Pronunciation of "Sarah", "Sara" and other names with the letter "a" before "r"

In Britain (or perhaps just Scotland) the names "Sara" and "Sarah" are pronounced different.

• Sara: Sah-rah ("a" as in "bat")
  
• Sarah: Se-rah ("a" as in "air")

In the US and Canada, Sarah and Sara are both pronounced like "Sarah".

In addition, there are other examples which are pronounced the same in North America (NA).

• Marry is pronounced like Mary and Merry ("a" as in "air")
• Harry like Hairy
• Barry like Berry
• Carry like Jim Carrey

Question: Is there truly no distinction between the two pronunciations of Sarah/Sara in NA?

How did English lose its open "a" sound when tied with an "r"?

Solution 1:

I think this question is a little bit confused. First of all, there is a phenomenon in some varieties of American English called the Mary-marry–merry merger, where all or some of the words Mary, marry, and merry are pronounced the same; that is, the vowels /e/, /æ/, and /ɛ/ are all merged before the sound /r/. In some varieties of American English, there is no merger, and all of the words merry, marry, and Mary are pronounced differently. In some other varieties, two of them are pronounced the same (which two depends on which variety). In other varieties, all three are merged and pronounced the same. There is a discussion of the merger and an associated map in The atlas of North American English, page 56.

As for the names spelled Sarah and Sara, as far as I know, in all dialects of American English, they are pronounced the same, regardless of whether Mary, marry, and merry are pronounced differently.

For reference, in my own speech, I pronounce them all the same (in the way that those who pronounce them differently say Mary), but I can produce the three-way distinction if necessary—usually only to demonstrate this phenomenon.

Solution 2:

My two cents: As an Australian English speaker, I pronounce 'Sara' as I pronounce 'Tara' -- 'S-ah-ra'/'T-ah-ra' and 'Sarah' as 'S-air-a'.

Solution 3:

As a native speaker of American English, I have no distinction between the pronunciations of Sara/Sarah (unless a particular Sara/Sarah requests a different pronunciation for her own name, of course).

The open "a" as in "bat" would be signaled by two "r"s—Sarra or Sarrah I would assume to be pronounced Sah-rah. I've never seen that, though.