American v. British pronunciation?

Hello all,

What names do you know of that are pronounced/said distinctly differently in American and British accents? Obviously, you can’t say that there is one general “American accent” as there are many different ones. From what I’ve heard, this is true for British accents too (I was thinking English accent when I wrote this post, of the variety that the actor [name_m]Benedict[/name_m] Cumberbatch has). I’ve seen people get pretty riled up about the phrase “British accents”, since there seem to be quite a few different ones within [name_f]England[/name_f] and in [name_f]Ireland[/name_f], [name_f]Scotland[/name_f], and [name_m]Wales[/name_m]. I don’t know much about this, but please no flames for any blatant Americanisms in this post :slight_smile:

Anyway, do you think certain names sound prettier in certain accents? What might those be?

Of the names in my signature, which might be said differently in the U.K. than in the U.S.? [name_f]Do[/name_f] you think every name sounds very different in the U.S. than it does in the U.K., or only some names?

Please share your thoughts on this :slight_smile:

LL

P.S. I’m from [name_m]New[/name_m] [name_m]York[/name_m], but speak with no strong accent (Southern, [name_m]Boston[/name_m], [name_m]New[/name_m] [name_u]Jersey[/name_u], etc.)that identifies me as being from a certain part of the U.S.

I’m Australian and could see [name_m]Leander[/name_m], [name_m]Casper[/name_m] and [name_m]Foster[/name_m] being pronounced with an ah at the end I’m pretty sure it would be the same in the UK

Yeah, there are a wide variety of accents in the UK too (I can think of 8 distinct English ones off the top of my head), but things generally sound the same for us. As for what’s prettier, I’m a tad biased towards UK pronunciations. Anything else just wouldn’t be ‘normal’ for me :stuck_out_tongue: I’ll preface this by saying I’m British, thus not 100% sure on some of the American things I’ve listed. [name_m]Feel[/name_m] free to correct me…

There are certain names where the A is pronounced differently- in [name_m]Alexander[/name_m], [name_u]Francis[/name_u], [name_m]Grant[/name_m] etc. I believe that [name_m]Alexander[/name_m], for example, would be al-ix-[name_f]ANN[/name_f]-der across the board in the US, just as it is in [name_f]Scotland[/name_f], the [name_u]North[/name_u] and the South [name_u]West[/name_u] here (and probably other areas too), but in a lot of English accents, it’d be like al-ix-ARN-der, with a drawn out ‘a’.

A more even US/UK split would be the ‘o’ sound, such as in [name_m]Tom[/name_m], [name_m]Don[/name_m], [name_m]Colin[/name_m], [name_m]Bob[/name_m]. It’s very short in most (all?) British accents, but it kind of sounds like a longer nasal ‘[name_m]AH[/name_m]’ sound in the American accents I’ve heard. Thus, I’ve heard some Americans say [name_m]Don[/name_m] sounds exactly the same as [name_f]Dawn[/name_f], but it’s not so over here.

Some names sound completely different in the US, but most just sound like someone with a slight accent. I find that, when saying a name, Americans say them a little higher, like they’re asking a question. With British accents, it’s more like a statement. That probably makes no sense, but I’m just going on what I’ve heard :stuck_out_tongue:

I wouldn’t say there’s much difference in accents with most of the names in your sig. I’ve heard [name_f]Wilhelmina[/name_f] said as will-uh-meen-uh in US TV programmes before, and I think we’d say the ‘hel’ a little more clearly. [name_m]Otto[/name_m], [name_m]Monty[/name_m] & [name_m]Foster[/name_m] would follow the nasal ‘[name_m]AH[/name_m]’ I mentioned above, making [name_m]Otto[/name_m] rhyme with auto in the US I believe, but [name_m]Otto[/name_m]/auto sound different here. [name_u]August[/name_u]: [name_m]AH[/name_m]-gust (US)/OR-gust (UK).

