How do you pronounce these names?
- Should Jena be pronounced as Gina or Jenna?
- Joanie = jo-ANN-ny or Jone-ny or Jon-ny?
- Joni = John-ny or Jo-ny?
Although some of the pronunciation of these names have already been listed in the website, some people do pronounce them differently, so which one is correct?btw, just got another question, can "Joey" be a girl name? does anyone know any girl called Joey? 'cos usually when people see the name Joey, they think that's a boy right away...some girls named Joey have a different spelling though, like Joeie or Joei
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In English speaking countries, it is legal to give a child any name you wish, as long as it is spelled out in the letters of the Roman alphabet, so of course Joey can be a girl's name. I don't know a girl named Joey personally, but I well remember the actress Joey Heatherton:http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0372758/Jena is a name which has been pronounced either as Gina or Jenna depending on how the parents came up with it. The only Jena I know personally is from Iran originally and pronounces her name as "ZHEN-nah". Joanie would usually be two syllables as "Joan-ie" in the Anglo community in the USA, but I think some Hispanics do say "Jo-annie". Joni is usually also "Joan-ie", but there are some women with the name who pronounce it as Johnny, such as the disabled artist Joni Eareckson Tada:http://www.joniandfriends.org/
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the name Joanie is newly popular in my French-speaking area, and locall it's pronounced jo-ANN-ie.
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I LOVE Joey for a girl, but most people I think would disagree with me. Anyway, I would pronounce those names like this:Jena = Jenna
Joanie = Jone-ee
Joni = Same as above, Jone-ee
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Jena I would pronounce as Jenna and I can't think of any example in English where Je followed by a consonant, at the start of a word, would be pronounced as jee not jeh.(I might be wrong though). The next two I would both pronounce as Jo-nyJoey I see as quite unisex but I wouldn't name a girl independently Joey. It's a cute nickname though for any other Jo- feminine names.
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Gina as a name I suppose, but if I saw it I'd think of the place and pronounce it more or less Yay-na. Jone-y. Jone-y again, as in Mitchell. If I saw Joeie or Joei, I'd assume it was a kre8iv spelling of Joy, so I'd see it as female but for the wrong reason. And I'd certainly expect Joey to be male. It's another good reason for giving a child a full name (Josephine or Joanna?) and using the nn form as just that - a nickname.
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