The girl's name 'Adah'...

[Anonymous]

My DD is Ada. We are Jewish and gave her a different Hebrew name. We chose the English not the Hebrew spelling and pronounciation because we didn't like the implications of the name in Hebrew. The dipthong in "ada" and "jane" is unpronounceable in Hebrew, which only has pure vowels, hence Adah = "ah dah." Also the two vowel sounds which are both given "a"s come from different hebrew letters, which maybe native speakers can make sound separate, but I'm not a native speaker so I can't hear the difference.

People mishear "ada" as "ava" constantly, but it's pretty easy to avoid by enunciating the D more strongly when you say it. Not one person has been confused about how to spell it or how to pronounce it when seeing it written. She is too young for schoolyard taunts but we are not worried.