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Re: Trying to name a girl
Good luck in finding the perfect name ^_^Geneva - I had a friend with this name at highschool. We called her Niva :) Keira - like but not crazy over. Mirabel (a different middle name suggestion would be great) - Mirabel Seren?Calista - wow! This name is seriously cool.Maisie - waayy to cute to be a person's nameSylvie - one of my favorite names but with the mn Leigh it sounds like "silverly" Second tier:Ainsley - uhm. I dunno I think its okay but it sounds kind of weedy somehowAurora - way too princessy Camille - love ^_^Echo - used to think it was a particularly stupid word-name. Now I know its a Greek nymph it's gotta be one of the coolest names on the planet!! Don't like the combo Echo Leigh though. Galena - ickGwendolyn - super frilly and fancyHannah - boringIseult - there might be pronunciation problems with this one...Lila - cute but not overly ^_^ I like. Obviously Lila Leigh is no good.Magdalen - no >_<Marin - Uhm, this is totally a boys name? Probably only in America are people using this for girls. So mixed feelings. I love the name but on a girl? It's kind of weird.Morgan - It's nice. Usually but not super commonNoemi - I like Naomi betterRhiannon - like, but Rhian is one of my all-time favsRivka - awesome Rosalie - okay though Rosalie Leigh isn't going to work so well.Wren - pretty. One of the better bird names I think!!
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Esther was our back-up middle name. Sylvie Esther? Mirabel Esther?I really like Marin but I was afraid that the different pronunciations would trip people up and annoy her for a lifetime. I was thinking of the pronunciation mah-rinn.
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Esther is not one of my favs. It sounds so old-lady-ish and almost has a bad, musty kind of smell to me. But I guess the flow of both those combos is okay :)MAH-rin is the only pronunciation I know. I really, really love this name and if it wasn't so totally a boy's name to me I'd say please use this one!! Maren is pronounced MAH-ren. That's almost exactly the same (especially if you reduce the last vowel) and it's always a girl's name.There's also Mari (MAH-ree) and Mairi (also MAH-ree)
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I have a female friend named Marin who is in her late 20s :) Merryn is a female name but I think the Marin spelling is less confusing
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So it can be a variation of Merryn too? The Merryn I know says it MEH-rin but she's from Australia not Cornwall. Then Marin (as I know it for boys) is MAH-rin. And Maren is MAH-ren and that's a girl's name.Kind of confusing ^_^" I guess Marin as variation of girls' Merryn has just kind of overlapped with the boys' name Marin, then. Kind of like the name Mai in Vietnamese and Japanese. Same spelling, same sound, totally different meaning.
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I don't think they're directly related but all the Marin/Marens I've ever know have pronounced it like "MEH-rin" or "MAIR-en"I think it's simply a case of all the names sounding similar and so people just start to pick and choose which spelling they prefer, regardless of its origins. Also the "MAIR" sound and it's similarity to Karen/Sharon, make it sound pretty feminine to modern ears, I think.
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... I don't understand how a letter A can make the sound "EH". In Dutch (the language where Maren is from) it's mah-ren, or so I have read. In Romanian (where they use boys' Marin) it's definitely mah-rin.I can't understand either how Karen and Sharon sound like "mair" either. The vowels aren't even similar to me. They both have shot A vowels.
I think I must have a totally different accent to you ^_^" I guess I'm all for pronouncing names correctly for the language they have come from, if the pronunciation is known and it's at all possible for the speaker.
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I'm in IllinoisThe word "mare" for instance is pronounced "MAIR" or "MEHR". And every Karen or Sharon I've EVER known, from ANYWHERE in the US has pronounced their name as such. Actually A LOT of "-ar-" names are said like that is the US: Mary, Sarah, Taryn, Carys, Darin, Barrett, Jared, etc. etc. Obviously we're all working with different dialects and accents- not trying to force mine on you or anything, was just trying to point out how these names could sound to other people, including and most specifically the OPI'm all for pronouncing names correctly, I just think sometimes that is impossible when transferred between certain languages and so a near guess is the best you're going to do. I was just thinking earlier about how pretty Irena is ("ih-RAY-nah" ) but how it would never actually come out how I'd want it said because you have to say it with an Eastern European accent to make it sound right, and I'm not about to force a foreign accent on people... Teaching people a pronunciation is one thing, teaching them an accent is another

This message was edited 9/10/2014, 3:45 PM

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Okay :)
I'm not from the US and I've never been there so if you say a lot names with "-ar-" in them are pronounced mehr and mair I believe you. But I didn't know that before so the concept seemed weird to me.Sure, sometimes it's impossible to pass the correct pronunciations of names from one language to another and if Maren not being said "mah-ren" in American English is one of those cases then that's just how it is.
My own name is pronounced differently by people who only speak English and I have to be okay with that. I'm bilingual so I know what happens in one languages accent just can't happen in another.And if one of my favourite Romanian boys names has doubled-up in spelling with a variation of spelling of the American version of Maren then that's okay. Now I know that's what the story is!Sorry for all the explaining you had to do ^_^"
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No problem at all! The OP may very well not be from the US either. I think "MAH-rin" is certainly doable it just probably wouldn't be the first instinct for most Americans. And quite frankly, Maren/Marin is by no means a popular name here. I've only heard of/met 2 (one with each spelling) and they're both late 20s

This message was edited 9/10/2014, 10:49 PM

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Thanks, Ismene ::salutes::
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