I've been watching some of the reaction and video reviews of the new Tomb Raider and have come to the realisation that people still... TO THIS DAY... pronounce "Lara" wrong. And these are people in the video games business, y'know, the one group that should know better!

Just for clarification, it is pronounced LAR-RA... not LA-RA or LAW-RA.

I'm not really sure why this bothered me so much, but I couldn't believe that notable members of the industry were pronouncing one of the most iconic names in video game history wrong. I mean, come on, the character's been around for 17 years now.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to hear an argument from someone who does pronounce it differently.

I thought it was pronounced la-RAH.

I've always pronounced it with a long A, but not like Laura.

Intro cinematic from Tomb Raider 1

Right before 1:10 they say "Lar-ra" so I guess that settles it.

YouTube Link that isn't embedding correctly

I have always pronounced it like it is pronounced in that video.

I know what you mean. I get a bit of an eye twitch every time someone calls it Ninja GAY-den instead of GUY-den.

Jeeeez people iz stooopid, they don't pronounce videgoame heros right! FAIL!

The Rev 3 review drove me bananas, switches between Laura and Lara to Lowra. What's ironic is the reviewers name is Tara, its like her name with an L instead of a T.

I was gonna post agreeing with you but then I started pronouncing the name and you can easily pronounce it in 3-4 different ways. It's not as simple as I thought, those A's in there are tricky as fuck. You can make several A sounds man! Not to mention that you put a double R in your pronunciation even though there's one R in the name, whassap wit dat?

lolwut.

Laura Croft is to Lara Croft as Wario is to Mario.

She'll always be Laura Croft... in my heart.

After 16 some odd years of Americans saying "Laura Croft" nobody is going to change. Its over folks - the Eidos can say it, spell it, enunciation it all they want - she is now called 'Laura' in the US and that won't change.

@officegamer: Yes, you're right. You can pronounce it in multiple ways, but in this particular characters case... there's only one correct pronunciation. Secondly, as someone mentioned earlier on, you wouldn't pronounce "Tara" any other way, so why would you with "Lara"?

I dunno, I've heard some gangly scouzers pronounce Tara as Taaa-ra. But then scouzers pronounce everything wrong anywhoo.

Hey! Here in Merica its LAR-RA! You want to pronounce it LAW-RA You move to one of those pinko counties over there in Europe!

Larry Craft.

Man, English pronunciation makes no sense. Why can't you be like Japan and make her name easier to pronounce?

God, I hope people understand the irony in this post.

Then they should have called her Larra instead of Lara

@video_game_king: Hehe, "Ti-dus" or "Tee-dus"?

@penguindust:

That's not the irony.

It is pronounced LAW-RUH.

I assume this is sarcasm, cause the only people I hear pronounce it wrong are 'Mericans, not Pinkos, whatever the fuck that means.

I like how everyone is trying to spell out how it's pronounced like people can pick up on your accent from your typing.

ITS PRONOUNCED RARACHAN RITE?

@jams:

Yea, pretty much.

Lara Croft - the to/too/two, it's/its, you're/your, their/they're/there of the gaming world.

You don't need an accent to be able to read a word spelled phonetically. Phonetically it's read as LAW-RUH.

Yes, sarcasm. Pinko's are communists.....You never heard the term pinko?

You know, if she were a real person I would be with those that are saying that the name can only be pronounced one way. But she's not so I can't care.

@liquidprince: phonetically it's ['lɑɹɑ].

Lara isn't a common name. Laura, however, is and I'm much more comfortable with using it.

I haven't a fucking clue how to get a pronunciation from any of the text you guys are posting.

I pronounce it like the first two letters in LAMP followed by the first two letters in RAMP, with emphasis on the first syllable, obviously.

People seriously get this wrong? It's lah-ra.

Never heard of this mispronunciation before. Why would people say Laura? It's spelt Lara.

Lara, short for Laura. Holy fuck!

I never broke the Lawr! I am the Lawr!

You're inadvertently becoming one of my favorite forum posters because of posts like these.

In high school I knew two girls named Tara, only one pronounced it tare-ah, and the other tar-ah.

Oh, another good story. A friend of mine was staying in Germany, and she went to a concert where some children's choir sang "You say tomato, I say tomato" in English, only they pronounced tomato the same way both times.

Which leads me to this:

I thought her name was Albert?

They should have named her Lala

It's pronounced however the fuck I want to pronounce it. Her name is Angelina Jolie anyway.

Because it's a British game and they apparently changed it from Laura so Americans would have a better chance of pronouncing it.

I don't think that's how you spell sugar boobs. SEXISM!

Oh man. If kids these days don't even know what Pinko means, why did we even bother fighting the cold war...

@markwahlberg said:

The no-good pinko commies have finally won.

That's how I say it. You pronounce it like Laura even if its spelled "Lara". If people had initially intended to make it sound like "Sarah" except with an L at the beginning they should have spelled it "Larra" to emphasize the "ah" and "raa" sounds.

It seem like everything is coming out on March 5th.

Lefty croft