), but when they come visit me in California, they pronounce tortilla with the L's.

I realize my attitude was formed early on. I spent my first four years in California, then three in Lebanon before moving to England (and more recently have moved back to CA), so I've always had an openness towards languages and accents.

RobynT- I think it's Catalan you're thinking of, not Castilian? Castilian is just Spanish Spanish, if you know what I mean, whereas Catalan is a Romance language spoken in North-Eastern Spain.

this discussion of regional pronunciations is fascinating.

just wanted to add in there that being from Ohio (although I don't live there anymore), I grew up with various city names that are clearly taken from foreign words but pronounced totally opposite what you would expect given the spelling.

For example: Bellefontaine is pronounced bell-fountain and Versailles is pronounced ver-sales

On the name Andrea: I went to school with an An-Dray-uh. It seemed pretentious at the time and she was not someone I had a good relationship with in the first place. But now, after only knowing only one other who purposely spelled it Ondrea (On-dree-uh), I cannot think of the name as An-dree-uh at all. It is only An-DRAY-uh. I think if I were naming a child this these days I would consider the "ea" spelling as Ay-a and spell it with an "ia" for EE-uh. So maybe thats why some alternate spellings crop up for other names as a way to help intuit pronunciation.
Andria/Ondria/Andreea/Ondreea
Andrea/Ondrea/Andraya/Ondraya

slk34--lol--we have a Versailles ("ver-sales") around here, too, and a DuBois ("doo-boys"). It used to make me cringe, but now I'm over it--almost.

Valerie, your comment about Heath made me remember Kennedy's heavy accent in the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech--that always made me chuckle.

Interesting observation, too, about Italian v. Spanish--I'm sure that must have something to do with proximity/saturation, right? My ears hurt when I think of tor-till-ahs, but I can totally hear someone here saying tag-lee-ah-telly and it doesn't really bother me. lol.

hyz- LOL. Actually, I have to admit quite a lot of Brits say tag-lee-ah-telly too. Ouch!

Anne with an E - Appa-LATCH-ia is the pronounciation used by folks who live there

RobynT - Your comment reminds me of the Ambrose Bierce quote, "God invented war to teach Americans geography"

Yay, I love Ambrose Bierce! Well... the one thing I read by him... also love his name... to try to keep this on topic... :P

re: Catalan vs. Castilian: um... idk which one i mean. my reference was taken from Eo's earlier comment about selective pronunciation.

This really is fascinating! It's funny I didn't realize that so many words I say with the Ah sound many other people say with the Aa (as in Cat) sound. I say Nev-ah-da, Colo-rah-do, Pah-sta, drah-ma, and I promise none of it's affected, it's just the only way I have ever said them! Trying to say them other ways sounds bizarre to me. I have to say though I might try with state names to use the pronunciation of the people who live there. Oregon is properly very close to Organ (I was told by a native:).

It's funny with place names, I had a class once where we read A Civil Action which is set in Woburn, MA, being from MA we say it Woo-burn, but everyone in class (in NY) said Woe-burn. It drove me crazy and I kept trying to say it right and hoping people would catch on, but they probably all thought I was nuts. In MA we also have the famously hard to pronounce Worcester (wuss-ter like in the word puss for a cat not the substance from a wound, I'm having trouble finding a way to describe this!).

Another interesting one is that Henry David Thoreau is properly pronounced THUR-oh not thur-OH which is how everyone says it. I know because I was taught by the Concordians from his town that's how their family said it. But it ends up sounding pretentious or strange. Ah well.

The word that gives me angst is the English pronunciation of Karaoke, Carry-OH-key. Pretty much every syllable except the "O" is a mispronunciation of the Japanese word. On the other hand, if you say it correctly, someone will give you the stink eye.

(i just looked up the pronunciation given in the dictionary. Aside from the one above, they also accept "Ka-ROW-key." Ugh, that's even worse!!)

ha! good point, tirzah. carry-oh-key isn't even close. in fact, i often wonder how it could have possibly evolved to the accepted pronunciation. to pronounce "ra" as "ree" makes no sense at all.

this reminds me of an episode of friends where ross is learning karate and insists on saying it correctly (approximately ka-ra-teh). naturally his friends label him pretentious. :]

I have to agree with the points hyz (and some others, I think) has made on the pronunciations of foreign names. There's a distinction between an accepted foreign-language version of a name (the Paris example, also Florence, Turin, Munich vs. Firenze, Torino, Munchen) and a mispronunciation. My family has very close ties to Iran (several generations of European expatriates born and raised there) and I will testify that the correct English-language pronunciation is ee-RAHN, not eye-RAN. Same with Iraq (ee-RAHK) and Pakistan (PAH-kis-tahn). It doesn't surprise me that so many Americans are unaware of this or slip up sometimes, but it really baffles me that people think it is pretentious. It's not pretentious, it's just correct.

I also say pasta, drama, and yes, even aunt with the "ah" vowel (there are some of us in the States who say it that way, I swear!). Hearing the other pronunciation of those doesn't really bother me though - just when it's proper names. We would be annoyed if people were running around calling our country ah-muh-REE-ka and claiming it was a legit regional pronunciation, wouldn't we?

