Israeli accent on name shira

amother

Powderblue

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 10:01 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Thank you everyone for your response! That is very helpful!! I don’t like that sound!! So how would they say Leora? Maya?? MaYA? I heard it would be said talYa so I scratched that name.

Leora is the same as Americans pronounce it. So is Maya. The last syllable is not emphasized in either of them.

Talya is definitely TalYA, which is a pretty name IMO, but I guess you need to be used to it. I've never heard it pronounced differently in Israel - it's not like Shira which was pronounced one way and then modernized.

amother

Powderblue

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 10:09 am

amother [ Blue ] wrote:

My Sephardi Israeli neighbors put the emphasis on the second syllable for most names
SaRA
AyaLA
AhuVA
YaEL
Took us a while to get it right, and I give myself permission to mispronounce, sometimes, but my helpful kids make sure to correct their impossibly American mother. Laugh

Pronunciation doesn't change among sephardi/ashkenazi circles in secular or DL communities (unless you are talking about ח and ע, but that's not as common anymore as it used to be). So it's interesting you say your sephardic Israeli neighbors - I guess they and you are charedi, and therefore pronounce words differently?

In any case:

SAra - most Saras I know are older and go by this pronounciation. As in, Sara Netanyahu. It's not such a popular name for little girls, but I can see some Torani people giving the name and insisting on SaRA. In any case, SAra is a lot more common.

AyaLA- the mainstream way of pronouncing this name, unless you belong to some very anglo community. Because it's 3 syllables, it's not harsh having the emphasis at the end.

AhuVA - never heard of that. I know quite a few AHUvas, all over 50. I don't know anyone giving that name today. So again, maybe there are some girls with the name in chardal/Torani circles, and I can see them insisting on AhuVA.

YaEL - definitely definitely the mainstream pronunciation. I like it, I don't think it sounds harsh, perhaps because it ends with 'elle' which is a quiet sound, not like 'ra' or something. I don't think Yael was pronounced differently 50 years ago, but I could be wrong.

amother

Blue

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 10:38 am

amother [ Powderblue ] wrote:

Re: Ahuva
Because they don't really say the "h" sound, they can't say AHUva, so it sounds more like AooVA.
Yes, we're both Chareidi

etky

Wed, Sep 01 2021, 2:52 pm

amother [ Powderblue ] wrote:

This, exactly. And I'm in DL circles, Israeli (of all edot) and Anglo.
RE Shira - DD20 has quite a few friends with the name and they're all SHIra.
I think I must have heard the name pronounced shiRA too, probably for younger girls but it's really not all that popular anymore in our circles.