Opinions on Ivan (pronounced Ee-vahn)

It's pronounced I-van????

It isn't.

And rtft

I love your pronunciation - I'm a huge Ivan Lendl fan which helps - and have a great uncle Ivan pronounced that way (he is Russian).
However my immediate go-to pronunciation would be EYE-van just because I'm British I suppose.
But I would still use it if I was you. I know 3 Xaviers all pronounced differently and manage to remember which is which (most of the time!)
My friend is Spanish and has a son called Gabriel. She pronounces it Gabriellee and all his peers pronounce it Gay-briel (anglicised version) and his father/siblings pronounce it different ways depending on how they feel that day - it seems to work fine.
But I think people would try and pronounce it correctly once they heard you say it.

It's pronounced I-van????

I really like Ivan pronounced the way OP plans. The British pronunciation, not so much.

DTIsOnlyForNow no, its just unnecessary. International names are pronounced differently in each language. Its fine, nice even.

Why set yourself up to fight the world - pronounce the name your way, let the child use the pronunciation which fits the language they are speaking at the time, the way bilingual children do with every word they speak.

t if you are living in the UK, you have to decide if you want to burden your child with correcting the pronunciation or spelling of his name with every single person he meets for the rest of his life

How bloody depressing is this? Assimilate, don't be different, don't expect anyone to call you your name right...

(The only way to force people with a different mother tongue to use your pronunciation is to give your child a name specific to your language so they won't have preconceived notions of the correct pronunciation

Or, you know, you just tell them how to say it.

As for "sophistication test".. 🙄

It’s a nice name! I like it pronounced that way.

I'm actually flummoxed because I don't believe I have ever met anyone called Ivan who was eye-van. I would always check, but I would think it rare and unusual. Is it a regional name?

S00LA all those names will be pronounced differently in different European languages.

Every name is except ones specific to one language/ language family.

The only way to force people with a different mother tongue to use your pronunciation is to give your child a name specific to your language so they won't have preconceived notions of the correct pronunciation.

Roll with both possible pronunciations, just pick a name you like in both languages, pronounce it naturally and accept that others will pronounce it the way it's pronounced in their language, and there are no problems.

She does not have to correct anyone though, she's ok with both pronunciations!

As long as youre not going to ve precious about correcting people it works completely fine to use the pronunciation that goes with the speaker's mother tongue.

My children have this and its a total non issue.

Their names are pronounced differently in each of their languages, like every other word.

The end.

Use it as a middle name ( unless you are going to have a patronymic ) and use a first name that’s more likely to be correctly pronounced here.

What about Antoni , Aleksander , Daniel , Andrei ( sorry not sure of your exact heritage ) .

One issues is that English speakers expect the stress to be on the first syllable of names, whereas you expect it to be on the second.

So we say VLADimir and you say VladEEmir .
We say EYE van and you say eeVAN .

Having read all your posts, and living in a non English speaking country where I tried to choose international names before I realised that they are exactly the ones which get pronounced differently in different languages, I say call him Ivan.

You pronounce his name the way it's pronounced in your mother tongue.

You introduce him as that.

However you happily accept people pronouncing it in the way standard in the country you live in.

This causes no problems to a bilingual child.

My older two have international names and pronounce their own names differently depending upon which language they are speaking. They have done this as naturally as they've calked me Mummy and refered to me as meine Mama, since they were toddlers.

The only one of my children who's name gets pronounced the "English" way by everyone is the one who's name would be written completely differently and be a longer name if it wasn't the English version. Similar to calling a girl Mary in a country in which Mary is a foreign name and the biblical figure is Maria.

I'm so old. I immediately thought about Ivan Drago.

He will be called Eye-van by everyone.

I understand you want an eastern european name for him as you are from there, but if you are living in the UK, you have to decide if you want to burden your child with correcting the pronunciation or spelling of his name with every single person he meets for the rest of his life.

I am Irish. I desperately wanted the Irish name Aoibheann for my DD, but I knew since we live in the UK, she will hate correcting everyone, and being that kid in school that teachers always get the name wrong. She would have to spell it out or correct someone on every phone call to a restaurant, or electricity company, or a shop. We named her Grace.

Sometimes we need to think about whats easiest and best for our kids rather than we want as parents holding on to our culture.

That's not how it's pronounced. confused You can't just decide to change the pronunciation

The tennis player Ivan Lendl would beg to differ
People in England would need correcting but many are used to Ee-van as there's been many footballers with surnames starting with Ivan like Ivanovic (hope the spelling is right!)

@Fromthebirdsnest have you posted on the wrong thread?

I have a foreign name. People pronounce it wrongly, misspell it, call me an anglicised version or an entirely different name. Most of the time it isn’t deliberate or malicious, but it does get tedious. I gave my DC very English names that I also thought travelled well.

My sister has always been too shy to correct people who mangle her - also foreign - name, so she has had a lifetime of being called various things.

There is a lot of virtue signalling on this thread as well as a good quantity of Anglo-centric ignorance. I don’t even agree that it’s “a sophistication filter” as a PP said. That’s quite a snotty remark, really. People are either aware of a name and a culture or they aren’t. Nobody knows all the names and pronounciations out there. You can’t condemn someone because they don’t know how to pronounce Sergei, for example, only if they refuse to learn.

At the end of the day, it’s about balancing heritage, culture and ease. That’s a very personal decision.

Sophie is at the top of my name list I would have Lucy on there too but one of our very close friends have a Lucy, I love both of those Sophie is my favorite not as keen on phoebe but I think that’s because there are lots in my area still a lovely name though , I also have an Ellie so I thought I’d share that as an idea as we seem to have very similar taste in names .. X

I have a name that no one can prounounce I always have to explain it it's so anoying

If you don't realise or rather, if you can't be bothered to ask and get the pronunciation right, or assume that your English way is THE right way, then nuts to you and your small island mentality!

Have to say that I'm feeling more like this the more I read these threads.

It's reasonable that a native English speaker may never get right sounds that don't exist in English - which may be a factor to choosing certain names. BUT, we should all respect that names change between countries and cultures and they won't always be what is expected.

(I completely reserve the right to exclude silly made-up spellings for 'originality' from this argument.)

I like it. As he will have an Eastern European surname most people will say “Eevan”. There can’t be many primary schools in the U.K. that haven’t encountered the odd Ivan of continental extraction amongst pupils or parents in the last decade.

As a pp above i think it is also an indicator of sophistication.

If you don't realise or rather, if you can't be bothered to ask and get the pronunciation right, or assume that your English way is THE right way, then nuts to you and your small island mentality!

It's worth getting the rage when people can't even be bothered to pronounce people's names properly. It's a lack of respect for other cultures and backgrounds. Telling someone their pronunciations in their culture are incorrect is what gives me the rage.

Everyone can pronounce margarita pizza. But my Eastern European mil gets called Margaret all the time. It's not her name!!!!

(Now have Ting Tings stuck in my head)