Are Aaron and Erin homophonic?

[Dravin]

Erin – first syllable is stressed and sounds like the first syllable of “error”, second syllable is weaker but sounds like “opposite of out”.

Aaron – first syllable sounds like “air” (!), second syllable like heron.

See “err” (as in error) and “air” are homophones to me.

I would pronounce the following sentences the same:

To err is human.
To air is human.

The endings of all four words (baron, heron, Aaron, and Erin) are schwa + “n”. Not sure how consistently “in” endings converts to schwa + “n” though.

And the following words are homophones:

tot/taught
Mary/merry/marry
Don/dawn (though I can make a distinction if I want to)

And bother and father rhyme.

[Peremensoe]

@Fretful_Porpentine

In my native accent, they could be pronounced differently, but normally aren’t. In other words, I’d say “Aaa-ron,” with the same “a” as in “cat,” if I really wanted to emphasize the difference between the two names, but in everyday speech it would normally get slurred to “Er-on,” with the same “er” as in “merry.”

How about the second syllable?

[carnut]

Ear - in

Air - on (as in heron)

[Yookeroo]

@pancakes3

i have a question for those who claim they’re homophones. i understanding pronouncing it the same, but deep down, in the back of your head, don’t you have an inkling that “properly” they’re not supposed to sound the same?

No. But then I think Don & Dawn are homophones.

[Fretful_Porpentine]

@spark240

How about the second syllable?

Pretty standard schwa sound, like most vowels in unstressed syllables.

[Zsofia]

Sorry, southern US and all those words sound alike to me - Aaron, Erin, heron, baron, etc. My boyfriend is an Aaron and half the time people write down “Erin”. Andi t’s not that they think he’s a girl - he has a luxurious handlebar mustache.

[Chronos]

A couple of the grad students now have these names, and I tried at first to overenunciate the difference in pronunciation, but it just confused everyone. So now I do what everyone else does, and refer to them as “Boy Aaron” and “Girl Erin”.

[Jragon]

@CurtC

Let me try to clear things up. I’m completely accepting of different accents and pronunciations. My question about whether they went to school was a joke.

About the Aaron, Erin, baron, and heron thing - I was assuming that the difference was in the pronunciation of the second syllable - a schwa sound versus a short i. But after reading some of the comments, I’m wondering whether you might pronounce the first syllable differently instead. Is this true?

I pronounce the first syllable of Aaron and Erin differently, but it’s so minorly different you almost might not count it. I can’t even articulate it, I think the difference is /a/r-un vs /e/r-un, but I’m not entirely sure.

[BigT]

@Shiva

I think many folks involved in this thread are misusing the term ‘rhyme’.

From Merriam Webster
Main Entry: 2rhyme
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): rhymed; rhym·ing
Date: 14th century
transitive senses
1 : to relate or praise in rhyming verse
2 a : to put into rhyme b : to compose (verse) in rhyme c : to cause to rhyme : use as rhyme
intransitive senses
1 : to make rhymes; also : to compose rhyming verse
2 of a word or verse : to end in syllables that are rhymes
3 : to be in accord : HARMONIZE
(emphasis mine)
The point being that it’s the last syllables that must sound alike to make a rhyme. The first or preceeding syllables have nothing to do with it. Zanzibar and and car are examples of rhymes.

As for the OP, Erin and Aaron wouldn’t rhyme if you pronounce Erin’s last syllable as “in” and Aaron’s last syllable as “un” or “on”.

I don’t think that most North Americans are that stringent in their pronunciation though. I’m not.

That dictionary is wrong. It’s the last STRESSED syllable (plus any unstressed syllables that follow it). Amazing and grazing rhyme. Amazing and buzzing do not. (At least, in any dialect in which I am familiar).

As for the OP: I may pronounce -in and -on differently, but I’ve never thought of it as being phonemic. It may be a different sound, but I never noticed anyone actually treating them as different.

