Pronouncing Scandinavian names - pet peeve

I taught a little girl called Freya a few years ago whose mother was Norwegian and pronounced it in the same way as most English speakers.

I thought Saoirse was pronounced Sur-shuh.

OP you can't tell someone how their child's name is pronounced. You might be pronouncing it 'correctly' but it's the child's name, so how the parents pronounce it is the 'correct' way for that child. Otherwise you're just being rude.

The point that OP is making, which lots of people seem to have epically missed… is if a name originates from a specific language then when a native speaker pronounces it in accordance with their native tongue then being told off is fairly rude. Which it is.

No one is arguing that there aren’t anglicised versions of a names or that it isn’t right to pronounce someone’s name according to their preferred pronunciation, just that don’t get shitty if you choose a name from another language and get weird about it when a native speaker pronounces it in accordance with the language from which it originated.

My name is Rhian, I pronounce it the Welsh way when speaking with Welsh speakers and the English way when speaking with non-Welsh speakers.

I’ll tell you what my name isn’t, it isn’t ever pronounced Ree-Anne. In year eight at school my geography teacher said to me: “It is Ree-Anne though isn’t it? I’m sure I have heard it said that way before.” Well maybe you did but don’t tell me how to pronounce my own name in English, which I am doing for your benefit because you are English and can’t wrap your tongue around the Welsh.

how would you pronounce it?

@LongIslander , it's Siân. If anyone wants to call their child Sian pronounced Sy-anne, then that's ok as long as they don't say it's Welsh.
I think Sian is an Indian surname.

Surr-a-ka and Sor-ka are completely wrong to my ear.

Lol

Oscar is an Irish name pronounced, wait for it, Oscar

Firstly not everyone in Scandinavia uses a single pronounciation for Scandinavian names. Secondly, some 'scandinavian' names have been used for centuries in Scotland. So how do you think we should say them? For example Magnus is pronounced differently in Scottish, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish. All have been using the name since the tenth century but it's a word with Latin roots. So what is the 'correct' pronounciation?

Lots of names are pronounced differently in different countries. My SIL (English is her second language) says my name differently to how I say it, neither of us is 'wrong'. Sometimes names change spellings as well as pronounciation.(Freya/Freja, Rachel/Raquel, Sophia/Sofia).

If someone tells you their name you say it how they ask you to say it to the best of your abilities, don't change the spelling or pronounciation.

My son has a Scandinavian name. We know how to say it in Norwegian as his grandfather is Norwegian. It sounds slightly different in Danish and Icelandic. I wouldn’t dream of being upset or offended if a Scandinavian pronounced it as it is said in their country (I’d be fascinated), but neither do I accept that the name is being “mispronounced” when we use it in English. FIL doesn’t care that we say it in an English/Scottish way. His own daughter is called Kirsten and he doesn’t call her “Shashten” unless talking about her in Norwegian to Norwegian relatives.

If you think about it, pronunciation of English names by native speakers tends to align with the speaker’s accent anyway due to the huge regional variations in the UK - for example if I (Scottish) meet a girl called Lara I’m going to say it with two short “a” vowels, whereas her English mother will lengthen the first one much more. They’d think I was taking the piss if I tried to sound English when saying it!

I think it's safe to say that horse has firmly bolted. Especially when there are lots of Irish Caitlins who pronounce it as kate-lynn.

Surely the correct way to pronounce a name is the way the person who's name it is does so. It might not be the original pronunciation, but that's how they say their name.

Mispronunciation is mispronunciation. There is no 'English'way' of pronouncing Caitlín, for instance. It's a mispronunciation that's arrived back via Irish America and the diaspora.

For how long should it be categorised as mispronunciation then? Should we be applying this rule to all names which have ever been imported into English from other languages (French, Italian, Spanish) over the past centuries?

I never knew Freya was a Scandinavian name.
Learn something new every day I suppose 🙂

at least both those pronunciations are in the correct ballpark.

sore-sha isn't even in the vicinity of the ball park

To be fair, every time I hear Sorcha pronounced it seems to be said differently. I met one at the weekend, who was very much in the Surr-a-ka camp, but worked with one last year who was Sor-ka.

I think that you have a point, but hopefully that means you will also be magnanimous when I point out that if you are going to write in English, you should not take offence when a native speaker tells you that apostrophes are not used to create plurals…

Mispronunciation is mispronunciation. There is no 'English'way' of pronouncing Caitlín, for instance. It's a mispronunciation that's arrived back via Irish America and the diaspora. If you want to call your child a name that is said 'Kate Lynne', then call your child Kate Lynne, Kate-lyn etc. Similarly, if you want to call your child Sy-Anne, call her Sy-Anne, not Sian.

Reminds me of the time the English mother of a Sorcha corrected my (correct) pronunciation and said ‘oh it’s pronounced sore-sha. It’s Irish’.

I just smiled.

There are lots of nouns we use like country names, food, and peoples names that we don’t pronounce how they are in their country of origin and often it’s weird to suddenly add an accent to what you’re saying in order to say it ‘properly.’

Regardless, If someone tells me how to pronounce their name I just say it how they like because that is polite, and it’s rude to do otherwise once they’ve asked you.

No, but it varies. it's near Shishten in Norwegian, Kishten in Swedish. Keersten elswhere I think.
Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise.

Ultimately the way to say a name is the way the bearer of said name wants it to be said.
So fair enough if you pronounce it Scandi style but if the person who's called that name wants it pronounced differently then you'll have to accept that.

Yes, I'm thinking of names like Caitlin or Ciara. They are popular outside of Ireland. The later is pronunced like Sierra in the US.

Names have been adopted from one language into another since Adam was a boy. They often don't retain their exact original pronunciation, not least because some sounds may not exist in the other language. It's polite to call people the version of their name as they pronounce it (once you're aware of how they pronounce it).

Of course there is no reason to have a hissy fit if someone pronounces your name incorrectly. Neither is there any reason to gatekeep names which originated in your language or allow yourself to get cross about them being pronounced differently in other countries.

This is interesting. I heard that Kirsten is pronounced "Shashtin" in Scandinavia - is that right?

My son is Oscar. Is that pronounced the same as the "English" way?