How would you pronounce this name?

[bill2451]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

I'm from CT (and see the "er" sound spelt "re" quite a bit) and I went with Zon-Dray... what messed me up is that I expect Zan-der to be spelled with an "X". So Xandre I would have known lol... but changing the X to a Z and the ER to an RE made it look much more like Zon-dray imo (only 1 letter different from that "on-dray" sound in numerous names)

that said, seeing his full name makes is pretty obvious. But if I only saw the shortened version written, I'd most definitely get it wrong

[Cusefan]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

He is going to get his name mispronounced so much he will probably just accept Zon-dray...

[youvalss]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

I voted for Zone-Dray.

That's the thing that killing me in English. When you have someone's name, most of the time you need them to spell it for you, because there can be 2 different ways (sometimes more) to spell it. And when you have a name written, there may be 2-3 ways to pronounce it. As someone who's not a native English speaker, I find it many times hard.

[Cebby]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

Maybe it's the exotic Russian spelling too.

We wanted to go with a classic name but we didn't want it to be ordinary.

Do either of you speak Russian?

The name "Alexander" in Russian is spelled phonetically to be pronounced "Alexander." If you added a Russian "e" at the end it would be pronounced "Alexandrye." There isn't a non-pronounced vowel in Russian.

There's no exotic Russian spelling. To spell it differently would change the pronunciation.

There were three Tsars named Alexander spelled roughly Aleksandr, but it is pronounced like Alexander. My brother is named Alexander and it's spelled Alexander. He was born a couple dozen miles outside of Moscow.

Unfortunately, adding a vowel to the end of a name in Russian translates to a females name in every case I'm aware of. The last sound in names Nicoli or Alexei is a consonant in Russian.

Finally, the Z in his name makes some sense in English, but in Russian you divide the English X (not the same as the Russian X) into the K and the S sound. The Z would be pointless in Russian.

If you want to make it "unique", I would do that. Aleksander is the most Russian you can get with the name.

[superjames1992]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

I get the point, but your kid's name is gonna be butchered for life. Nothing wrong with that, my last name's easy to mispronounce, and my first name is "Erick" with both the c and k, so you just learn to deal and correct people.

My last name is butchered by every single person I have ever met. No one knows how to say it.

Some people I correct and some point I don't because I'm so used to people incorrectly calling me "Frizzle" (like the Magic School Bus lady) that I don't care anymore.

[NC State-31 UNC-27]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

It could go either way, obviously. Seeing the full name helps. Also, knowing the race of the kid would probably help...dunno if ppl want to admit that or not.

Was surprised to see virtually everyone on the zon-dray side though.

[Kevin26385]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

Zon-Dray

Reminds me when people would pronounce my name over xbox live as "Keev" instead of "Kev".

[~LiverpoolRed~]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

So if the z was dropped from the name do you really think people would pronounce Andre as Ander?

You wouldn't here Howard Finkel announce: "From Grenoble in the French Alps, The Eighth Wonder of The World, Ander The Giant!"

[duke776]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

Well, I go with Zon-dre - my son's name is D'Andre, so I liken the two to sounding a bit similar IMO.

Yup, I know a D'Andre and that's what I thought of in this situation.

[deaduck]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

Not voting because it looks like Zan-Dray to me

[The C]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

Maybe it's the exotic Russian spelling too.

We wanted to go with a classic name but we didn't want it to be ordinary.

Hey comrade. THE WALL FELL. USA #1. LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT NOLESKI. Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna go outside and breath in that fresh free air.

[Cane_Mutiny]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

Even if I'm looking at the full name I'm going to pronounce that Alexandray. Maybe it's because I'm used to Spanish, but even in English I don't think a lot of people would make the assumption and pronounce it Alexander.

[MC Fatigue]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

The long form is obvious, the short isn't at all because there's no obvious connection to Alexander with the strange spelling you used.

I'm also pretty sure (since I'm from Canada) that the "re" thing is Canadian, not a Vermont thing; Canada uses 're' for a lot of words and the US uses 'er' which is why US spell checks will pick it up as being incorrect. Maybe since you're close to the border you've adopted it for fun or something.

I also think that the way you spelled it isn't Russian at all. I'm pretty sure they spell it like: Aleksandr

[MassNole]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

There is a heavy Vermont influence in Canada, what can I say.

[MassNole]

Re: How would you pronounce this name?

We went with this spelling so he could easily go by the following nicknames....

Al, Alex, Zandre, Zan, Dre, or Lex. See anything we missed?