HOW do you pronounce “Layton”? Is there a proper way?
Perhaps no other area city, besides Hooper in Weber County, has such a distinct variety in its pronunciation.
A query in the past by Bryce Mcneely on the group Facebook page of “You Know You’re from Layton, Utah If …”
generated more than four dozen responses.
Mcneely, who is from Layton, noted that he’s heard it pronounced either "Lay-in” or "Lay-ton."
-Here’s a sampling of some of the opinions posted on the Layton pronunciation matter through Facebook:
• Cindy Mckinlay: “LayTon!”
• Peggy Smith: “Lay-ton always has been always will be!”
• Ken Berg: “Laytn.”
• Lynn Wiggill: “I no longer do job interviews, but if I did, and someone came into my office, and said they were
from Lay un, .... well, you lose.”
• Brittni Ann Gibson: “I was born here. Everyone says Lay-in but I always pronounce my T's. I paid attention
learning English.”
• Meggie Pettry Bino Guerrero: “It’s called an accent, not mispronunciation. Like I said, you wouldn't tell
someone from New York that they are saying things wrong because they have an accent …”
• Michael Stewart: “People who are from there pronounce it Layt'n.”
• Jim Phillips: “There's actually a term for a dropped 'T' in the middle if a word. It's called a ‘glottal stop’.
Simulate to how you hear British people pronounce ‘bottle’ as ‘bah-uhl’".
• Susan Lowry Bever: “I've always pronounced it Lay-ton. But the t is a soft t. And I grew up there.”
• Debbie Pennock Calton: “It’s a dialect thing, dropping the ‘T’ or pronouncing it softly, just like any other accent.
Embrace it!”
• Stacy Bowser Clark: “I like how everyone is claiming to say the t, but if you are not thinking u just say Late un.
I have never pronounced the t and proud of it. Get over the grammar lessons, we are not perfect.”
• Sherrie Tuckett Waite: “It's Lay-un!”
• Teresa Johnson: “Lay-in.”
• Gina Chandler: “Lay-in! I always told my daughter she was a valley girl! My heart melts whenever I hear it! The
correct way ‘Lay-in’”
• Karma R. Spalding: “If you were raised here, it is Layun. If you moved in, it's Layton.”
• Robert Spencer: “It’s also pronounced..."Layt'n Lancers. 2015 state 5-A bazk't ball champs! Game over.”
• Eileen Tucker: “(Bill) Cosby (said) Late-in.”
• Sheena Stott: “It really is difficult to spell it how it's said so
often. (Leigh t in) soft t, like others said. Same thing with
(moun nt in) mountain -soft t.”
• Peggy Smith said she looked it up on line dictionary and it
says Layt-n. I guess each to their own. I will still say Lay-ton.
• Bill Sanders, Director of the Heritage Museum of Layton, also
weighed in on the pronunciation subject: “Growing up in the
area, it was always Lay-tin to us,” he noted.
-In Layton City’s case, it was named after a pioneer settler,
Christopher Layton. Tom Day, Layton City Councilman, is a
descendant of Christopher Layton, He stated, “I'm not an expert but
many long time Laytonites tend to not pronounce the T as Lay'on.”
-Ancestry.com provides this information on the surname Layton:
“English: habitational name from any of various places so called, for example in Lancashire (near Blackpool) and in North Yorkshire. The former was named in Old English as ‘settlement by the watercourse’, from Old English lad ‘watercourse’ + tun ‘enclosure’, ‘settlement’; the latter as ‘leek enclosure’ or ‘herb garden’, from leac ‘leek’ + tun. Compare Leighton.”
This implies that “Lay-ton” is perhaps the name’s original
pronunciation.
-Eileen Tucker Cosby in the Facebook debate had stated: “Although we may pronounce the name of our little town in many different ways, I'd say that most of us are proud to be from there.”
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