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".