EVie,
i respect your views and mostly agree with you, but i do not think i would be bothered in the reverse scenario (the ah-muh-REE-ka scenario). i would simply think, "their language is different, they have an accent, this is how they say these sounds." that being said, i think the motivation behind endeavoring to use correct pronunciations for other countries (respect, etc) is very good, and i do support that.

Lieutenant- from my dictionary:

"In the normal British pronunciation of lieutenant, the first syllable sounds like lef. In the standard U.S. pronunciation, the first syllable, in contrast, sounds like loo. It is difficult to explain where the f in the British pronunciation comes from. Probably, at some point before the 19th century, the u at the end of Old French lieu was read and pronounced as a v, and the v later became an f."

Rats, my computer was on the fritz so missed a lot. There's almost too much to try to absorb now!

As far as the geographic/cultural question, I quite disagree with much of the analysis. Am not at all convinced that there is not an element of fashionable linguistic solidarity with SOME place-names, and not with others. As always, it's interesting to hear opposing points of view, though...

As far as names with multiple pronunciations, thought of the deceptively simple and rather sunny name, "Lisa".

One occasionally hears it pronounced Continental-style as "Leeza", which I like for its whiff of smoky, Left Bank 'boites' in the Beatnik Fifties... But, I wouldn't want it to be literally spelled "Leeza", which one sometimes sees. That takes away the mystique!

Someone earlier mentioned "Helena", which is an interesting question. Isn't the only "correct" English pronunciation "HELL-en-a"? Many other pronunciations abound, but they wouldn't be the classic English way of saying it. Or would they? Perhaps a point is reached where it no longer matters?

I find the question provocative, in the same way that it is fascinating to consider which of many spellings of a name is the "correct" or accepted version. So many elements factor into it...

Re: Place names

It is an old European tradition to "translate" the names of countries, cities etc. Most European languages have their own names for major cities in other countries.

Examples:

Original name vs German name:
Danmark - Dänemark
California - Kalifornien
Milano - Mailand

California is "germanified" by replacing the 'C' with 'K' and using the -ien suffix, which is indicative of a place name. Mailand and Dänemark are German "versions" of the original names, and have been used for hundreds or years.

Another example: A small selection of European names for the city Copenhagen:

København/Copenhagen/Köpenhamn/Kopenhagen/
Copenhague/Kodaň/Copenhaga/Kaupmannahöfn... and more.

København is not very easy to pronounce, hence the several "translated" forms in other European languages.

I'm so excited for the revised TBNW, my hands are cold. Or perhaps that's the bowl of ice cream I'm holding. Still! VERY EXCITED.

As a native Appalachian, I can confirm that we do call our region App-uh-latch-uh and not App-uh-lay-sha.

slk34: Is there also a Russia pronounced "Roo-ske?" I seem to remember there is.

In W.Va., we have Hurricane pronounced Hurr-uh-kun. And an Iaeger that's YAY-gur.

Re: Helena. I would think he-LAY-nuh immediately on this one. Is the place said as "HELL-en-uh?"

Re: Nicaragua. How else is it said other than Nik-uh-rah-gwuh?

"Ahnt" and "ahnty" seem to be the preferred Southern pronunciation for "Aunt," "aunty" in my experience.

i'm excited for the new book too. :]

and yes, the capital of montana is HELL-en-uh. and that's the way i would be inclined to pronounce the name as well, but i think i'm in the minority on that one

Valerie-I would instinctively say tag-lee-a-tell-ee if it were not for the spelling Bee competition I watched part of a few weeks back. The kid I saw was given that word. (And I'm sure THEY pronounce it "correctly"). I had never even heard of it but the definition was some kind of Pah-sta and then they showed the word on screen. The kid asked for the pronunciation like 3 times and then spelled it correctly.

Anyone still need helpful suggestions for names? I'm ready to get back to that topic.

Zoerhenne, if you're looking for a project, I have one: for our next potential child, we're considering some sort of "homage to bicycling" name (we own part of a bike shop, and DH is an avid cyclist). I don't want it to be too obvious, though, and probably just the middle name. Something like:

Cadence
Roubaix (after the cycling race, Paris Roubaix)
Pedal (this one doesn't exactly fit the "not obvious" criteria ;))

You guys were so good at gun and knitting names; anyone want to take a stab at cycling names?

you're not into "huffy"? :D

i'm kind of liking "schwinn" though. however, i suppose brand names sort of fall into the obvious catagory.

Jillc: How about Wheeler? Or Velo?
Chase
Keirin -- my Japanese is bad, but I think it would be Kay-i (like hit, accent here) rin (like tin). But could be pronounced Kir-Rin.

Jillc-Cadence and Chase are good ones. I'll have to give it some thought and post tomorrow. Thanks for the project. G'nite all.

Oooh Jill just thought of Tyra/Tyrone as a little play on Tire. And Mike rhymes with bike so maybe a purposeful misspelling of Mychel or Mychelle (Michelle). Hmm I'll keep thinking.

Jillc:
Eddy, Lance, Raleigh, trek, Brevet, Pace,

Jillc, my husband and little boy are avid cyclists and always follow the Tour de France, etc. My son likes Levi Leipheimer (sp?) although until he was seven he said "Lifeclimber"...

So, if you like him, "Levi"? But I suppose that would be pretty obscure outside the bicycling world?

Of the many clever suggestions so far, I second Rhanda's "Wheeler"-- great as a first OR middle name...