Kacpar

'1995 was 19 years ago!'

Nonsense, I will admit to it being no longer than 7 years ago.

op do the family have a polish connection? If not then it is a wierd choice of spelling. Love the name other than that though!

Seems such a shame to give it an unusual spelling if they are british or polish but staying here. Kind of throws a cloud over a cool name for the child - all the birthday cards, etc the kid will recieve with Caspar not Kacpar if people haven't seen his name written down, all the mispronounciations by people reading registers, having to keep correcting people, etc. why lumber him with it? This isn't some kind of igronance or nationalism, just common sense surely?

My 7yo knows Casper the friendly ghost.

Having done the nativity play every year throughout my schooling I never came across a Casper!

1995 was 19 years ago! although I admit it doesn't feel it. Today's toddlers surely aren't watching it or maybe they are. I would say Kacper is a current name and it is today's two year olds who may think it is the normal spelling

They never named the Wise men in our nativity plays, do they now?

who knows what will happen, I guess we'll find out if Kacper will become the norm or not in 20 years or so. You'll probably right, it will be some X factor equivalent Kacper in 2034 who will make it standard or it will just disappear and become obscure. I don't think Casper any spelling has ever been that popular maybe it will just fade out with the other similar names Elijah, Noah etc to come around again at the end of the century.

Why is it obviously not "cack-parr" by the way?

I have come across names which use similar sounds, similar spellings. It is not blindingly obvious until you are informed.

It is an unusual spelling of the name where we are. I work in a very multi cultural school but not come across this spelling of the name.

So yes, I think when many people come across the name written down they will pronounce it incorrectly initially. When they hear the child's name then people will assume a different spelling. Obviously when people are told they will then know and will, hopefully, remember each time.

However, when a white British family choose to use a less common spelling of a name they have to accept that people may not have come across it before and are very likely to say it incorrectly, or spell it incorrectly, until they are told differently. They have to accept that this will happen and not get cross when people make errors.

My own DD has a very normal spelling of her name, but it is not the most common spelling. Therefore she often has it spelled incorrectly when people don't know/remember - we accept that this may happen; we knew it was going to be a possibility.

There was a film made in 1995 called Casper the Friendly Ghost, sandberry, and with the undying popularity of the nativity play I think there is probably more exposure for Casper than for most biblical names!

I think Casper the friendly ghost is an older generation reference and with the decrease in familiarity with Biblical references I'm not sure you can rely on the three wise men either. Will be interesting to see how it will go.

I was surprised Kacper was the more common spelling though I know six of them I though UK wide it would be Casper obviously it is a more popular Polish name than English.

I think it is a nice name (in all variations)

Oh dear! I don't like the name Casper anyway, never mind Cack Par!

Some excellent points AllMimsy

It all depends on whether we continue to have a substantial number of people of Polish heritage living in the UK. If we do, yes, people will see more instances of children called Kacper (not Kacpar, which is the idiosyncratic spelling the OP's non-Polish friends chose) and those who live in areas with lots of Polish families will become familiar with the name and it will seem no odder than George or Siobhan or any other name that at one point was new to us. If in a few years one such child becomes famous, the wider UK population will also learn how to pronounce the name.

However, if the Polish economy picks up and most of our recent migrants go home, this is a lot less likely to happen.

In either eventuality, Casper is still likely to be the most widely recognised variant of the name in the English-speaking world because of (a) Casper the friendly ghost and (b) the three wise men.

Regardless of whether there are more Kacpars than Caspars this thread clearly illustrates that people will question the spelling. I don't think it is a generational thing but more to do with whether you live in a more ethnically diverse part of the country.

I have never come across A Kacpar but DDdid have a Caspar in her class at primary school. And I do wish people would stop looking down their noses at those who are unfamiliar with the pronunciation of Polish names.

there are more Kacper's born than Kasper/Casper/Caspar

Wow, really? (Genuine, not sarcastic.) Why are so many of the British people on this thread surprised by it, then?

It is all irrelevant, there are more Kacper's born than Kasper/Casper/Caspar, therefore while the older generation may struggle with it, kids will know Kacper and think Kasper is made up.

Kacper is now the standard UK (well English and Welsh) spelling of the name, therefore it is the parents of Casper, Kasper or Caspar or even worse Kaspar who have chosen a less common variant spelling and will be forced to explain themselves forever as everyone will in the future assume Kacper is the correct spelling.

I have a foreign spelling of an otherwise well know English name and I have to say I find it incredibly tiresome having to explain it to every single person I ever meet. Nobody has been rude about it, it is more a case of curiosity and the occasional lighthearted joke. Every single doctors appointment, interview, etc I have ever been to starts with 'Is this a typo?' or 'That's an interesting spelling' and I have to explain that it is foreign. It is a constant reminder that I don't really belong here and drives me up the wall to the point where I have now just started spelling it the English way. Both my children have English names although they are not yet UK citizens. We plan on staying here permanently and I don't want them to go though the same hassle. So yes, I do find it a bit strange that an English couple would purposefully choose a spelling like 'Kackpar' but perhaps they both have 'easy' names themselves and don't realise how annoying it can be to have a name that is hard to pronounce.

My guess koala is because they are trying to make the name sound as interesting as they possibly can. (In NLondon, Caspar/Kasper is becoming very popular!!)
There is nothing wrong with trying to be unique in itself, but as this thread has proven, when you have a spelling that is ambiguous, especially providing a slightly, rude, humorous connotation, then all you are doing as a parent is setting your child up for cack jokes. It certainly made me chuckle when I first saw it, maybe because it was so unfamiliar that I had no point of reference to polish language but it's really pretentious to me and a little unkind to do to your child!

They are pronounced the same but Kacpar is how the name is spelled in Polish, and Caspar/Casper is how it's spelled in English. Barring any ties to Poland, why would you choose the Polish spelling if you lived in Britain? It just makes life more difficult for the child.

I live in a very non multicultural area. The only foreign people I know that live around here work in the Chinese and Indian takeaways. The only people that tend to move here are the English. I doubt that many people round here would pronounce it anything other than cack par as we don't have any field of reference.

..and yet when they got it wrong it didn't sound rude, so wasn't an issue.
Nor was it an obscure spelling of a well known local name.

I am not missing the point - you are.
Obviously these names were not always familiar. They might be familiar to some people now (and I have only come across Ptolomy as a name in current use on MN, never in RL) but that was not always the case. Prior to the HP films, for example, many people did not know how to pronounce Hermione.

Exactly Bunbaker and nor do any of those names come with such an obvious and unfortunate mispronunciation and non of them has another well known local spelling that could easily have been used to avoid the problem.

We're not talking about a Polish kid with a Polish spelling here. We're talking about parents going out of their way to choose an unfamiliar and problematic spelling of a local name.

You are completely missing the point Katie.

With Kacpar I would think that unless they were told how to pronounce the name they would probably get it wrong first time. The names you suggest aren't phonetic but they are familiar.

I consider myself well educated but had to think twice about how to pronounce it.

Oh well, in that case he will be in good company with "Pee-tolomy", "Her-me-own", "Pen-ee-lope" and "Ex-ander" - popular names that do not conform to traditionally British ways of pronunciation and could potentially cause gales of laughter.