S/o Chana - funny name mispronunciations

amother

Papaya

Mon, May 04 2020, 8:56 am

Chaya - kaya, haya, shaya, chaya (like chair), and most recently china.

amother

Ginger

Mon, May 04 2020, 9:42 am

Neekeemyah for Nechemyah isn't strange. The English pronunciation of Nehemiah is Nee-eh-my-ah. Add the C for the Chet sound and it looks like Nee-Ke-MY-ah with the CH pronounced like K as in "chemical".

When a friend of mine was engaged she said her photographer would be Jeremiah (Je-re-MY-ah) Studios. It seemed like an odd name for a simcha photographer, given that Jeremiah is associated mostly with lamentations, but if that's his name, that's his name. At the wedding I learned that the kallah, a native New Yorker, had dropped the final R. The photographer's name was Jerry Meyer. Rolling Laughter

amother

Ginger

Mon, May 04 2020, 9:51 am

My cousin's name is Zvi. He gets called Zoo-ey a lot. Also Ziv and Zev, which sounds like characters from an I-Can-Read book: Ziv and Zev are friends. Ziv lives in a big house on Maple Street. Zev lives in a small house on Elm Street. Ziv has a dog and two cats. Zev has a frog, a toad and a snake.

amother

Lime

Mon, May 04 2020, 10:08 am

amother [ Salmon ] wrote:

The funniest one was when someone mispronounced my name Naomi as “Miami,” but I think he just didn’t hear me correctly over the phone.

Other names in my family that got mispronounced a lot... Leah - Lee-uh. Meir - Meer.

I have a friend who got her name Nechama mispronounced a lot as Nekama and it drove her crazy because of what it means.

Leah is pronounced Lee- uh in English... and spelled that way. That's like faulting someone in an English speaking country for pronouncing Rachel without a ches

tryinghard

Mon, May 04 2020, 10:45 am

Actually we taught my non-frum MIL how to pronounce our Tehila’s name by saying “it’s like Tequila, with an H” 😂. I don’t know why it’s so difficult, I find a lot of people say “Te-heal-a”. We also hear “Tah-LEE-a” a lot.
My Aryeh gets “Ah-RYE-ah” 🤷🏻‍♀️ Frequently

Last edited by tryinghard on Mon, May 04 2020, 11:26 am; edited 1 time in total

amother

Plum

Mon, May 04 2020, 11:20 am

My name is Chana Miriam. When I was six , my non Jewish bus driver called me “Condominium” and asked me why my parents named me after an apartment building.

amother

Mon, May 04 2020, 11:48 am

tryinghard wrote:

Hey I have an Aryeh too and our dentist consistently calls him that!

WhatFor

Mon, May 04 2020, 11:56 am

amother [ Ginger ] wrote:

When a friend of mine was engaged she said her photographer would be Jeremiah (Je-re-MY-ah) Studios. It seemed like an odd name for a simcha photographer, given that Jeremiah is associated mostly with lamentations, but if that's his name, that's his name. At the wedding I learned that the kallah, a native New Yorker, had dropped the final R. The photographer's name was Jerry Meyer. Rolling Laughter

This is amazing. Rolling Laughter

WhatFor

Mon, May 04 2020, 11:58 am

amother [ Ginger ] wrote:

I love both names: Ziv and Zev. I don't think people in Western cultures would have difficulty pronouncing either of them.

nelliebly

Mon, May 04 2020, 12:05 pm

Try a family of Schneur, Chana, and Shterna, and Shaina. Somehow, somehow they all get pronounced the same way at airports.