Aaron and Erin

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

Doing well. Who’s this?

This is Sam from San Diego.

Sam from San Diego?

Yeah, originally from New York.

Well, how can we help you today?

Well, actually, it had to do with California, New York-type speaking, if you will.

I’m from New York. Both of my parents are from New York.

And I went up to college in Rochester, New York.

And I met my future wife, who’s from San Diego.

Her name is Erin, E-R-I-N.

And we had a lot of friends.

One of them was named Erin, A-A-R-O-N.

And everyone used to, you know, they would call, oh, hey, Erin, hey, Erin.

And both of them would answer.

And me and my other friends would say, why are both of you answering?

You know, your name is Erin, A-A-R-O-N, and your name is Erin, E-R-I-N.

And they couldn’t tell the difference between how we were saying their names.

So this led into arguments about how to say their own names.

And we just decided that we weren’t going to bring it up anymore.

We came out to California, and my wife’s parents, when they heard about the argument,

They said, I know exactly what I named my daughter.

It’s the same name as your friend Aaron.

And I pretty much just got fed up with it, and I said, you guys need to answer.

Where is the distinction?

I did some research and I found out that it’s just a different dialect.

And people in Great Britain and in Australia,

They can tell the difference between the words.

And people in the United States can’t and they pronounce them the same.

But then how come I’m from New York City

And how come I can understand the difference between the words?

Clearly, you are a superior human being.

Oh, of course.

Of course. I mean, that’s what I always thought.

But, you know, don’t tell my wife.

I bet that goes over well with her family, huh?

So here’s the thing in a nutshell.

E-R-I-N and A-A-R-O-N are pronounced by some people as the same word.

And then when they are pronounced differently, there’s a whole bunch of people who hear them the same anyway.

Okay.

Right? That’s what you’re saying.

And it’s absolutely true.

We have this. Let me ask you a question.

Okay.

Say the name D-O-N.

Don.

Say the name.

My uncle, actually.

Okay.

Say the name D-A-W-N.

Don.

Okay.

Say them next to each other, side by side.

Don and Don.

Okay.

There are whole parts of this country where there is no difference whatsoever in the pronunciation

Of Don and Don.

And it’s the same with Aaron and Aaron.

Right?

Is there a reason for it?

Yes.

You nailed it.

You did your homework.

You came to us with both the problem and the solution.

What, he’s a superior human being?

I grew up calling them the same thing.

Oh, he went to school in Rochester.

How could he be wrong?

Exactly.

Now, wait a minute.

Exactly.

Well, here’s the thing.

Dialects have this thing where we all speak generally like one another when we’re from a particular region.

I mean, not exactly, and you can find obvious examples where people are different.

But in the aggregate, we tend to speak alike.

And there are whole parts of this country, particularly in the West, where there’s things called vowel mergers.

Where two vowels that used to sound different now sound the same.

You can find this in other words like pen, P-E-N, and pin, P-I-N.

There are people who cannot hear the difference and do not speak a difference when they say those two words.

And so you, I can hear it in your voice.

You are saying Aaron differently than you’re saying Aaron.

Right.

And other people don’t do that.

It’s a function of dialect.

I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to educate whole parts of the country to say them differently nor to hear them differently.

I think I started pronouncing it differently after I moved from Kentucky to upstate New York for a few years.

And I thought Aaron and Aaron sounded the same, the boy’s name and the girl’s name.

And then I heard other people saying Aaron.

And I started adopting that because it was so much more useful for distinguishing between the two.

Thanks for calling us, Sam.

No problem. Thanks for answering my question.

All right. Rock on.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye.

I constantly mention that there are Facebook groups for everything.

Of course, there’s one called Erin and Erin are Different Names Facebook group.

And then there was a great discussion on the straight dope message boards.

And we’ll link to that for a lot more back and forth about whether or not and how and how wrong or right people may or may not be.

People get worked up about their own names, don’t they?

They do, Grant.

What’s the crazy thing about your name?

Did they get it right?

Did they get it wrong?

And why?

Call us, 877-929-9673.

Or tell us your story and email to words@waywordradio.org.