View Message

I've heard Sonia and Sonya pronounced SAWN-ya in English, and I think that's correct, but Sonja isn't a name that I would use in English and pronounce SAWN-ya, because it's just not "natural" in English to pronounce a "j" like a "y", and I think it would be no blessing for the child wearing the name. I think it's alright and often nice to use a name from another language in, say, America, but then I would also pronounce the name *entirely* in the language of the respective country in most cases, and especially with single letters being pronounced differently in English, it's critical to me.
In German, Sonja is a very common name, but it's not pronounced SAWN-ya, but ZONN-yah, with a very short "o" and the "S" pronounced like a "Z".