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[Opinions] Re: Hermione
in reply to a message by Bex
Theodora and Hermione is great.Have you considered using Thomasina as a fn? that'd work too IMO.I think that if I were born in 2019 I would like being named Hermione. I don't think there's a downside from association with the HP character - at least, not any more than with any other name used in HP. If anything, it's just a benefit, since people recognize the name and know how to say it. And it's a lovely name, and still distinctive. When people meet a new Hermione, they would pretty quickly replace the image of a character with the image of the person they know.- mirfak
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A friend of mine, with a doctorate in Linguistics, was reading the Harry Potter books to her young sons and told us about it at Book Club (which I soon dropped out of ...); they loved it, quite predictably, but it soon became clear that she (a) couldn't pronounce Hermione, (b) didn't know that she couldn't and (c) in the interests of accuracy had to be put right. So I did, and she was amazed but grateful! Her best guess had been HERmoyn.So, not so sure that folks will know how to say it, unless they've seen the movies or played the audiobooks. But it is lovely and distinctive, as you say, and they can learn.
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Hermione actually explains how to pronounce her name (to her date, Viktor Krum) in the 4th Harry Potter book.
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She pretty much had to! His version is even worse than my friend's.
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A doctorate in linguistics is no guarantee of reading competence, I guess.
I'm sure that applies in other fields too.
At least she was brave enough to attempt it and humble enough to be grateful for the correction.
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I love Thomasina but I think Theodora and Thomasina are too matchy matchy for siblings. They sound like twins out of an Enid Blyton book.
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