I was doing a search and came across this name. Okay it’s a type of flower, particularly types of [name]Iris[/name]. I’ve tried finding out how to pronounce this word/name and found two variations.
Does anyone know the correct pronunciation of this name? I love the way it looks and thought it might make a great first or middle name. Personally I’m leaning towards maybe using it as a middle.
I would say mor-[name]RAY[/name]-uh.
In Ecclesiastical Latin the ‘ae’ diphthong makes an an ‘eh’/‘ay’ sound. However their are different forms of Latin pronunciation. Classical Latin is the reconstructed way scholars think it was pronounced before the 3rd century; Ecclesiastical Latin is the the pronunciation from the 3rd/4th century onwards.
In Classical Latin ‘ae’ makes an ‘eye’ sound as it was used to transliterate the Ancient Greek ‘ai’ which is an eye sound.
However, like all ancient languages, different countries tend to put their own pronunciations into the mix. For example [name]Iphigeneia[/name] was [iff-ig-en-AY-a] in Ancient Greek, [name]Iphigenia[/name] is [iff-ee-JEE-nee-ah] in English, in Russian it’s [iff-ee-[name]GEN[/name]-yah] and in [name]France[/name] it’s [name]Iphigenie[/name] [iff-ee-[name]ZHEN[/name]-ee]. No doubt it would be different in other countries as well.
The ‘English’ reconstruction of Latin would (I believe) be mur-[name]REE[/name]-uh (like [name]Julius[/name] Caesar).
So really mu-[name]RYE[/name]-uh, mu-[name]RAY[/name]-uh and mu-[name]REE[/name]-uh would all be acceptable.
Complicated, huh? Sorry if that’s confused you more! 
What an unusual name!
My first instinct would be to pronounce it muh-[name]RAY[/name]-uh, both because of the inclusion of the name [name]Rae[/name], and because I studied Classical Latin at school, and as [name]Elea[/name] pointed out above me, ‘ae’ is pronounced ‘eye’. As it is a plant name, it is likely it comes directly from Classical Latin.
Thank you [name]Elea[/name] & Twinkle 
My mind first read it as mor-[name]RAY[/name]-uh but I suppose it depends on which pronunciation you like best.
After much more digging here is what I found the word/name to mean -
“The name Moraea was originally [name]Morea[/name], given by [name]Philip[/name] [name]Miller[/name] to honour [name]Robert[/name] More of Shropshire, but Linnaeus altered it to Moraea. His wife’s name was [name]Sara[/name] [name]Elizabeth[/name] Moraea and her father, Dr [name]Johan[/name] Moraeus.”
Millier and Linnaeus where both botanist.
I also found on this site that the name [name]Morae[/name] is a variation of [name]Mora[/name] - Spanish and means “blueberry”.
I still like Moraea as a middle name. [name]Ruby[/name] Moraea, sounds nice to me.
Does anyone not like this as a name? What are your opinions?
Here are some pictures of types of Moraea. There are so many different colors and all are so beautiful.
Moraea villosa “Peacock Moraea”
Moraea villosa ‘[name]Zoe[/name]’
Moraea loubseri
Moraea elegans
What beautiful flowers. I will add this name to my botanical list of names.