Considering [name_f]Lilah[/name_f] for DD. (LIE-lah) but need Soanish-speaking grandparents to be able to say it without an instruction manual! So:
1/ [name_m]How[/name_m] do you think a native Spanish speaker would pronounce [name_f]Lilah[/name_f]?
2/ Any suggestions on how to spell it so that we end up with the pronounciation we want?
Thank you!
I’m not a Spanish speaker (nor do I have any knowledge of the language) but I can list some spellings with their conventional pronunciation (you might have to ask your grandparents if they can pronounce the name).
[name_f]Layla[/name_f] ([name_m]LAY[/name_m]-la)
[name_f]Leila[/name_f] ([name_m]LAY[/name_m]-la)
[name_f]Lila[/name_f] (LIE-la)
[name_f]Lilah[/name_f] (LIE-la)
[name_f]Laila[/name_f] ([name_m]LAY[/name_m]-la)
While I don’t speak Spanish, I do speak Dutch and in Dutch the name [name_f]Layla[/name_f] is most commonly pronounced LIE-la. Maybe this would be the same for your Spanish relatives?
Hmm, that’s tough. To get the right pronunciation in Spanish, I think lie-lah would have to be spelled [name_f]Laila[/name_f] or [name_f]Layla[/name_f], but then it becomes lay-lah in English. [name_f]Lilah[/name_f] in Spanish would be pronounced lee-lah.
I can’t think of a spelling that would be pronounced the same in both languages. I think if you love the name, you should just let the grandparents know how it’s pronounced—give them an instruction manual and they’ll get used to it. Or just let them pronounce it differently? I know plenty of Hispanic kids whose names are pronounced differently by their English-speaking classmates/teachers and their Spanish-speaking family. One of the kids at the camp I worked at this summer, [name_m]Cristian[/name_m], is “[name_m]Christian[/name_m]” to most of the people he meets but “[name_f]Cristi[/name_f]án” at home, and he does fine. No identity crisis there.
Yeah, phonetically to show a Spanish speaker how to say it, write “[name_f]Laila[/name_f]”. But as already mentioned if you actually chose that spelling the name is different in English.
I agree that it would be most intuitive to pronounce it LIE-la in Spanish if it was spelled [name_f]Laila[/name_f], but I think anyone can get used to the pronunciation of a name if they’re told. They won’t think twice about it once they say it a few times! [name_f]Lilah[/name_f] would be said [name_u]LEE[/name_u]-la in Spanish if someone was unfamiliar with the English pronunciation.
I’ve also always loved how names change when spoken in different languages. Like my name is [name_f]Rachel[/name_f] in English, but when I’m speaking Spanish people sometimes address me as [name_f]Raquel[/name_f] with a trilled R.
They’d most likely pronounce it [name_u]LEE[/name_u]-la. In Spanish, there is the name [name_f]Laia[/name_f] (a short form of [name_f]Eulalia[/name_f]) which is pronounce Lye-a, so the closest you’d get to Lye-la is [name_f]Laila[/name_f], however, that is pronounced Ley-la in English, so I fear you will just have to correct their pronunciation, maybe make it easier to spell for them by dropping the -h at the end as that is very uncommon/non-existend within the Spanish languge.