Wednesday, April 28, 2010

How Do You Pronounce.......

This topic actually jumped into my head back when I was watching the first episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" when Sarah Jessica Parker found out she had an ancestor named Jabez.

And then again when  ClueWagon tweeted "This is cool: it tells you how to pronounce words, so you don't sound like a dork. http://bit.ly/9PbMZ"  (and I am just now getting around to posting it.) So I click on the link to check it out and there I discovered that I have been sounding like a 'dork' for quite a while!  That is not how I have been pronouncing Jabez.


The site we were all a "Twitter" about is called FORVO. If you are not sure how to pronounce a word, you can go to this site and actually hear how it is pronounced.  However you may not find the pronunciation you are looking for if no one has submitted that particular word or name.

Of all the names in my database that I am not sure how to pronounce, only two of them have been submitted:

Hezekiah (I have been pronouncing this wrong too!)
Jabez

So here are the other first names that I am not sure how to pronounce:
Abijah
Capitola
Elihu
Epenetus
Jehu
Keziah
Mehitable
Micajah
Paschel
Peleg
Tartellus
So if you know the proper way to pronounce these names, could you do a fellow genealogy blogger a favor and hop on over to FORVO and tell me how? (pretty please, with a cherry on top.)

Speaking about (okay, writing about) names,  There are a few  unusual ones in my database -- Preserved Fish -- (Come on, what in the world were his parents thinking?).  Then there is Golden Bridges Keetch, and Daisy Fern Madsen.

Then there are the Puritan names like Increase, Experience, Comfort, Content, Fruitful, etc.  It turns out that Given names have histories. Here is an excellent resource on names in history  Given Names in Early America: Shaped by history, religion and traditions, by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG


5 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness. Those names make me grateful for my Norwegians after all. I'll just go ahead and keep my Hjalmers.

    I have NO clue how to pronounce any of those names, but I'll be curious to know if anyone else does.

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  2. I know one of them: ma-KAY-jah. Have several ancestors with that name. And I think one of the possible nicknames for it was "Cage."

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  3. Thank you for the link. My daughter in law is Russian - maybe I will do better listening to individual words here than with my Rosetta Stone! Also being in KY I pronounce things wrong all the time - this might make me less of a dork!!!!

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  4. Thanks for the heads-up about FORVO, Leslie Ann. That's useful!

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  5. At least 7 of those names are in the Old Testament of the Bible. Looks like you have the correct pronunciation on 3 of them. Hezekiah, Jabez, and Micajah. Also A bi' jah (Abijah), sounds like A buy Jah. E li' hu (Elihu), sounds like E lie who. Je' hu (Jehu), sounds like Gee who. Ke zi' ah (Keziah), sounds similar to Hezekiah that you already have the pronunciation for. Hope this helps a little.
    JTucker

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