Hoping someone can help me out with a pronunciation issue. I found the name in a baby book, in a list of girls’ names. The name is Jonati, and said to be Hebrew and mean ‘dove.’ Does anyone know the correct pronunciation? There’s a few different online, and the name seems to be obscure. Any hebrew name experts help me out! Thanks in advance!
I am no expert, but based on what I know, it sounds like it’s from the same origin as [name_u]Jonah[/name_u], which also means dove. [name_u]Jonah[/name_u] is jo-nuh while the Hebrew is [name_m]Yonah[/name_m], so I’d guess jo-nuh-tee or you could say it yo-nuh-tee, but I think it’s better to Anglicize it.
Interestingly enough, [name_f]Jemima[/name_f] is another Hebrew name meaning dove.
I’m no expert either but I’d assume it’s a variant transliteration of Yonati, which is a name meaning “my dove” according to a number of sources.
The pronunciation seems to be similar to yoh-nah-tee but I don’t speak Hebrew so I’m not sure which syllable is stressed.
Jo-nah-tee would be my best guess, based on the pronunciations of [name_u]Jonah[/name_u]
I speak a bit of Hebrew and my guess is it would be pronounced YO-nah-TEE. It’s common for 3-syllable words to have stress on both the first and third syllable. E.g. [name_u]Israel[/name_u] is pronounced EES-ra-EL in Hebrew.
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Considering all the J names have been anglicized Joe-Not-Tee…but originally its probable YOnaw tee