If I had to differentiate betwee Erin and Aaron, I would pronounce the first syllables differently. The first would be \er\ (\e\ as in air) and the second \ɛr\ (\ɛ\ as in egg). But even then it wouldn’t surprise me if people expected it to be the other way.

[Kyla]

@pancakes3

i have a question for those who claim they’re homophones. i understanding pronouncing it the same, but deep down, in the back of your head, don’t you have an inkling that “properly” they’re not supposed to sound the same?

No. My accent is just as proper as any other accent.

[Savannah]

@Captain_Amazing

I also rhyme “Erin”, “Aaron”, “baron” and “heron”

Came here to type the same thing. Also, sitting at one’s computer, saying the above aloud for a few repetitions has garnered a suspicious look from my husband.

[SanVito]

@Algernon

Erin, Aaron, heron, baron are all sound identical to me. As do Mary, marry, and merry. And father and bother.
n spite of that experience, Everton’s statement that “None of those words rhyme with any of the others where I come from. Nor do merry/marry/Mary, nor do bother/father. In fact I can’t see any rhymes in this thread” still is astonishing to me.

I presume Everton is British, as I agree with him. None of the examples sound alike to me.

Father/bother
Aaron/Erin/Baron/Heron
Marry/Mary/Merry
Dawn/Don
tot/taught

All different. Honestly people, Professor Higgins would be spinning in his grave!

[SanVito]

@Jragon

I pronounce the first syllable of Aaron and Erin differently, but it’s so minorly different you almost might not count it. I can’t even articulate it, I think the difference is /a/r-un vs /e/r-un, but I’m not entirely sure.

I pronounce both the first and second syllables of those two words differently. I could never confuse the two in speech.

This probably isn’t goig to translate in type, but I pronounce them as follows:
Aa (ron) = like ‘air’ (drawn out)
E(rin) = like 'Eh" (shorter)

(Aar)on = like ‘stand *on *the step’
(Er) in = like ‘get in the house’
(please tell me those examples sound different to you)

[Johanna]

@pancakes3

i have a question for those who claim they’re homophones. i understanding pronouncing it the same, but deep down, in the back of your head, don’t you have an inkling that “properly” they’re not supposed to sound the same?

Nope. Not a trace. Welcome to the Great Lakes. By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, by the shining big sea water.

Maybe all the water in those parts dissolved the distinctions between the 3 phonemes /æ/, /e/, /ɛ/. All are collapsed into just /ɛ/ before /r/. We are very rhotic up there too.

[EvilTOJ]

@KneadToKnow

I have to know … am I the only person who opened this thread having misread the title as “Are Aaron and Erin homophobic?” and wondering who Aaron and Erin were?

I thought the same thing. And you ‘have’ to know, or ‘need’ to know?

I never knew there was a difference in pronunciation. I’ve never heard the two names pronounced differently, or any of the other homophone examples given in the thread.

[MsRobyn]

@MsRobyn

Mom of an Aaron here.

When I was pregnant, we’d had the baby sexed at the ultrasound, and when we found out he was a boy, we chose to name him Aaron. When I told a friend about my pregnancy, and told her the name we’d picked, she said, “So, you’re having a girl?”

OTOH, Airman’s grandfather (from PA) pronounces it Ahron (with the broad “A”).

Robin

When I have to call Aaron’s pediatrician or insurance company, the people on the phone assume that I’m talking about a girl named Erin, and it’s been a challenge to prove that not only is he not an Erin, but he’s not an Eric. I guess people assume that boys can’t be named Aaron.

At least he’s aware of this confusion enough that he thinks his aunt and uncle should name their baby daughter Erin so they’re a matched set. He also thinks this is uproariously funny.

[Johanna]

@pancakes3

for example, i grew up in the south and have a bit of a drawl to my speech - so that drawer is pronounced like door with an ‘r’ after that d. however, i do KNOW that it’s supposed to sound liker draw-er, but i just can’t bring myself to say it as such. wondering if you midwesterners “know” just like i do but just aren’t bothering, or you really can’t hear the difference between aaron and erin, and mary/merry.

