To continue calling DD by the name I gave her

You are being deliberately obtuse.

Clearly you value your principles above having any kind of meaningful relationship with your daughter.

She will become frustrated with your inability to respect her wishes. Yes you named her, but it's her name, her choice - this is not the hill on which to die.

I would maybe reflect a bit more on the why you are so bothered by this. Is the Italian pronunciation seen as choosing sides/ having her father "win"? Particularly with the unreasonable behaviour he showed in the past.

I get that it's the name you picked and it was intended to be Isabella or Bella, but she is an adult, and could legally change her name completely if she so wished. It's her name.

I do sympathise though on the feeling you need to put on an accent to say it. On reading this thread all I can hear is Michael Sheen in the film New Moon, over pronouncing "Eee-sah-belllll-ahhhh"

Well it does but you have to go back rather a long way! Perhaps they learned their lesson after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Lots of young people are anti-colonist these days and Italy doesn't have that same colonist past as the UK.

My daughter is 17 and has gone by her middle name for the last 7 years. I was sad about it at first. But can't imagine calling her by anything else now. I managed to respect my daughter's sense of self, despite my own feelings. It's hard being a parent isn't it.

I really, really do not understand

Well, maybe your reading comprehension needs a little work. 😉

Ugh my mum still insists on calling me by the unshortened version of my name. Everyone else uses the short version which isn’t great tbh, they are both ugly 80s names but it’s better.
When my Mum uses my full name I find it triggering as fuck and a reminder that she doesn’t respect me as an adult or human being and still sees me as her property… she will use the name SHE chose.
Honestly OP just call dd by her chosen name

I agree.

I've had family members who changed their names when young and then went back, although in this case, it does seem that she just wants her name pronounced the way that sounds natural to her. It's a little odd insofar as many children of foreign parents accept that their mum or dad sounds different. And many people with a shortened name accept that their mum is the one person who will always call them by their full name! I agree that it could be a bit of backlash for leaving her at 16. Would have been better to have left it until she was 18 and had left school for a job, or gone to college.

Thank you for your fourth paragraph, which is the first sensible thing anyone's said to me since Zany started on me.

I'm trying to say that America has this image as a famously racist country. If that image is not in step with the reality anymore, then good! But I don't think the US BLM movement would agree. I've witnessed many more racist incidents in America. There is a vast difference in the quality of school buildings and facilities in Black-dominated and white-dominated neighbourhoods. These are merely my observations, and I could go on about the things I've seen and heard in America, but no one wants to hear how bad it is over here, so I'll be shutting up now.

These are only my observations, and it's interesting to me because it seems very different from home. I know there's racism in Britain, of course there is, it's bloody everywhere. But I was saying that it seems less obvious to me than in America. Just my observation. If Zany has as bad an experience of racism in Britain as many Black people have always had in America, and continue to have, then that is sickening and very, very disappointing.

My youngest was three when he decided he didn't like the shortened version of his name that we'd all been using since he was born. He insisted on his full name which we'd never used, and stopped responding to anything else so we had to respect him. You've had a good innings if you've gotten to 22. I'd suggest you respect her wishes too, or you might start seeing a lot less of her.

I really, really do not understand. I was trying to discuss the HUGE differences in culture when it comes to race in the US and UK, and as part of that, I pointed out that the US had slavery and segregation on its own soil in the modern era whereas Britain hasn't. Those are two massive differences, which to me are interesting because they form a good part of the reason that the US and the UK are so foreign to each other, even though they speak a common language. Observing those differences also helps me make sense of being an immigrant, which can be an extremely confusing experience.

For saying those two facts, Zany called me extremely ignorant and now you've called me a pedant and a racist for saying that one country had these things and the other did not. I think those differences are key to understanding each country.

I said that the OP's daughter was "in her twat era" for insulting her mother via her nationality. Someone else started baiting me by making out three times that I'd said daughter was a twat for her name insistence, which I certainly did not.

But yeah, I'm ignorant, racist, a pedant, a liar, and so, so awful, for reporting my observations and seeking to understand the differences between the US and UK, which are VAST, and as I said, the racism is easily the most disappointing thing about America.

But I don't feel that I'm dealing with reasonable people, so I'll take my pedantic, racist, lying, awful self off for dinner. 🤣

There is absolutely no point continuing, all anyone wants to do is fling insults, so that's that.

OP, sorry for the massive threadjack. We just went off on a tangent and down a rabbit hole. Apologies.

lol thanks for the lecture reiterating your posts, which I have already read.

I can see you are determined to twist what posters have actually said in order to avoid acknowledging the very obvious reality that if you are not Black, you do not know what a Black person’s experience of racism is.

