Pronouncing Scandinavian names - pet peeve

Actually Guillermo on reflection, I think Guillaume is the French version 🙊

haha, I love it! Yeah same in Spain - Guillaume and Carlos but always just plain old Harry.

So there are people in Sweden who pronounce it Ahstreed? I’ve never heard that. Ursula is a good example of different pronunciations actually as it would be Err-su-la in English and U-shuh-la in Swedish.

And agree that uh and ah can sound different but I haven’t heard English people say Frey-uh, the people i know say Frey-ah. All very interesting.

Haha I thought it was just Icelanders who did this. Good to know the Spaniards are in on it too.

They call him Vilhjálmur prins here. And the rest of them: Karl, Kamilla, Katrín, Georg, Karlotta, Lúðvík etc. Strangely they don't seem to have worked out that Harry should be Henrik according to the 'system'.

They usually confine themselves to royalty these days but back in the 80s they would call Michael Jackson Mikjáll Jakobsson and talk about Páll McCartney and Jón Lennon.

I find it hilarious.

It also used to be impossible to become a naturalised Icelandic citizen unless you changed your legal name to an Icelandic name! Not any more, though.

Please can you explain how “current best practice in Latin pronunciation” requires the g and the n to be transposed?

We don’t know how the Romans spoke, do we? I recall at school being told that we should say “servus” as “serwoos” but not sure how that conclusion was reached.

As mother of a child called Magnus I’d like to understand this. Thanks.

Also, as my username suggests, Magnus Magnusson was not the fabled quizmaster’s real Icelandic name as it did not follow the Icelandic patronymic tradition. His Dad was called Sigurstein Magnusson (ie MM’s Grandad’s first name was Magnus) so his birth name was Magnus Sigursteinsson.

MM just took his Dad’s surname when the family moved to Scotland, as it was easier for them all to have the same name.

MM’s own sons were called Magnusson so the convention actually righted itself a generation later, but his daughter was Sally Magnusson when she should really have been Sally Magnusdottir!

@Feelsodrained , the saying s as sh is regional and you might not hear it everywhere. Ursula might be Urshula, Street might be said as Shtreet.
I don't like it at all.

With the 'ee' sound, I mean i like in a word like big or the e in Evie, not the i in a word like him, it, thin.
The uh and ah sound quite different to me. Think up and app.

Yes true in Latin but ask any Icelander or German if it should and you might get a different answer.

Anyway, one thing I found amusing in Spain was that when the gossip rags write about Prince William, they change his name to Guillaume. We don’t do that here unless the person also uses an anglicised form of their foreign name themselves. I also know someone called Claire who lived in Spain and people invariably called her Clara.

@Feelsodrained but that's just it, Magnus should have an "ng" sound - Mangnus - even if there's no N written before the G. It's a hard thing for us to get our heads around when we did Latin decades ago and cheerfully mangled the pronunciation (maybe the word "mangled" is a useful mnemonic here, lol).

I'm loving the revelation here that Astrid isn't pronounced the way it looks to an English speaker. Such a harsh, ugly name I always thought, but now it makes perfect sense!

Ah okay - id see the ah/uh as sounding more or less identical although I’d be more inclined to pronounce it with the ah.
With Astrid I don’t actually know any English people called that so I’ve never encountered Ashtrid being used. Was the Ahst-reed mean to be the Swedish one because I’ve never heard it said like that? Only ever as Ass-trid (short i) with slightly more emphasis on the first syllable. I’ve heard it said a lot as it’s my cousins name (Swedish).

i would probably go for the version they introduced themselves with and my instinct on reading those names would be to use the short a, so Tannya and Xannder. But if someone says they are Tahnya I’d definitely use that.

But he was Icelandic and that’s how you pronounce it there! And if you think about it the Swedish way is would be technically incorrect because it uses an ‘ng’ sound when there is none there.

@Feelsodrained , the way I hear it, something like:
UK: Fray-uh, Swedish: Frey-Ah
Ass-drid (or even Ashdrid), Ahst-reed (short ee)

The differences are fairly subtle but they're there.

Out of curiosity, If you were talking to someone British and they had a name with an a that could be either short or long in it, would you use their version, if it wasn't how you'd normally say it?

e.g. Xander (Zarnder/Zannder), Tanya (Tarnya/Tannya)

Magnus is indeed "Mang-nus", according to current best practice in Latin pronunciation. At school we would still say "Mag -nuss",.and I daresay this was the case long before the doubly-mispronounced Magnus Magnusson came along! (And spare a thought for Pompey, who somebody mentioned upthread: not only "standing in the shadow of a great name" but of one that would end up being badly pronounced as well. No idea how we are now supposed to pronounce his first name, Gnaeus!)

Yes, but everyone knows the Danish society is on the brink of collapse.

However it does send chills down my spine to say ASS tree id. 🤭

What a weird reaction. I've never heard anyone say 'Ass tree id'. They say 'Ass trid'. I presume the giggle is for the 'ass' bit. Would you react the same when pronouncing the English words 'ASSthmatic' or 'ASStronaut'?

Overall you just give the impression that you're mocking people for pronouncing names how they are normally pronounced in their language. It seems pretty childish and a bit ignorant to me.

In Danish they pronounce is Maun-noose

Puffinshop,
Thank you for your patience and the explanation - this is fascinating.

Explain the difference then (apart from the fact that a Swedish accent sounds different to an English one).

Freya - Frey-ya in both language although maybe slightly more emphasis on the first syllable in Swedish
Astrid - As-trid in both languages and no difference in emphasis.

And on that video she goes on to say Freya/Freja in the same way in English and Swedish, just obviously using a Swedish accent when saying it in “Swedish”. But it’s the same way of pronouncing it. And so is Astrid.

Whereas Sören is different. Not sure how people pronounce it in England - maybe Sorren whereas in Swedish it would be Sir-en.

And Liv in Swedish would be pronounced Leev rather than Liv. But since Liv is also a shortening of Olivia or Olive, it’s hardly said the “wrong” way here and Olivia is not a Scandinavian name but when it is used there it’s Oh-leev-i-a

They're not.

Astrid and Freya are pronounced the same in Swedish as in English though?

Yes but it would be spelled Kerstin