I’m expecting and one of my favorites for girls is [name_f]Thea[/name_f]. However, my 4yo has trouble articulating the ‘th’ sound, and I realized today this means he would be referring to his sister as Ffffffea (spitting a little) until he grows out of it.
We have been considering the [name_m]French[/name_m] pronunciation with the hard T (teya) instead, which is actually quite common where I live.
What are your opinions on this pronunciation?
Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
Is that pronounced like the name [name_f]Tia[/name_f], or like [name_u]Tay[/name_u]-[name_m]Ah[/name_m]?
Anyways, I think you can get away with it (the [name_m]French[/name_m] pronounciation), however I honestly think the traditional English pronunciation would save your daughter from a lot of corrections growing up, but there’s no major issues with the [name_m]French[/name_m] way. If the main reason you don’t want to use the English version is because of your son having issues with pronunciation, then I think you should use the English one. He’ll grow out of it soon enough.
If you want my personal opinion… I prefer the English, but I don’t hate the [name_m]French[/name_m] way of pronouncing it.
[name_f]Happy[/name_f] naming! <3
Here in Scandinavia we also pronounce [name_f]Thea[/name_f] like teya so I’m used to and love that pronouncation.
One possible issue is that other people might assume it’s pronounced with the th sound
I’m in the U.S. and the only [name_f]Thea[/name_f] I know, a teenager, uses the pronunciation you prefer. She does complain that people mispronounce her name, but they seem to get it once corrected.
If your son is four now, I doubt he has more than a couple more years with the speech impediment. I don’t think it’s worth changing the pronunciation for. Mountain out of molehill, kind of.
That being said, I think both ways are beautiful, but the soft TH version will require less correcting, at least in English speaking countries. (The only “[name_u]TAY[/name_u]-uh” I know is spelled [name_f]Tea[/name_f] with an accent over the E, which is annoying for her because official US legal documents, like driver’s license and insurance cards, don’t recognize accented letters and it looks like her name is just [name_f]Tea[/name_f], like the drink.)