Quick question about names.

[baratron]

Apropos of nothing, I find myself wondering how to pronounce the following two names, which I've only seen in print and not heard out loud:
Halle, as in Halle Berry, Oscar-winning actress.
Ciara, as in stonehan's little daughter.

I don't know how to read phonemes, and I'm not sure they translate easily into ascii, so please use descriptions of the sounds, trying to keep them fairly accent-free. e.g. "a as in apple" is ok, but "o as in Bob" is right out :)

Comments

[kshandra]

Halle, as in Halle Berry, Oscar-winning actress.

I've actually heard several different pronunciations...I think the correct one is HALL-ay. (It's certainly my favorite.) HAL-ee is perhaps more frequently heard, though I should think that'll change soon if it's not her preference, now that she's got that extra bit of pull that an Academy Award tends to give.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I found a really interesting resource!

http://www.loc.gov/nls/other/sayhow.html

They say: Berry, Halle (HAL-é)

[ A, a = pat, marry; É, é = evil, reel ]

So I'd read it to rhyme with Sally.

[mjl]

I think her pronunciation of it, having seen her on TV saying it, is HAL-ee, like the comet. But then she's got an accent, so...

Was on the phone to someone from Dell earlier, who said her name was "NEE-av" (or maybe more just "neev") and was suitably impressed when I was able to get the spelling correct.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I once had to disillusion someone who'd named his cat "Niamh", and was making "Cats of Niamh" jokes while pronouncing it "knee-am".

[aegidian]

Ciara -

Most people are saying it like (Key - Rah).

??

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

Keer Ah?

Re: ??

[aegidian]

That's better, the Key part is aspirated (breathed through).

Khee-ruh

Re: ??

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yeah - that's closest to how I'm saying it, actually. :o)

Re: ??

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Ah, I think I've worked it out now. I knew a Scottish girl called Kira - I'm guessing Ciara is the Irish spelling of the same name. Cool!

[boi-viks.livejournal.com]

hi. im a 17 yr old gay party kid over in the usa. im extremlly bored right now and wwas doing random searches of oother peoples intrestes and decided to try my ex bfs name and up poped you... i went out with a chris mccormack for a lill over 2 years. he was my first true love. we started going out when i was 14.. i dunno why im telling you this... im just bored i guess. well anyways say hi sometime...
Muahz
bye
viks

[baratron.livejournal.com]

hehe - well, my Chris McCormack is the guitarist in 3 Colours Red and Grand Theft Audio, two British pop-punk bands that you may have heard of - GTA had a couple of songs on the soundtracks of various films last year and also on the PS2 game Gran Turismo 3. It must be a reasonably common name - I discovered when I did a Google search last year that there are three famous Chris McCormacks (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=baratron&itemid=37453) - as well as the one I am talking about, there's also an Australian athlete and a techno DJ.

I still do searches for the name of an ex I haven't seen for getting on for 7 years. I just wonder what happened to him. I know where all my other exes are - some of them I'm still friends with - but this one disappeared without trace and I can't stop wondering where he is.