I’m writing a story, and I have a character named Arkady in it, and I just sort of realized, when telling someone about the story, that I have only read about people named Arkady before, and never heard the name said, so I don’t know what the correct way to say it is. Is it “Arka-dee”? “Ar-kay-dee”? Something else? Any doper help would be appreciated!
There’s a Russian programmer named Arkady on one of my projects, and everyone pronounces his name ar-kay-dee. I’ve never heard him correct anyone on that, so I’d guess that’s how it’s supposed to sound. (Although come to think of it, I’ve never heard anyone correct his pronunciation of anything in English … But then, that would pretty much stop down any conversation he was involved in, so it may just be an efficiency issue. 
)
The only way I’ve ever heard it pronounced is Ar-kay-dee, and the one Arkady I know doesn’t correct all of us who say it that way. He’s from Russia, but has grow up here and doesn’t speak with a noticeable accent, so I doubt that we’re mispronouncing it because we don’t understand how he says stuff.
As I mention often, I’m surrounded by Soviets. What I’ve heard agrees with what’s already been posted, ar-KAY-dee.
We always pronounced it “Ardy”, because it seemed to fit my clownish orange tabby a little more than the full version. He was named Arkady because I really wanted a Russian Blue but could only afford a pound cat, so I got a pound cat and gave him a good Russian name.
I think all the Arkadies (how the heck do you pluralize it in English, anyway?) mentioned so far are just trying to be polite and/or Americanized. All vowels in Russian are pronounced as long vowels, so it’s ArKAHdy.
My one datapoint is that I know an old-school Russian whose name is pronounced Ar-kah-dee. Ar-kay-dee isn’t even close to how he says it.
I agree with Eva Luna and SmackFu. My parents were from Ukraine (it shares a border with Russia), and they always pronounced it ArKAHdee. I’ve known a few other Slavs, including some Russians, and they’ve pronounced it the same way.
Another friend of a native Russian speaker, checking into report that he calls his friend Arkady “ArKAHdee”.
Ar-kah-dee eh?
Well it looks like I’ll have to go back and reread all my Martin Cruz Smith books and get it right this time 
That’s a short vowel. A long vowel would be the previously mentioned “ay”.
Considering that your cite defines Long Vowels the way the Q.E.D. and all of my grammar school teacher do, perhaps you’ve just had a brief brain-glich?
Cat vs. Kate – the “ay” sound in Kate takes a slightly longer time to pronounce hence “long vowel sound”. It also requires a bit more stress in the mouth. Likewise with other vowels (and yes I know this is a sentence fragment).
Cheers,
-DF
Stranger things have happened, but I shold clarify that with very limited exceptions, in Russian there is only one way to pronounce each letter – it’s a very phonetic language. (There is somewhat of a regional variation in the way the unstressed O is pronounced, but that’s another story.) I’m trying to dig up something that explains Russian phonetics more clearly, but so far it’s all nasty, technical linguistics journal articles. But here’s a bit on the development of Russian orthography:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Reforms_of_Russian_orthography
I’ll keep digging. But for your reference, the “A” used to spell Arkady in Russian looks just like the English A.
i’d go with ahrkahdee, kinda roll that r a bit.
vowels in russian don’t change within (or out) of words. an a is “ah” all the time.
You misunderstand me. I’m not saying that Russian vowels aren’t pronounced just one way for each one. I’m saying that you said they are pronounced as long vowels, when you meant to say they are prounounced as short ones. And from what I’ve heard of the language (one of the engineers at EWC was Russian) that is, indeed, the case.
Incidentally, that engineer’s name was Genady, which was pronounced Gen-AH-dee (hard G).
oooh, I like that. “Ahrkahdee.” you almost have to purr it all Russian and sexy-like. Yay Sounds like a vampire’s name, too, and since he is one, it fits.
Not to mention all those episodes of Joan of Ar-CAH-dia.
arkady checking in way late, it is pronounced ar kah dee. just imagine the second a with one of those accents above it, not sure which one fits, sorry, here’s a russian way of saying it(but in english you don’t roll your “R” like that cuz most of ya’ll can’t do it)… How to pronounce Arkady (Russian/Russia) - PronounceNames.com - YouTube