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Xanthe or Xanthi
As some you may (or may not) know I plan on using the name Xanthe for my next baby if we have another girl (provided my fiance' likes it but I will try really hard to convince him ) anyway a few people have said that the spelling Xanthe is pronounced as zanth and not zan-thee so now I am worried about mispronouniation problems. Do you think spelling it with the i would be better (Xanthi) so that people would automatically say it as zan-thee? Or just leave it as it is. Personally I do prefer Xanthe (the correct way) but Xanthi doesn't look too bad to me either. I thought about Xanthie too but I dunno about that. Thoughts please? TIA.

This message was edited 10/31/2007, 3:15 AM

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I pronounce it Zan-thay but I much prefer the spelling Xanthe whichever way you pronounce it.
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Xanthe
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Xanthi is correct too...Both Xanthe and Xanthi are perfectly legitimate transcriptions from Greek. In fact, the name of the city in Greece is transcribed as Xanthi. I and E are used interchangably to represent the letter eta. That is why you can see Eleni and Elene, Kyriaki and Kyriake, and Zoi and Zoe, etc. In either case I rather prefer the Greek pronounciation, KSAHN-thee.
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Oh ok, I didn't know that. Thats good then. Thanks for that info.
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I think Xanthe would likely have pronunciation issues no matter how it was spelled, so I'd just leave it the correct way. It definitely looks best that way.Love the name. :)
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I think that Xanthe will be pronounced correctly. Xanthi and Xanthie look too cutesy to me. You could always spell it Xanthé
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I assumed Xanthe was prn. zan-thee in the first place, so I'd stick with Xanthe. I think no matter what name you pick, someone at some point will miss pronounce it. Xanthi doesn't look right to me, so I don't like it.
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Xanthy would look better with Hayley and Skye, but I prefer Xanthe (I don't think the pronunciation will be a very big issue, the only thing I think is weird that you (English speakers) don't pronounce the X as an X, but as a Z (Xanthe would be KSAHN-tu for me)). one more thing: I'm still rooting for Iris Chrysanthe ;)
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I will think about Iris Chrysanthe too don't worry. ;)
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That's a hard one. I get the point you're making, but Xanthi doesn't look right.Xanthea or Xanthia would solve the problem?
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Yeah I have thought about Xanthia with the nn Xanthi but I am not sure. Hmmm, I will think about it (I do like it but it is hard to make a decision if you know what I mean)
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