It’s Labor Day weekend and I’m feeling silly. This is what happens when I’m silly. I do polls about Princess Leia. I’ve always pronounced Leia ‘Lay-uh.’ It’s what she’s called by her smoochy-face brother. However, Grand Moff Tarkin calls her ‘Lee-uh’ in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Screw the Empire, right?
However, since I started the site, I’ve heard so many people pronounce it like Tarkin that I’m starting to think the Empire is taking over? So today, when no other news is breaking, I want to know how you pronounce it! Take our poll and let your voice be heard!
May the Force be with you!
Up until I was about 16 I pronounced it ‘Lee-ah’, but have since trained myself to pronounce it ‘Lay-uh’ more often, it took ages to retrain my brain, something to do with accents no doubt ’cause I’m Australian and a lot of us over here seem to pronounce her name ‘Lee-ah’ despite Luke’s repeated pronunciation of Lay-uh
FYI, in a 1977 interview on the Tonight Show, Mark Hamill pronounced it Lee-uh.
My name is Leia and because of the mispronouncing in A New Hope I was called “Lee-a” for years. When I was 10 years old I watched the other movies and did some research and desired to change try pronouncing of my name (it helped that we moved too.) to “Lay-a”
English grammar dictates “I before E except after C or as in weigh” since Leia is spelled ‘ei’ not ‘ie’ it is the exception. The pronouncing of weigh gives the eh sound as in Lay-a. If the name was Lee-a it would have been spelled in the Hebrew way Leah.
FYI, the i before e rule only applies to the English language as spoken on planet Earth. Princess Leia is from a distant planet that could have it’s own rules of grammar and spelling. Also, names can be spelled and pronounced however someone wants them to be. There are no rules when it comes to proper nouns.
Most British people (i.e. not ardent SW) pronounce it “Lee-a” as that’s how that name and all variants are pronounced in British English accents. 🙂
In the original movie when she was born, her mother was told she had a girl and her mother pronounce her name as Lee-uh. Can’t help that people don’t stick to script. It is a movie mistake. No one could remember the pronunciation so they pronounce it different than she was named.
In a 1977 Tonight Show interview, Mark Hamill pronounced it Lee-uh.
It’s pronounced lay-ah and she will even tell you that in The Empire Strikes Back when she meets Lando in the city in the clouds and he asks what her name is.
Or lay-uh from the poll above…
Only the empire guys like Tarkin call her Lee-uh…
Obi wan and any other English actors pronounce it Lei-uh.