In my local paper I encountered an article about a little girl named [name_f]Kaileah[/name_f], which I intuitively pronounced “[name_m]Ky[/name_m]-[name_u]LEE[/name_u]-ah.” This conclusion was helped along by the fact that her parents call her [name_f]LaLa[/name_f] and [name_f]Leah[/name_f]. I thought, “Oh, nifty!” and went to look it up.
It doesn’t appear to have an entry, but previous threads indicate that it’s actually just a creeatiff spelling for [name_f]Kaylee[/name_f]?! I did not get [name_f]Kaylee[/name_f] or [name_f]Kayleigh[/name_f] or [name_f]Kaylie[/name_f] or anything of the sort from [name_f]Kaileah[/name_f]. Am now feeling rather disillusioned.
I got [name_f]Kaylee[/name_f], but it was not the first pronunciation I tried and I could see it being [name_u]Kay[/name_u]-leah or [name_m]Ky[/name_m]-leah as well. This is why I hate creative spellings, tbh… it’s really frustrating for the kid to always have their name mispronounced/misspelled but also for anyone who has to try to figure out what the heck that name is!
I’d go with kay-lee-ah instinctively. I wouldn’t get [name_f]Kailey[/name_f] from that. If you wanted it pronounced like the ky in [name_u]Kyle[/name_u], I’d spell it [name_f]Kylia[/name_f]. I guess it’s pretty, but it sounds like the parents couldn’t agree on a little [name_f]Kayla[/name_f] or a little [name_f]Leah[/name_f] and combined them to make one name.
I guess that’s the root of my confusion. IS it in fact a rare name, or is it just a bizarre respelling of [name_f]Kayla[/name_f] or [name_f]Kaylee[/name_f]? Or is it just a smoosh of [name_f]Kayla[/name_f] and [name_f]Leah[/name_f] that someone came up with? I genuinely don’t know. (And then I found the following thread, or I would never have gotten [name_f]Kaylee[/name_f] from it, either.)
When I saw it I pronounced it kay-lee-ah, I wouldnt get [name_f]Kaylee[/name_f]/[name_f]Kayleigh[/name_f]/[name_f]Kaylie[/name_f]/[name_f]Kailey[/name_f] or any of it’s other variant spellings from that one.
I would have said kay-lee-ah but I could see how you could get kay-lee, ky-lee or ky-lee-ah from it. It’s so unusual I reckon you could pronounce it however you like if you want to use it