Everyone pronounces our daughter's name wrong

All the Esmees I know don’t have accents over the letters and the name is pronounced Ez-me.

I’m in the Warwickshire area.

Sophia?

@BuddhaAtSea - it doesn't help. What's her name?

My DD has a very unusual name…in Britain. In Italy is just a normal name. She can shorten it to give her an English-ish name, but it’s always annoyed her when people mispronounce it so she’s always insisted nobody shortens her name to the English variant.
What she’s always done (and I didn’t teach her that) was to keep repeating the correct pronunciation, over and over. With a smile, but quite insistent: it’s xxxxxx.

She likes her name. She says it’s part of her identity, it helped that in Italy nobody has ever batted an eyelid when she introduced herself, so she’s just got on with it.
HTH

You're right, @isthismylifenow .

I am now thinking this was the whole point of the thread.

@mypafology as es -mee

I'm curious as to how else it should be pronounced. In French there would be an accute accent on the e, it's Esmay

you won’t offend anyone, just say the name. I think 1 is too old to change her name. You should keep using your pronounciation but without knowing the name it’s difficult to say what others will do - as in is it a different established pronounciation or is it subtle and it just sounds different due to a different accent.

Jaysus this is the most frustrating thread ever. Just tell us the name op or we can’t help

They're not pronouncing it wrong, they're pronouncing it differently. Give yourself an easy life and go with the obvious pronunciation in the UK.

I teach lots of girls called Esme, it's really very common, and is always Esmay.

It's difficult to say without you saying the name.

A Bethany in one area will be pronounced very different in another- Bethanaye Vs Befknee as one example. And if you "corrected" people, you'd sound like a twat.

Or Sara as Sahrah or Saira, where most people are aware of both alternatives.

Without the name, it's hard to help.

It is annoying to go through life correcting people, I think it is different whether people are just not reading a name, or are providing due to their own accent, though.

I would leave it as is and leave it to her when she is old enough to choose for herself it is now her name so when she is older go with her wishes

How is it pronounced then

How should it be pronounced?

My daughter is called Esme and I used to get irritated by her name occasionally being pronounced Esmay !
It was never a problem when she was a young child .
Still love her name and would never have considered changing it.

If it was unheard of a year ago and is now popular the likelihood is that it will continue to gain in popularity because that’s usually how names work.

You will have to stick with the pronunciation that you originally chose, but yes, it will be a lifetime of correcting it although hopefully only the once. Be prepared for people to try to explain to you or your child that this pronunciation is wrong though.

Is it Mia?

Confusion between Me-a and My-a?

I see this a lot at my children’s school.

Read it again mumsnet... She mentioned MIDDLE VOWEL - three syllable name 100%

It’s a long life to spend having to correct the majority of people’s pronunciation of your name. I can’t even bear having to spell my name all the time even when people do pronounce it correctly (and rarely ever mispronounce it)

I have a friend with a daughter with a European name that I have never come across in the UK. I cannot pronounce it correctly and the daughter finds it difficult and sometimes thinks I am teasing her. I hate it. I even asked for a nick name and they gave me pronunciation lessons instead. So now I just avoid saying her name!

I would leave it up to your daughter to decide whether she wants to have the frustration of correcting people’s pronunciation.

The Ez-me versus Ez-may debate…..

I have a cousin called Esme, pronounced Ez-me and she’s forever being called Ez-May. She now just introduces herself as Ez to prevent any mispronunciations as she’s so tired of correcting people.

Another name I learnt of recently that was in similar territory was the name Leah. I have always pronounced it Lee-a, whereas I’ve now learnt that other people pronounce it Lay-a. It wouldn’t even occur to me to pronounce it that way.

The thing is there are loads of names that can be pronounced differently.
Esme - Esmay or Esmee
Ayla - Ay-la or Eye-la
Clara - CL-ar-a or Claire-a
Xavier- Zay-vee-er or Ex-ay-vee-er
Saoirse- Sor-sha or Seer-sha

those are just the few I can immediately think of people I know.
Pronounce it how you like and expect to correct people a few times. Also tell us what the name is because there’s nothing more annoying than not saying

In my primary school we had a Caroline, Carolynn and a Caroleen all spelt Caroline.

you need to share the name