# Pronunciation of "St. John"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 11, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265 "2006-04-11T20:10:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/1 "2006-04-11T20:10:19Z")
I’m rereading _Jane Eyre_ , wherein there is a character whose surname is St. John. I recall some years ago in a British film or two it being pronounced something like “sin’ shan.”
1. Is that the proper pronunciation of this name? If so, why?
2. Is this just in England?
3. Is it the current pronunciation, or one used only in earlier times?
4. Is anybody today actually given that as a first name?
Why? 🙂
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/2 "2006-04-11T20:16:30Z")
I’d always heard it pronounced like "singein’ ". and I don’t have any idea why or where it comes from , but I always thought it would be a pretty cool name. Years later I heard about an althlete (volley ball player, surfer?)who spells his name(I think) Syngin or Cingyn. Hell, I don’t know. I still think It counds cool, if a little stage namey.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/3 "2006-04-11T20:22:04Z")
That would be Sinjin Smith, beach volleyball player, and former partner of Karch Kiraly.
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### Author:  [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/4 "2006-04-11T20:51:38Z")
I gather it was pronounced that way because the English like to do that. It’s like Worcestershire and Marylebone. I don’t know if anyone is named that now, but there were a couple of other St. names. In _Five children and It_, the baby’s real name is St. Maur, though how that is pronounced I haven’t a clue.
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### Author:  [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/5 "2006-04-11T20:58:19Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#):
>
> I’m rereading _Jane Eyre_ , wherein there is a character whose surname is St. John. I recall some years ago in a British film or two it being pronounced something like “sin’ shan.”
>
> 1. Is that the proper pronunciation of this name? If so, why?
>
> 2. Is this just in England?
>
> 3. Is it the current pronunciation, or one used only in earlier times?
>
> 4. Is anybody today actually given that as a first name?
> Why? 🙂
1/ It is the ‘proper’ pronunciation if a given name, otherwise as in the ordinary saints name as a surname.
2/ In the whole of the Uk and even now (according to Google) as an increasingly popular given name, respelt as sinjun or sinjon etc…
3/ Current and historic. If I saw it as a given name I would assume Sinjun as the pronunciation.
4/ It is usually given as an historic family surname as a second or third given name.
Google suggests that the athlete mentioned above is actually called St John as asecond given name but has adopted it as his main given name and respelled it.
The pronunciation is not that odd, given the English tendency to swallow 't’s and to make all vowels sound like uh. That gives Sainjun as a fairly obvious slurred pronunciation. It is thought that the Scottish surname Sinclair comes from a similar elision of St Clair.
Now take the surname Menzies that is often prnounced mingis and work with that for a bit!
NB. I have omitted all reference to Monty Python Luxury Yachts and Mangrove Throat Warblers, leaving this to someone sadder than I.
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### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/6 "2006-04-11T22:22:59Z")
> [@dangermom](#):
>
> In _Five children and It_, the baby’s real name is St. Maur, though how that is pronounced I haven’t a clue.
I’ve heard it pronounced \*see-more \* (like Seymour).
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### Author:  [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/7 "2006-04-11T23:03:31Z")
> [@dangermom](#):
>
> the baby’s real name is St. Maur, though how that is pronounced I haven’t a clue.
Knowing the British, probably “SinWorcestershire.” 😃
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/8 "2006-04-11T23:05:30Z")
A local told me that Sault Ste. Marie is pronounced “Soo Set Marie.” I’m still shaking my head over that one.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/9 "2006-04-11T23:10:30Z")
> [@Pjen](#):
>
> It is thought that the Scottish surname Sinclair comes from a similar elision of St Clair.
For the sake of familiar occurences, there’s the character of Jerry St Clair in _Phoenix Nights_ - which seems to be there solely to give him the nickname ‘the Saint’. (Acutally, now I think about it, I’m not sure how his surname was spelt when he got his name above the door…anyone got a DVD?)
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### Author:  [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/10 "2006-04-12T01:29:46Z")
🆒
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/11 "2006-04-12T06:13:14Z")
I seem to remember reading that a character on _Airwolf_ was named “St. John” (his first name, no less), and it was pronounced something like “sin jin.”
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### Author:  [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/12 "2006-04-12T06:13:42Z")
In the Roger Moore 007 flick “A View to a Kill” Bond goes by the pseudonym James St. John-Smith, which he pronounced “Sinjin Smythe”.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/13 "2006-04-12T06:20:47Z")
The example that comes to my musical mind is Brian Peter George St. John de la Salle Eno. (Can you believe I typed all that from memory? Was it accurate?) The “de la Salle” part sounds so French, maybe the St. John part next to it gets a French pronunciation, se~ zha~, nasalizations and all.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/14 "2006-04-12T06:51:14Z")
One more vote for the “sinjin” pronunciation. I first heard it from a high school English teacher when my class read Jane Eyre, and it caused a fair amount of confusion.
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### Author:  [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/15 "2006-04-12T07:51:57Z")
What about
Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw
😕
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/16 "2006-04-12T08:56:21Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> The example that comes to my musical mind is Brian Peter George St. John de la Salle Eno. (Can you believe I typed all that from memory? Was it accurate?) The “de la Salle” part sounds so French, maybe the St. John part next to it gets a French pronunciation, se~ zha~, nasalizations and all.
It’s not a French or pseudo-French pronunciation. It’s quite different from that, with a hard J sound. (See _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ for Rowan Atkinson’s hapless vicar struggling with the name)
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### Author:  [@Ea\_calendula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ea_calendula)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/17 "2006-04-12T13:35:54Z")
> [@The Gaspode](#):
>
> What about
> Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw
>
> 😕
In the film ‘Maurice’ this name was pronounced ‘Feestinhay’ (by an Oxford dean).
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/18 "2006-04-12T14:58:02Z")
> [@Lissa](#):
>
> A local told me that Sault Ste. Marie is pronounced “Soo Set Marie.” I’m still shaking my head over that one.
I assume the pronunciation is Anglicised from the French, which would be something like “Sew San Marie.”
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### Author:  [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/19 "2006-04-12T15:03:56Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#):
>
> It’s not a French or pseudo-French pronunciation. It’s quite different from that, with a hard J sound. (See _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ for Rowan Atkinson’s hapless vicar struggling with the name)
But I think it’s at least influenced by French pronounciations, as \*\*Johanna \*\*implies. The French “saint” is pronounced a little like “san,” with a short, nasal “n,” and is reminiscent of the “sin” part. And IMO, “jin” more closely matches the French “Jean” than the English/American “John.” Given England’s history and its roots of Norman, French-speaking rule, it’s at least likely to me that there’s a French influence in this pronounciation.
It’s an anecdote, but I’ll the Brits I’ve heard that have spoken any French at all tend to have an excellent grasp of the French accent (probably due to proximity), far better than the Americans I’ve attended classes with. Take that for what it’s worth.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-st-john/352265/20 "2006-04-12T15:09:31Z")
When I visited Alnwich Castle I was surprised to find out that it is “Anock” Castle not my tongue-twister pronunciation.
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