Linguist here (who is also an amateur astronomer)... The names Perseus and Cepheus are originally Greek and rhymed with Zeus. After they were taken into Latin, in the Middle Ages they were reinterpreted as Per-se-us and Ce-phe-us because -e-us (with 2 syllables) is a common Latin suffix. So the people who prefer your 3rd answer are clinging to the Greek heritage while those of us who prefer the 2nd answer are more modern, so to speak. I use 3 syllables because that's how the names look in Latin; -eus with one syllable is a Greek ending, not a Latin one.
8 months ago
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People from different regions pronounce words differently. I like it that way.
8 months ago
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definitely see-fee-us, unless we’re talking about variable stars in which case it’s obviously a seff-ee-id variable :)
8 months ago
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In french, it's Céphée, and Persée. No problem with -eus or anything else 😄
8 months ago
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Oh man what a pickle. At first I'd have said SEE-fee-us, but then I remembered that Cepheids are pronounced SEF-eeds and not SEE-fee-ieds and now I don't know what to pick between the first two choices! In German it's just KEH-FOYS (Kepheus).
8 months ago (edited)
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Nebula Photos
How do you pronounce Cepheus?
8 months ago | [YT] | 61