Colin 1

Best pronounced KAHL-in.

About the pronunciation of Colin Powell's name: his parents pronounced it KAH-lin, but Powell has pronounced his name KOH-lin since childhood, after the WWII flyer Colin P. Kelly Jr.

My name has been Colin for 54 years. I went to American schools as a child where my name was pronounced Cullen, Colon and Kahlin. I hated my name because no one could pronounce it correctly. All these pronunciations are totally incorrect. In the last 10 years there has been debate about the one L or two L versions. The Americans are the only nationality that have made a double L version of this name. The internet has spread this falsification and now even 20 to 25 year old Australians think the LL version is the default version. Just like NISSAN (KNEESAWN) the US has again made an abomination of something that is not culturally theirs. I'm sure it grates on the Colombians when they hear an American pronounce Bogota. If you want to pronounce something correctly you need to pronounce it the way the originating culture pronounces it. COLIN is pronounced thus. The accent on the O is pronounced as in Cod or exactly Col (a mountain pass). There is no e on the end of Col so the pronunciation is not cole or khal or colon. Colon Powell didn't do anyone any favours with his version of his name and nor did the children who would have called him colon at school.

Americans say KAHL-in and British say COL-in. Simple as. Myself I would never be able to deal if people kept saying "KAHL-in" to my face, it would be so annoying, but I guess I would get used to it. Colin is a cool name, however you say it.

My dad's name is Colin. He pronounces it Co-lin. His American sister says Car-lin and he hates it.