Tried all the tricks, can't get Siri to correctly pronounce my friend's name

[italianscallion33]

I have a friend named Gabi (let's say her last name is Smith). Gabi short for Gabrielle. When I tell Siri "Call Gabi Smith," Siri sometimes hears it as "Send a message to Debbie Smith" (I have an aunt Debbie with a different last name, but she still offers up Gabi's last name with it). Sometimes, she instead says "Did you mean Gabi Smith?" but pronounces my friend's name Gah-bee or sometimes Guy-bee. Never Gabby, like it should be pronounced. She has also said "I can't find that in your contacts. Did you mean one of these?" And offers up my friend Gabi and my aunt Debbie as options. I get excited and tap on my friend Gabi's contact, hoping Siri will learn the pronunciation now that she's gotten feedback from me, but nope! I try again and I get one of the three erroneous Siri results again.

I have tried all the tricks I can find online. I will say up front that I will not resort to mispronouncing my friend's name as Gah-bee or Guy-bee to Siri just so she'll recognize it. I also don't want to use Gabrielle. I never call her that. I've tried doing the latter for a while, but it was weird. I just want Siri to work correctly.

Anyway, here's what I've tried:

• Giving Gabi a phonetic first name in my contacts (I've tried Gabby, Gabbie, Gæ-bee, and Gae-bee). Siri still hears "Debbie."
• Giving my aunt Debbie a phonetic first name, Deh-bee. Siri still brings up Debbie when I say Gabi.
• Speaking ridiculously clearly. Siri still hears "Debbie."
• Tapping the name "Debbie," which sometimes shows up with the blue underline, to see what else Siri might've thought I meant. The only option it gives me is "Gabby." If I tap this option, Siri does not recognize it as a contact, even though Gabby is currently my phonetic name for Gabi. So I can't train her this way either.

It seems silly to me that there's not some sort of pronunciation lab where you can type a word or name that Siri doesn't recognize, then pronounce it for her so she'll recognize it later. As a side note, I find it amusing that she thinks I'm saying Debbie, because I'm from Michigan and us Midwesterners, especially ones from Michigan, get picked on by people from other regions because we over-enunciate our short vowels. So my short 'a' sounds NOTHING like my short 'e'.

Does anyone have any ideas of how I could get creative and solve this problem without calling my friend the wrong name or severing ties with my aunt?

 

[Pinkpoison]

if Gabrielle works then i would use that even though you think its weird,after all its only for the purpose of contacting your friend.

 

[italianscallion33]

The problem is I don't always think to say it, so then I have to cancel the query and start over, making Siri kind of a hassle instead of making it a quick way to send my friend a text while I'm driving. If Siri doesn't work the way I want her to, I might as well just open up the Messaging app, find my thread with Gabi, open it, and click the dictation button. Also extra steps, though.

 

[sqft]

Classic first world problem

 

[zphone]

Siri is isht! The sooner you realize that the happier you'll be.
I had to resort to adding my wife and mom to the aliases so I can use Siri to call them as 'call spouse' or 'call mom' which works. I hate that it could not learn from my address book and prioritize names I call the most.
Siri seems to only work for a small selection of names in my address book at all.