Names spelled with diacritics

You’re being deliberately obtuse. You were claiming a minute ago that the fact that the UK has more than one official language was not relevant to the question. Now you’re saying it’s not relevant to the answer.

Which is it?

The fact that Welsh is an official UK language would not be relevant if she had asked “can my child insist on the use of the Korean alphabet in official government communications?” because the UK has no official language that uses the Korean alphabet.

However it IS relevant because Welsh uses the same letters as English, but with added diacritics. So it would follow that the UK government might have thought about that in setting up its systems.

And Ireland has the same situation with English and Irish. So it is relevant by analogy.

@SilenceOfTheTimTams ‘Sean’ gets taken up in England (and elsewhere) without the fada. So there’s an issue about keeping the pronunciation but not the fada? Why is that not anglicising the name?
Anglicising the name would be saying it as 'Seen', or spelling it Shaun or Shawn.

She said:

Is there a right or expectation for organisations to spell your name correctly in England? Doesn't GDPR say this?

To which the answer is no.

What Ireland does is neither here nor there.

I was especially tickled by the GDPR part of the question.

@SilenceOfTheTimTams ,And the use of diacritics in Welsh etc has nothing to do with English speakers adapting names from elsewhere that they like the sound of.
There are many Welsh names that are used by English speakers. The only one that is popular that has a diacritic is Siân.

Because the letters “ean” do not make the sound “on” in any English word.

I’m genuinely still unclear what the point is.

‘Sean’ gets taken up in England (and elsewhere) without the fada. So there’s an issue about keeping the pronunciation but not the fada? Why is that not anglicising the name?

I don’t think it would be possible to be that prescriptive given that names can be pretty much spelled however the parents choose. It’s simple and easy to say “only the 26 letters of the English alphabet allowed, with no diacritics”.

@Campbellcarrotsoup I have a diacritic in my first name and it's not on my British (Welsh) birth certificate.

Maybe go back and read the OP again. She’s asking whether UK government organisations can accommodate diacritics and also whether a person can insist that a diacritic be used. Since we are talking about government institutions, it is pretty relevant to look at the official languages of the country as you’d expect the system to accommodate their spellings and script.

We’ve established that UK passports do not allow it, but that is nothing to do with supremacy of English on the UK, it is related to the supremacy of English as the international language of aviation. Even then, other nations such as Ireland have chosen to disregard international rules and prioritise their own citizens’ language requirements.

In which case shouldn’t English people transliterate Seán as Shaun and Séan as Shane rather than calling their kid Sean?

No, the word anglicise means “make English”. That is not the same as “import as a loan word”.

Are there really people in the UK who pronounce the name Zoe to rhyme with toe because they haven’t spotted an umlaut but would pronounce it zo-ee with one? Surely it’s more likely they just don’t know how to pronounce the name at all.

I can’t follow this at all. The fact that there are speakers of native British languages that use diacritics is completely irrelevant to the OP’s post, and everything else really.

A pp explained in detail why, internationally, diacritics are generally dropped in many records.

And the use of diacritics in Welsh etc has nothing to do with English speakers adapting names from elsewhere that they like the sound of.

It’s taking on the name and anglicising it by dropping the fada. Keeping - what is presumably - an approximation of the Irish pronunciation doesn’t mean it’s not anglicised in spelling.

Importing names and adapting for English use doesn’t require the names to be changed to follow more usual letter combinations.

@SilenceOfTheTimTams
I think we’re back to there’s more than one language in the UK and accents are not foreign to the UK then 😁

Oh, I see. I’d agree it’s a name adopted from Ireland. And a very nice one.

So what?

Literally first world problems

From my experience any diacritics can go on the birth certificate but systems can't always reproduce it after. My child has two surnames without a hyphen - spanish format. All good for the birth certificate but any other uk system includes a hyphen. Not the end of the world but does bug me.

You are saying that writing Sean is anglicising Séan. But it’s not, because to anglicise you need to use the letter combinations that follow English rules to make the Irish sound.

Sean is just copying it badly and memorising how it is said in Irish.

I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m objecting to you saying it’s an English name.

Joining in as an O apostrophe surname owner. The apostrophe is on my official docs but it’s very unusual for any websites to accept it (online banking, booking flights, online shopping) If it’s going to bother you, don’t use it - it will be a problem

OK. I’m not sure what the point is though. If Sean is pronounced ‘shawn’ in England but doesn’t have a fada, what’s wrong with that?

Perhaps an even better example would be that it’s like English people knowing how to pronounce Singh (which is not an obvious phonetic transliteration) even though the “correct” spelling of Singh would be in the script used to write Punjabi.

Yes it is. Sean, like Sean Bean and Sean Connery.

So what if it’s spelt Sean and not Shaun?

I’m simply saying that version/pronunciation of the name is an Irish name imo, not an English one.

Whether people use the original spelling or not is up to them. I understand that an accent would be practically difficult in places where accents aren’t typically used. Though I’m a fan of accents in general.