Likewise, I grew up saying drawer as [drɔːr]. A simple vowel with no diphthongization. When I learned to read, I read books so much that I became susceptible to spelling pronunciations. That’s when I could see the etymology of the word from the verb “to draw” meaning pull out. From this I was conscious the word ought to have a diphthong: /drɔər/. (Using the word “ought” ironically, because in reality there is no “ought.”) Like you, I felt that diphthong felt awkward to pronounce, so I’ve stuck with my native [drɔːr].

But as for the /ær/ ~ /er/ ~ /ɛr/ distinction, honestly I was surprised when I first learned of it. Nothing in my native accent could lead me to think they had ever been anything but total homophones. After all, in English orthography, one and the same phoneme may be written with any of a number of different spellings. Like bread, said, led. In the case of drawer, the transparent etymology clued me into the underlying pronunciation. But there are no such clues with unrelated words like marry, Mary, and merry. It’s something you either learn from hearing others doing it growing up, or else you don’t.

I’m a linguist; of course I can hear the three distinct vowels in Bostonian speech, perfectly well. I just don’t *say *them, even though I can mimic them perfectly well. Because it would feel odd and forced for me to talk that way. My native accent befits me comfortably in a way that other accents don’t.

[robby]

@robby

I have a sister named “Erin” and a step-brother named “Aaron.” (Our families merged upon my father’s remarriage.) It was a real source of confusion while growing up.

We took to calling them “Erin [middle name]” and “Aaron [middle name].”

While I did distinguish between the names, most people pronounced them the same (all from Texas).

My grandmother, on the other hand, took to calling my sister “Erin” (rhymes with “heron”), and my step-brother “Aay-ron” (first syllable rhymes with “hay”; second syllable rhymes with “con.”)

I started to reply to this thread, before noticing that I already had, nearly a decade ago.

I will add that that if I pronounce “Erin” very slowly with careful enunciation, the last syllable sounds like “in” (opposite of out). If I pronounce “Aaron” slowly, the last syllable rhymes with “run.” So in this case, there is a clear distinction between the two names, and I would say that “Aaron” rhymes with “heron,” and “Erin” does not.

However, at normal speaking speed, both names sound virtually identical, because the second syllable is “clipped.”

[BwanaBob]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Mary, marry, and merry are homophones to me and I’ve never understood how anyone could even attempt to pronounce them differently. Until reading this thread, and noticing the slightest difference in the vowel sound in Aaron and Erin, I thought the OP was bizarre. But in everyday life I wouldn’t distinguish them and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to do so. And baron and heron absolutely rhyme and I still can’t figure out what the difference is even theoretically.

Do you people live in fish bowls?

Seriously, I’ve heard these words (Mary, merry, marry) used numerous times on television over the years, with the distinct pronuciations you claim to find impossible to fathom. Do you not hear the difference when those who do speak these words? Or is it that you cannot bring yourself to use those pronunciations?

My daughter and nephew have the aforementioned names; the nephew’s family moved to Tennessee, and when we visit we go through this nonsense everytime.
My pronunciations:

Mary (mair-ee)
merry (meh-ree)
marry (mah-ree)

Aaron (ah-rin - like baron without the b - not air-in)
Erin (eh-rin; again the vowel in air is not to be heard in any of these names)

It seems that our midwestern countrymen cannot distinguish between eh and ah.
They are different. But this is as pointless as trying to explain the l-r difference to a Japanese person. If you grew up with this - without willful listening, you won’t get it.)

[Shadowfyre]

Chicagoan here. Maybe it’s because we like to draw our a’s out in Chicahhhhgo, but Arron and Erin are not homophones to me.

At least I don’t pronounce them the same. Like a bunch of you up thread, it is Air-on and Err-in. To me, it feels different in my mouth. Whether it sounds different to a listener, I don’t know.

As for Mary/marry/merry, Mary and marry are homophones to me but merry is slightly different.