Tahnie, Tahnee
Can we do some research on Tahnee, Tahnie together?Is it really just a variant of "tawny"? They don't sound the same, at least not to me. I say Tahnee, Tahnie more like tah-nee and Tawny more like taw-nee.I noticed that there are quite a few Australian women named this, so maybe it has some roots there? There is an actress from Australia called Tahnie, and several called Tahnee.
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I have always thought that the attribution of it as a variant of Tawny was incorrect.To me it fits very closely with the other T- names with strong “ah” and “ee” sounds that are popular in Australia, such as Talia & variants, Tiana & variants, etc. I grew up with several girls whose names were Tahnee or a version thereof in Perth.
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There are many people in the United States, especially in California and other western states, who have what is called the "ah/aw" merger and who have lost the distinction between "ah" and "aw". So your above comment that you say Tahnee like tah-nee and Tawny like taw-nee will make no sense to them because they say ah and aw exactly the same. What they say in these words usually sounds more like "ah" than "aw" to those Americans like myself who still make a distinction between the two sounds. There are many people in the USA now who pronounce the pairs Don/Dawn, cot/caught, clod/Claude, etc. identically.

This message was edited 9/4/2023, 1:15 PM

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Thank you! But I think it originated in Australia and there they shouldn't sound the same, as far as I know. I have never met a Tahnee from the US.
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You’re correct, they’re completely different sounds in Australia.
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According to user-submitted name Tarni, it says it comes from the Kaurna language, spoken in Australia, meaning "surf, wave". It also lists Tahnee as a variant.(https://www.behindthename.com/name/tarni/submitted)
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