Others I’ve come across (I know it’s not univeral and there are variations within our countries):

[name_m]Graham[/name_m]: grey-um/gram
[name_m]Duke[/name_m]: dyook/dook
[name_m]Wesley[/name_m]: wez-lee/wess-lee
[name_f]Tara[/name_f]: tar-ruh/tare-uh
[name_f]Clara[/name_f]: clar-ruh/claire-uh
[name_m]Anthony[/name_m]: ant-uh-nee/anth-uh-nee
[name_m]Louis[/name_m]: loo-ee/lewis
[name_u]Evelyn[/name_u]: eev-lin/ev-uh-lin
[name_m]Harry[/name_m]: hah-ree/hair-ee
[name_m]Aaron[/name_m]: ah-run (doesn’t sound like [name_f]Erin[/name_f]!)/air-un

I was always struck by how beautiful the name “[name_m]Mark[/name_m]” was in [name_f]Bridget[/name_f] [name_m]Jones[/name_m]’ Diary, but how abrasive and abrupt I find it in an American accent like my own!

You could expand [name_f]Tara[/name_f] with [name_f]Lara[/name_f], [name_f]Cara[/name_f], [name_f]Mara[/name_f] and [name_f]Sara[/name_f], from the Americans I know tend to go with Lare-uh, Care-uh, [name_f]Mare[/name_f]-uh and Sare-uh. [name_f]Mara[/name_f] is so much more pretty said [name_f]Mar[/name_f]-ruh.

[name_f]Sara[/name_f] and [name_f]Sarah[/name_f] seem to be said the same way in [name_u]America[/name_u], in the UK we say [name_f]Sarah[/name_f] as Sare-uh and [name_f]Sara[/name_f]/[name_f]Zara[/name_f] as Zar-ruh.

The Americans I know (I’m from SE PA) are nowhere near that consistent!

None of [name_f]Tara[/name_f], [name_f]Sara[/name_f], and [name_f]Zara[/name_f] rhyme in my accent.

I’ve never heard [name_f]Mara[/name_f] said mare-uh and I don’t really want to.

[name_f]My[/name_f] husband is Aussie and says he “loves girls names that end in -er” like [name_u]Winter[/name_u], [name_f]Esther[/name_f], [name_u]Ember[/name_u], etc. And to give him credit, he spells them right. He’s definitely saying “Winta, [name_f]Esta[/name_f], and Emba” though, so no wonder he thinks -er names have a “soft, feminine sound.” :smiley:

Most accents within the UK (not all of them though) are non-rhotic, whereas most accents (maybe all?) within the US are rhotic. [name_f]Non[/name_f]-rhotic means we don’t pronounce rs before consonants or at the end of words. So your average English person will not pronounce the r in names like [name_f]Martha[/name_f], [name_m]Mark[/name_m], [name_f]Esther[/name_f] or [name_m]Cooper[/name_m] (people are more likely to the further north you head, though, or down in the south west).

British RP also has more differentiation between vowel sounds, we tend to make more of a difference between the vowels in words like cot and caught, cat, cart, cut and care. This means it can sound to us like Americans “drawl” certain names (although it’s just a different vowel sound), names with short os like [name_m]Colin[/name_m] or [name_f]Donna[/name_f], short as like [name_f]Karen[/name_f] or [name_f]Carrie[/name_f], the ‘air’ sound like [name_u]Cary[/name_u] and [name_f]Mary[/name_f], short es like [name_u]Kerry[/name_u] or [name_u]Jerry[/name_u]. Your average English person will make a clear distinction between all these sounds, but in GAm they can run together a bit. For example, [name_f]Erin[/name_f] and [name_m]Aaron[/name_m] sound clearly different in an RP accent, but the same in a GAm accent.

Also got to mention [name_m]Craig[/name_m] - it always sounds like Americans are saying Creg to me somehow, although I can’t think of another name in this category.

I’ve never heard [name_m]Mark[/name_m] or [name_f]Martha[/name_f] pronounced without the ‘r’. I can’t even imagine how that would sound?

I can basically guarantee that you have. It’s the BBC pronunciation. With the vowel sound a long a (like ah) as in llama, but no actual r sound.

Edit: The pronunciation from Xequ1 here is exactly what I mean. Compare to rhotic pronunciation from MarcCapa, who seems to be in Scotland where rhoticity is far more common.

