No one can pronounce my baby's name!

My next friends name is Julie. for some weird reason lots of people always call her Julia. No idea why

Carys, Cadi and Seren type names should be easy enough for teachers.

I remember at school that surnames tended to catch teachers out.
The McSomethings or Roberts/Robson/Robinson/Robertson type mistakes.
Also, there were many incidences of very similar names or duplicated names, and that caused problems.

She'll have to correct teachers at school all the time when they do the register. Especially at secondary school when they see about 6 different teachers a day and some will be student teachers and cover supervisors who won't know her name. I always felt sorry for the kids that had strangely spelt names that were easily mispronounced. Sorry but having worked in a school for 10 years, I made sure I named my kids with names that are recognisable.

@MikeUniformMike no, I admit I looked up the spelling because I didn’t know if it was an i or a y, but about 20 years ago we lived next door to a couple with two daughters called Bethan and Aderyn.

I had no idea it meant bird. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I’d heard Bethan as a name too .

@CoffeeRunner., did you get Aderyn from a name site? It's just the word for bird. It really is an odd suggestion for a name. A bit like calling your baby Flighty.

I have a two-syllable name. PIL cannot pronounce it properly, so use the derivative. The fact that they use the derivative doesn’t bother me as lots of other people do too (DH sometimes but not always). It’s the reason why they use the derivative that bothers me.

This all came about as they had said my name wrong for a few years, since DH and I got together. In the run up to us getting married, I told DH that my parents (when they were going to meet PIL for the first time) would think it was very odd if they heard them saying my name wrong, so could DH have a word. He did (I wasn’t there) and apparently got super embarrassed, said that my name was too hard to say so they’d use the derivative and they were sure I wouldn’t mind.

DSILs and now their partner and now their children (our nieces and nephews) now all use the derivative and it Really Bothers Me.

Aderyn?

I’m struggling to think of Welsh names that people commonly struggle to pronouce.

DD goes to school with a Bethan, Seren & Rhian and they all seem pretty easy to pronounce. There’s also several Cerys’ and Carys’ about. All very straightforward.

@dixiedo, with a non-welsh head on I'd say cad-ee as Cad Ee.. cf Jo-Dee and Jodie.

I knew a lady called Sophia, and it was pronounced So fy a, with the fy rhyming with fly. Gosh, did she have a difficult time reminding people that it isn't the other more usual pronunciation! My son, who has SEN, insisted it must be said So fee a. Lovely lady ended up correcting others and saying 'Im afraid', after putting people on the right track. Both pronunciations of the name are lovely, so worth the hassle, I guess.

Cadi is brilliant. The sound of the 'y' after the 'd' is softer than it would have been in Shirley, for instance, or Mandy. Which letter a vowel sound follows seems to affect the level of emphasis.

@MikeUniformMike to be honest I say caddy and cad-ee exactly the same. Let's just call it regional dialect...

[quote Bewilderbeastie]@MikeUniformMike hmm... Maybe a good example is something like 'Evelyn'.[/quote]
Ha, I hadn't read this far when I posted my bit.

I have a name folk get wrong, it’s selfish not to consider a name that folk may have trouble with.
Be wise use their middle name instead

Really don't change your name because people can't learn it. Some of these people you won't see again after a while. Keep the name. Keep telling people how to pronounce it. When it happens once your child is old enough to speak teach her to politely say it is Eve-Lyn not Ever-Lyn..

@dixiedo, Cadi is Caddy.
there's no n in Angharad, so Annie seems an odd nn. I like Annie/Anni though.

Is it the fact that English people (generalising here) can't get their tongue around the Welsh sounds?

I think OP baby may be Cadi
So in wales we would say cad-ee
Whereas others may pronounce Kay-Dee

Also I can't remember who said it doesn't happen but I know who said but I know a few Angharads that call themselves Annie.

Nia is Knee-ah (Nigh-a would need to be Naia)

I guess you just have to resign yourself to some people always getting it wrong (and continuing to do so, even when corrected). My DD is Kya, pronounced to rhyme with higher, but people still call her Kee-ya (it's not like Kia is unheard of, it's a car make!).

Ah well 🤷🏻‍♀️

Eyra isn't welsh. Eira is.
Cerys is Kerris. (Nerys is nice and is underused and pretty similar)

C is always pronounced as K. Ch is a separate letter.

I think Cariad sounds as if it could be pronounced different ways
Not so. Carr (like Carry without the y) followed by yad.
Carry-ad is a bizarre way of saying it.

I suppose it would be something similar to saying Sophia as Sophie-ah, or sweetheart as swee-the-art.

Names are funny things. I've no idea how to pronounce Cerys (ser-ees?) but Eyra is an obvious pronunciation to my mind.

I think Cariad sounds as if it could be pronounced different ways, and a native Welsh speaker would probably say it differently to me, for instance. It's a lovely name I think. I suppose sounding every letter does make for more sounds when inexperienced people try it.

Cariad is pretty awful as a name. It's the welsh word for Love, but it can also mean darling/sweetheart/charity/girlfriend/boyfriend.
I think MikeUniformMike is a pretty awful name choice! Even if it s forum one!

Angharad shortened to Annie compares to something like Amelia being shortened to Annie.