How would you pronounce these names?

MelodyO said:

Maion (female): MAY-on? May-ON? MY-on? My-ON? Something else?

Azrael (male): AZ-ree-al? AZ-ray-al? Something else?

Xaphan (male): ZAY-fin? Zah-FAN? Something else?

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Well, I don't know how they're supposed to be pronounced, but if I were reading along and encountered them I'd pronounce them MY-on, AHZ_ray_ELL (Gargamel on the Smurfs had a cat named this), and zay-FAN.

SherriC said:

Well, I don't know how they're supposed to be pronounced, but if I were reading along and encountered them I'd pronounce them MY-on, AHZ_ray_ELL (Gargamel on the Smurfs had a cat named this), and zay-FAN.

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I echo that, except I would read Zah-fan, or maybe zah-phon.

Azrael was my Mom's cat, Izzy for short. We said Az-ray-el, just like they did on the Smurfs. She as named after the cat on the Smurfs.
Exotic, No?

MY-on, AZ-rah-el, and probably ZA-fan; in pinyin romanization of Chinese, 'x' is close to 'sh,' so when I've been studying Chinese I'd tend to pronounce it SHA-fan.

C.bronco said:

Azrael was my Mom's cat, Izzy for short. We said Az-ray-el, just like they did on the Smurfs. She as named after the cat on the Smurfs.
Exotic, No?

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Azrael is the Muslim angel of death and ultimate destroyer of the universe. It has enough eyes and hands for any living creature and writes down and erase names of his book. When the last being had died is when Azrael becomes blind

ath-RAH-elle

MAH-ee-on

Za-Fan

MelodyO said:

That's a good point, although you'd think biblical names would be Hebrew or some such. *biblically challenged* Thanks for your thoughts!

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Azrael is Hebrew. Not sure what are the others, though

maxmordon said:

ath-RAH-elle

MAH-ee-on

Za-Fan

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De acuerdo. But with Xaphan, I would instinctively think: CHAH-FAN.

Don't ask.

I tend to give them the Latin pronounciation. For example: A as in LAtin.\

Maion = Mah-ion
Azrael = Azrah-el
Xaphan = Zah-fan

MelodyO said:

Maion (female): MAY-on? May-ON? MY-on? My-ON? Something else?

Azrael (male): AZ-ree-al? AZ-ray-al? Something else?

Xaphan (male): ZAY-fin? Zah-FAN? Something else?

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MA-ee-on

ahz-RAY-el

sa-FAN

Carmy said:

I tend to give them the Latin pronounciation. For example: A as in LAtin.\

Maion = Mah-ion
Azrael = Azrah-el
Xaphan = Zah-fan

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I second this

If they're your characters, then the way you pronounce them is correct.

Maion: MAH ee own
Azrael: AZ rah ell
Xaphan: ZAFF ən

MAY-on
AZ-ray-ell
ZAY-phan

One hint about a LOT of the angel names found in sacred text: they are usually spelled as a sound-alike varient of Michael (MEE-kai-EL) and Gabriel (GAH-bree-EL). Thus we have such additional angel names as Raphael (RAH-fay-EL), Muriel (MYOOR-ree-EL), and Uriel (YUR-ree-EL), etc.


Now ... if I were blindly reading these names in any book with no prior knowledge of their traditional pronunciations, I'd pronounce them like this:

Maion MY-on
Azrael AHZ-ray-EL
Xaphan ZAY-fahn

I might be jumping in on this kind of late, but I'll leave thoughts anyway.

For Maion I'd say My-ohn to roughly rhyme with "bye" and "own".

For Azrael I would say az-ray-el. I think everyone generally agreed on this.

For Xaphan I would say zah-fahn, with a long A in both spots. I looked up the name origin and it came from a French writer (Collin de Plancy), so I would suspect this is how he would have pronounced it, as well. (This is following modern French pronunciation without the nasal vowel at the end.)


Also, I'd argue that Azael and Xaphan aren't new agey angels at all. Azrael has been around for ages and while Xaphan seemed to have been invented relatively recently, nothing about the Dictionnaire Infernal (the book Xaphan is mentioned in) is new agey.

MAY-ee-on
az-RAY-el
zaf-AN