Baby Name Poll Results

Horrible, ugly name either way

I think it's quite sweet. I think of the charming old movie by that name starring Leslie Caron and Louis Jordan. I tend to go with the soft G.

"Jee-Jee"

^Actually, I guess a clearer way to describe how I pronounce it is like the letter G in English. "G.G."

I do not think you understand what a hard g is. A hard g is like the g in the words go, gorilla, grape. So (and I'll use "gh" to represent a hard g phonetically), I haven't heard of a Gigi pronounced as "ghee-ghee". Not saying it's impossible, but I haven't heard of that. The distinction you may be thinking of is the soft g [dʒ] as in giraffe, gibe, or j sounds like jingle. Gigi is often pronounced with a soft g, like "jee-jee," such as in American or Italian cultures. The vocal fricative [ʒ] or zh, is probably the other thing you're referring to. In French (as in the eponymous musical), Gigi is pronounced like zhee-zhee. We also have this sound in English, particularly the "s" in -sion words like illusion, delusion, elision, etc. But I have not heard of a distinction between a hard g and a soft g when it comes to the name Gigi because they are both essentially a soft g. The soft g in English is pronounced like a j as in giraffe, and the soft g in French is pronounced like zh as in gitane. I do not know of anyone who says Gigi like ghee-ghee.

We call my son Gigi (pronounced Ghee-Ghee). He's 17 now and been called that his whole life. It suits him very well :).