Pronouncing ‘Ilias’

I came across this podcast, in which someone referencing my site actually tried to pronounce my name (start at about 12:15 into the podcast). There are a few different pronunciations, but the one used in the podcast is definitely wrong.

My parents are from a part of northern Greece which was part of Macedonia. When the Greeks took over, they changed the names of the villages, and the people’s family names, to make them all sound more Greek. I’m not sure of this spelling, but the Macedonian version was ‘ilivi’, with all ‘i’s sounding like long ‘e’s. (eeleevee)

Whenever I visit my relatives in Greece, my last name is pronounced the way. (eeleeas)
“Ilias” is also a first name in Greek, which is probably why the Greek government chose that name as a replacement.

There are other pronunciations of similar names, of people from around that region. For instance, the NHL player Patrik Elias, who pronounces his name the same way, but with an ‘sh’ sound for the ‘s’, comes from the Czech Republic. (eeleeash)

A more common pronunciation is that like Willem Dafoe‘s character in the movie Platoon. (ee-lie-as)

Another way, which I also considered to be correct is shortening and emphasizing the beginning ‘I’ to sound like “ill”. (ill-eeas)

Any of the above would be considered correct, and I may pronounce it any one of those ways, depending on who I’m talking to; but Todd’s pronunciation was definitely wrong.

Incidentally, I used to pronounce ‘Mozilla’ incorrectly, until I saw Code Rush a few years ago. The correct pronunciation is “Moe-zilla”. (from Mosaic Killa)

I guess that’s life in plain text.