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Not terribly helpful, maybe, but the original pronunciation in Greek would have been /mag da le 'ne/ (mahg-dah-lay-NAY)—the accent was on the last syllable. But that has little to do with the "correct" pronunciation in English. I've heard both your pronunciations, /'m&g d@ l@n/ and /'m&g d@ lin/, with a sprinkling of /m&g d@ 'li ni/s and /m&g d@ 'le ne/s.

But any time a proper name from a foreign language is modified in English, it's hard to defend any of the "wrong" choices as "The Right One". "Jehovah", "Archimedes", "Cicero", it's all kind of academic (heh, heh). I think either of your choices is fine.

(The pronunciation system I use above is an ASCII adaptation of the IPA that I first encountered in the late '80s; in it /a/ is "ah" as in "shot", /e/ is "ay" as in "neigh", /&/ is the short 'a' in "lag", /i/ is "ee" as in "peek" and /@/ is the schwa as in the second syllable of "lemon".)

When I'm not thinking about it I say "MAG-duh-luhn", schwas on the last two syllables. But I don't really notice if someone else says "MAG-duh-lean".

I'll second Glenn's /-lin/. Although I do know a woman who pronounces her name Mag-dah-lay-nah.

I would agree with the /lin/ pronunciation in general; if I didn't know otherwise, I would say it that way. But if the woman corrects you and says it's pronounced "mag-dee-LEE-nee", well, you have to respect that pronunciation, too. The grammar police have no jurisdiction over names.

On that point, the urban legend of "La-a", pronounced "la-DASH-a" (which my wife says is true -- she says of her friends actually had a girl by that name in her class; I still doubt it), should be respected. But for cold pronunciations, I would have said "La-AH" -- that just makes my guess wrong; it doesn't make the actual name wrong. Kids face enough hardships without our correcting their given names, however misinformed we feel they might be.

tunawrites said:

I would agree with the /lin/ pronunciation in general; if I didn't know otherwise, I would say it that way. But if the woman corrects you and says it's pronounced "mag-dee-LEE-nee", well, you have to respect that pronunciation, too. The grammar police have no jurisdiction over names.

On that point, the urban legend of "La-a", pronounced "la-DASH-a" (which my wife says is true — she says of her friends actually had a girl by that name in her class; I still doubt it), should be respected. But for cold pronunciations, I would have said "La-AH" — that just makes my guess wrong; it doesn't make the actual name wrong. Kids face enough hardships without our correcting their given names, however misinformed we feel they might be.

Well said. I agree entirely that with personal names the people who own them get to declare the pronunciation. However, I don't let that intimidate me when I need to make a best guess. As for place names I feel a little more freedom to take liberties (e.g. modify Paris from /pari/ to /pærɪs/) but I tend to give preference to the local pronunciation.

I will often joke with people who ask me to guess at the pronunciation of a person's name from the spelling, and say that my given name is Glenn, spelled J-O-H-N. I know families whose individual members pronounce the family name entirely differently. In these cases, often one member favors the pronunciation closer to the language of origin, while another adopts the spelled pronunciation in English. For example, I understand that the actor Steve Buscemi pronounces his last name like bus-SEM-mee; I would have guessed boo-SHEM-mee.

And my wife's father and uncles, having come to the USA on different voyages, all pronounce the family name the same, but have three different legal spellings of it.

Glenn said:

I will often joke with people who ask me to guess at the pronunciation of a person's name from the spelling, and say that my given name is Glenn, spelled J-O-H-N.

Reminds me of this Brian Regan clip. "I'm Brian, B-R-I-V-O-L-B-N-7-Q!"

Bob Bridges said:

tunawrites said:

....if the woman corrects you and says it's pronounced "mag-dee-LEE-nee", well, you have to respect that pronunciation, too. The grammar police have no jurisdiction over names.

Oh, if we're talking about the name of a person standing right in front of me then yeah, I can ask her how it's pronounced and her word is authoritative; I'll pronounce it "Smith" if that's what she wants. We're talking about names of the ancients, where only a few authorities can be very sure of the proper pronunciation of "Nebuchadnezzar", and maybe even they're guessing.

Right... That's the case here: I'm wondering how the name of the Biblical figure Mary Magdalene has traditionally been pronounced in English. Granted there are a variety of current pronunciations/spellings -- many by folks who wear the name themselves. But the Biblical spelling is -lene. And I'm wondering if there is an English pronunciation that is more widely used or stretches furthest back?

Thanks for all the great feedback thus far!