Another Southerner checking in.

Down here, marry, merry, and Mary all rhyme. And Kerry is a male, while Keri /Carrie is a female.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like Kerry and have only ever heard it used for a girl. I would pronounce Kerry and Carrie differently, so I wouldn't think of substituting one for the other.

How do you say them differently? They are the same .

Kerry rhymes with merry (men), while Carrie rhymes with marry (man). Its the difference between men and man.

If you're from the Midwest, these words ALL rhyme.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like Kerry and have only ever heard it used for a girl. I would pronounce Kerry and Carrie differently, so I wouldn't think of substituting one for the other.

How do you say them differently? They are the same .

Kerry rhymes with merry (men), while Carrie rhymes with marry (man). Its the difference between men and man.

I think this is an East Coast thing. I grew up on the West Coast and we don't differentiate between Kerry and Carrie. Both are pronounced like Kerry.

Nope, you pronounce them both like Carrie. Trust me on this.

No, you don't. Trust me on this (I'm a Kerri, which should be pronounced differently than Carrie).

OP do you want to use it for a boy or a girl? I think boy first, but it could go either way. Cary is my favorite boy name ever but my husband said no, unfortunately.

Kerry is cute.
To everyone hung up on the pronunciation, did you read the link a kind PP put at the start of this thread? Sure there is a differentiation in some parts of the country, but the tendency is towards no differentiation. So that doesn't matter. So many people strive for "no accent" anyway to sound more educated and more what newscasters sound like. Language evolves. OP if you like the way it is pronounced by the majority (Kerry/Carrie) then go for it.

To answer OP's question (like most of the PPs, I got sidetracked by the Kerry vs Carrie debate ), while I know Kerry is a unisex nane, my first instinct when hearing it is to think of a girl as it seems to be much more common for females than males, at least in the US. I, for instance, know/have known 5 females named Kerry (plus 3 females named Keri & 2 named Kerri) but only one male Kerry. The female Kerrys range in age from 25 to late 50s, the Keri/Kerris from late 2Os to early 40s,& the male Kerry is in his late 40s.

I don't think Kerry (or Keri/Kerri) is common among either girls or boys right now, however. Nowadays, a child named Kerry is probably more likely to share a name with his or her teacher than with a classmate!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For people who say them the same way: how do you say the word "carry"? Would you actually pronounce it the same as the word "Kerry"?

I say Kerry, Carrie, Keri, Kari, Cary, and carry all the same way: care-ee. I'm from the South.

Also pronounce Mary, merry, marry the same way: mare-ee

Not saying the way I pronounce it is correct and it makes sense that they should be pronounced differently but it's hard to overcome the pronunciations you learned as a kid so I'm pretty sure I'll always hear (and say) these words this way.

Agreed. I also pronounce pen and pin the same way. It's regional.

^sorry for the double post