I just fell in love with the name Cyrene. It’s a greek colony in north africa, named for a character from greek mythology who was tending her father’s sheep when a lion attacked one of them. She wrestled it to the ground and [name]Apollo[/name], seeing her do this, fell in love with her and took her to africa. The name means sovereign queen. And it was the name of [name]Xena[/name]'s mother. [name]How[/name] awesome is that??
The only problem is the pronunciation; I’ve found like six different ways to say it online (I like seer-ah-nee or seer-ah-nay), and my husband (whose name is Ferron, pronounced fair-un, although he often gets fur-ON) says she’ll get frustrated with people always saying it wrong.
So, I want to know, how would YOU pronounce it? If there’s a general consensus way that we like, we may keep it at the top of our list.
The first time I ever saw this I thought it was pronounced [name]SY[/name]-reen, but when I looked it up I saw it was [name]SY[/name]-ree-nee which I don’t like
I love Cyrene for a totally different reason–it was where the man who carried [name]Jesus[/name]’ cross was from ([name]Simon[/name] of Cyrene). I’ve always heard it pronounced sigh-REEN, as the pps said, but if it’s Greek sigh-ree-nee would make sense to me.
When I first looked at the name Cyrene, I first thought of sigh-rhen or s-eye-reen (like irene, but with the s sound for the c), but also saw it as K-eye-reen, (like irene, but with a k sound for the c) either way it’s different and I like it! Good luck!
Of the prn’s I listened to on forvo, two say “sigh ree nee”, one says “Sigh reen” and the French is “cee rhen” (Cyrène). I think @Dantea would probably know a lot about this name but I’m inclined to say it is “sigh ree nee” in Greek/English.