Right, I see. I got confused because to me, [name_m]Mark[/name_m] without the r is ‘mak’. So I was sitting there thinking… no… we must say the ‘r’ or we’d be saying [name_m]Mack[/name_m]. You mean, we say the ‘r’ as part of another sound. Personally, I’d write that noise as ‘ahr’ because it’s different to an ‘ah’ sound. Very hard to transcribe what I hear when I say things x_x

I know it’s not in common use as a name, but [name_f]Dahlia[/name_f] is one, as it’s dahl-ya or dal-ya here in the US, but in [name_m]Britain[/name_m] it’s day-lee-ah (which I think is much nicer).

People ask if I’m British or if I’m from the [name_m]Boston[/name_m] area as I drop many of my "r"s or barely say them.

[name_f]My[/name_f] OH [name_m]Martin[/name_m] become Mah-tin or Mahr-tin depending on how fast I’m speaking. His buddy [name_m]Mark[/name_m] becomes Mahrk. [name_f]Martha[/name_f] would become Mah-tha, etc.

It’s nice to hear that [name_m]Aaron[/name_m] and [name_f]Erin[/name_f] are pronounced differently over there.
[name_f]Erin[/name_f] is my mn and as a kid I always found it annoying when people would say “like the boys name?” NO! lol

The Republic of [name_f]Ireland[/name_f] isn’t part of [name_m]Britain[/name_m] (though Northern [name_f]Ireland[/name_f] is part of the UK). It generally annoys Irish people when they get lumped in with the British. :stuck_out_tongue:

As an Irish-American and fervent watcher of British television, the main difference I’ve noticed is that some British accents pronounce -er and -a nearly the same. So [name_m]Connor[/name_m] and [name_f]Summer[/name_f] would be more like Connah and Summah, and [name_f]Maria[/name_f] kind of sounds like [name_f]Mar[/name_f]-ee-er.

It generally dismays the British to be lumped together at all, because of the way people do it. I wouldn’t say annoyed, because I for one am used to it by now, but when Americans say British, it seems that 90% of the time they mean English, to the exclusion of Scottish and probably Welsh. If people mean Scottish or Welsh then that’s usually what they say, but English = British apparently. And then 90% of that time they mean southern English. We are three distinct nations, four if you count Northern [name_f]Ireland[/name_f], so “British accent” frankly makes as much sense as “European accent”. I thank the OP for the sensitivity and understanding shown :slight_smile: British is a great word when you want to talk about the Scots, the Welsh and the English all at once (or at least it is at the moment - pending results from the independence referendum ;)), but a bad word for talking about the English.

They’re different where I grew up on the [name_f]East[/name_f] Coast USA too. And different here in [name_m]Oz[/name_m]. That’s one change I didn’t have to get used to. :wink:

Yeah, totally. I even get annoyed that we don’t have our ‘own’ proper anthem and are forced to sing God Save the [name_f]Queen[/name_f], even when it’s only [name_f]England[/name_f] being represented. Everyone else gets two anthems (one national and one British) why can’t we have two? Lol. I pretty much live for the Commonwealth Games when we can finally hear [name_m]Land[/name_m] of [name_f]Hope[/name_f] and [name_f]Glory[/name_f] :wink:

I prefer the ‘English’ pronunciation of [name_f]Clara[/name_f] (Cl-ar-ah) as opposed to the ‘American’ (Cl-air-a)

While I’d agree that it’s lack of exposure and carelessness that generally leads Americans to not differentiate British accents, part of the issue is also that the idea that a country smaller than Oregon can 1) maintain so many distinct accents despite modern technology and 2) have such vibrant passion for those accents–boggles the mind. Though, likely 2 is associated with 1.

No criticism, I find them all fascinating. Accents have a much greater negative stigma here. [name_f]My[/name_f] father grew up with a thick Southern accent and in his teens purposely lost it. I can’t say many “regional” American accents would be viewed positively outside of comic relief–at least in my area.

I completely agree. I had a teacher tell me it was the female version of [name_m]Aaron[/name_m] and told me I was crazy when I said it wasn’t. It was one of those “Excuse me?” moments.
[name_f]My[/name_f] grandmother goes to the opposite extreme to the point of insisting I say my own name wrong. She says [name_m]Aaron[/name_m] has a more defined “on” sound and [name_f]Erin[/name_f] is closer to an “in” sound.