Your perception of how things are or should be based on a particular historical narrative are not based on lived experience.

You think racism is worse in America because of the slave history, however because of that very history America also has a long-established and widespread Afro-American culture that may provide a sense of belonging for Black people and make the country feel less racist to them, vs the UK, which does not have a similar culture established to the same degree.

I am not speaking for Zany, just giving you a perspective on why your perception may be very different to a Black person’s.

If you are going to apologise for whitesplaining you should probably not then subsequently defend doing it.

See my.mother was the only person who called me by my full name Didn't bother me in the slightest

Mate, you were rude to several people way before you ever embarked on A Pedant's Guide to Racial History in the UK.

Plse imagine the gif is at the end of my message. I couldn't fix it.

As you will know if you post here, it's hardly unusual to get a post deleted.

PP said that I "had" my post deleted, which I took to mean that I had requested it to be deleted. When I realised they meant MN had done it, I posted that too. I'd have understood first time if someone had said that MN had deleted it.

Zany called me ignorant, "so, so awful" and a liar twice. (About my friends.) All because I wanted to share my observations. How can you call someone "so, so awful" on the basis of that? I don't care, but she wasn't an angel in that exchange either.

I'm still really puzzled as why why she called me extremely ignorant because I stated that the British public have never owned slaves in the British isles, like Americans did in their country, and we have never had legally sanctioned segregation in the British Isles (although Britain was obviously a big part of the slave trade). She was referring to those statements because she bolded them. As far as I know, on our island we have never been allowed to own slaves and we have never had separate schools, cinemas, toilets etc. for Black and white people.

I'd have been interested to know what she meant, and also VERY interested to know the differences between what the US and UK were like for her, but she was too busy being awful to me to engage.

I saw what I saw in both countries. I was reporting, not saying that m observations are all Black people's experiences.

But Zany doesn't want to share, so we'll just go on not understanding each other.

YABU - and completely ridiculous! Address her as she has requested.

Blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter. Your daughter has a name - not the one you assigned her - but that's what she wants and that's really the end of it.

No need for rudeness

@ChicLilacSeal

Also funny coming from someone who has been repeatedly rude to the point of deletion. Deflecting much from admitting it was awful to suggest someone is a liar just because they don’t agree with you?

That's so interesting! Definitely stronger than DS or I have had it; his is more focused on things like getting visually wrapped up in the colour or texture of something he might read about, or something that's mentioned. So maybe a bit different! Definitely wouldn't fancy it driving down the motorway! Really fascinating how brains work. I had one ex who claimed to have an eidetic memory, but I'm not certain how true that was or if it was just a wee bit of a brag. I don't remember him saying anything like this, so perhaps he was telling porkies (which I wouldn't put past him!!).

no. It vanished when i was under 10. Its part of the reason why it has never been proven or much researched. Mostly it happens with children, often they never mention it to anyone because they assume it to be normal. It fades as they grow up and it may never be recalled unless in adulthood, the person reads about being an eidetiker and they recognise themselves. In my case its just as well that it did fade as my control was imperfect and images came unbidden....which would be dodgy when driving!

Ah! Apologies, I thought you were just having a giggle as I wasn't 100% clear in my own definition. My reply was supposed to be tongue in cheek!

I think my DS has some level of this; I kind of do but I always just put it down to having an over active imagination. Definitely don't have it strongly now though, I seemed to lean more into maladaptive daydreaming (which is a whole other level of fascinating weirdness! 😂), and it eased off. Do you still have it now?

No need to cry with laughter; I wanted to do the poetry class but it was full.

I think that 32 years on one continent and 18 years on another gives me some useful perspectives that most people don't have, but close-minded people don't want to hear about it, so fine. Just scroll on. No need for rudeness.

it seem that the definition of eidetic memory has changed. As a child I was an eidetiker (old definition). I could see images in front of my eyes, sometimes so strongly that they would interfere with seeing the real world....its why I noticed your post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory#:~:text=%22Eidetikers%22%2C%20as%20those%20who,rather%20than%20in%20the%20mind.

I would call her Isa (ee-sa) to her face and in cards/texts/calls etc.

She can't stop you talking about your daughter Isabella to colleagues/friends or thinking of her as Isabella in your own mind.

22 is still young and she may feel more in touch with her British roots as she gets older - especially if she comes to visit you at all. It did jump out at me that her "good dad" wouldn't let you visit here with her so she may not identify much with the UK if she has few memories of being here. Which is a long winded way of asking if you are sure your feelings are about her name and not on some level about how her dad has treated you and her subsequent rejection of part of her heritage?