Everyone is getting my baby's name wrong

I don’t want to derail with personal anecdotes but my kids have names uncommon South Asia but very common in the levant but we’re from South Asia, so does happen.

my point was rather the rhetoric and responding to a poster who said IF someone is from a cultural background they should change their child’s name if it’s too similar to a British name to make it easier for white brits

I read it as Amelia when I first saw it. But when my brain actually looks at the letters, I read it the proper way.

mila could also be said Mill-a so I don’t think that’ll help.

Yeah you can’t enforce anything, so that’s a weird comment.

but most people of sound mind can learn, and it’s a choice not to. My children are young and have made friends with a Sri lanken young girl with quite a long name, that is unusual for us, they’ve learned her name fine. I’m confident that people can learn and if they repeatedly mis pronounce a name, well then it’s a firm ‘you keep mispronouncing xyz, her name is pronounced xyz, please pronounce it the way it is intended’

I doubt there are many communities in the UK with no members or even people who are familiar with them other than one family. Obviously yes some groups have more representatives than others, but there's not going to be nobody. Its not even just about immediate area when the child is growing up, it's places they might move to, people they might work or study with as they grow older.

Emila is a name in its own right, that's true, but OP isnt pronouncing it in the Croatian way. So she's not going to get that community recognition even.

Which is not to say don't use it, but it isn't like giving one's child an ethnic or cultural minority name.

It’s not that deep, people can and should learn.
Some people can't. They will forget. You can't enforce it.
From experience, all sorts of names get mixed up and for various reasons.

It is unusual everywhere, not just in the UK.

Me too, like Emily but with an ‘a’

not always, you might have to travel to another country to get that community of people, for instance my child’s name is popular in the levant, not many Levantine Arabs around where we live, but that’s by the by..

I just feel like OP hasn’t plucked a name out of thin air, from googling Emila is a name in its own right with its own etymology, she’s not gone with truleigh or some made up name. It’s not that deep, people can and should learn. Being corrected once should be enough for anyone, mis pronouncing after that is a choice

@Panicpanicpanicpanik , well the whole, the name is too difficult to pronounce malarkey is often trotted out for people with names that are ‘too foreign’ plus someone (not sure if it was you, cba to check, said that someone from an ethic background that gave a child a name from their religion/ culture should change their child’s name if it was too similar to a British name to avoid confusion… so sorry I think it is relevant to that specific comment

That would not have been me.

If the child had a 'foreign' (or a non-foreign) name that was almost certainly going to make the child's life a misery, and by that I mean something like the same name as a mass murderer, then yes, I might recommend changing it.

I would not recommend that OP changes her child's name, the name is OK, but had she asked on here before registering her child's name, I would have pointed out that it was likely to be mispronounced and misspelt.

Personally I'm not sure wanting an unusual name for the sake of it like OP is comparable to choosing a name from one's own minority cultural or religious background. Speaking as someone who did the latter.

But in any case, if you choose a name from a minority group, there is at least a built in constituency of people who'll be familiar with it. OPs daughter won't even have that!

But if she did that then that’s an Arabic name,

that’s em-mill-ah

Yes, shorten it to Mila.

You'll find people pronouncing it My-la though.

Or add an H to the end as a pp suggested - Emilah

So we should all call our children generic names to avoid confusion?
I have a difficult name to spell/pronounce but it certainly hasn't ruined my life 🙄

Yes exactly Sarah/ Sara can be pronounced either or BUT underlying the point that names have different spellings and different prononciations

well the whole, the name is too difficult to pronounce malarkey is often trotted out for people with names that are ‘too foreign’ plus someone (not sure if it was you, cba to check, said that someone from an ethic background that gave a child a name from their religion/ culture should change their child’s name if it was too similar to a British name to avoid confusion… so sorry I think it is relevant to that specific comment

Amilah - that’s how you spell it if that’s how you want it pronounced.

@Panicpanicpanicpanik , Sara can be said as Sarah, and Sarah can be said as Sara.

my children have Muslim names, people do struggle even though ostensibly they are very simple names, should I change them to make them more amenable to white brits?
That's a goady question and not relevant to the thread.

I think it’s a lovely name, not one I’ve heard before. People will call her Emilia though for the rest of her life!

All the more reason to learn how to pronounce people’s names? I’m unclear the point you’re making?

my children have Muslim names, people do struggle even though ostensibly they are very simple names, should I change them to make them more amenable to white brits?

@Panicpanicpanicpanik , they usually are, but either can be pronounced like the other one.

But they are still different names pronounced differently

@commonsense61 , how many Myrddins do you know? None were registered between 1996 and 2023.
Merv is usually Merfyn or Mervyn.

@Panicpanicpanicpanik ,Sara and Sarah are from the same origin.

That’s awful and pretty racist/ xenophobic I’d say

we have slightly different spellings that mean different names, Sara and Sarah for instance

@LakieLady I know a Beate. She's not german, and her name is Beh-AT-eh, but everyone seems to say Bey-ah-ta.

Poor thing, a lifetime of having to spell and tell people how to pronounce her name, just pick a better name before it’s too late!

If their name looks like a mispelling of a very popular name in the country they live in, then yes.