Hit me with your hard to pronounce names!

[pancakes222]

Hi all
Starting my first job in the NHS next month! I'm sure I should be getting worried about more important things but one thing I'm really paranoid about starting to work in a public facing environment is pronouncing someone's name wrong as im notoriously bad at this!
Does anyone have a name that people get wrong all the time and if so, can you phonetically write it for me so I can try and be better
Thank you!

Honestly you may as well have titled this “roll call for anyone who is racist or xenophobic or ignorant”. Within the first page I guarantee there will be posts on forrin names and telling you how to pronounce them with a wide-eyed, faux “oh I’m not racist I just couldn’t possibly understand how to pronounce XYZ”.

Recipe for disaster this!

Eilidh is pronounced ay-lee (like hayleigh/hayley without the H). My cousin often gets eyelid!

Lots of British and Irish names can be toughies:

Siobhan : Shuh-vorn
Niamh: Neeve
Caolfhionn: Kay-Linn
Jolyon: Jo-Lee-un
Beauchamp: bee-chum (usually a surname)
Cholmondley: Chum-lee (usually a surname)

I work in a hugely multinational team and google/youtube is a godsend for foreign names. I just type "how to pronounce" and the name, and most results have recordings.

1 more that threw me - St. John (pronounced Sinjun)

Is it ok to ask 'could you help me in how to pronounce your name?' Or is it better to just have a go at it?

I know an Aoife that gets puzzled looks quite frequently when someone sees her name in writing before being told it! It’s pronounced Ee-fa.

@bare

Is it ok to ask 'could you help me in how to pronounce your name?' Or is it better to just have a go at it?

In my workplace its totally acceptable and normal to have someone ask "how do you pronounce your name" - we're a global office so it happens pretty much daily! When I was in HR I would make a pronunciation note on my records for that person too if I knew I would be having follow ups with them.

Girls names:
Deirdre - it’s NOT Deer-dree (thank you Corrie!) it’s Deer-drah
Caoimhe - Kwee-vah
Aoife - Ee-fah
Sadhbh - Sive (like five)
Ailbhe - Alva
Nuala - Noo-la

@WanderlyWagonInWales

Girls names: Deirdre - it’s NOT Deer-dree (thank you Corrie!) it’s Deer-drah Caoimhe - Kwee-vah Aoife - Ee-fah Sadhbh - Sive (like five) Ailbhe - Alva Nuala - Noo-la

Deirdre - it’s NOT Deer-dree (thank you Corrie!) it’s Deer-drah

I know a Deer-dree

I also know a Deer-dree

Regardless of you struggling with unusual or uncommon names there will always be people with ordinary names that insist on them being pronounced differently.

I’ve worked with a Diane pronounced - Dee-anne who would have stabbed you I’d you called her Di.

And a chap called Mathew/Matthew who corrected you to call him Matt-ti-u with the last two syllables sounding like a sneeze.

These are all so useful thank you! I'm sounding out all your phonetics to myself! Some good tips too about how to ask politely about pronunciation, thank you. I just really want to make a good first impression :)

Everyone knows that Deidre is pronounced deer-dree.

As in 'I can see Deirdre now Lorraine is gone'

I think if you ask politely and apologise if you make a mistake then it's fine.

So for example....Am I speaking to "insert name". Please forgive me if I pronounced that I correctly.

And some names have 2 legitimate pronunications like Evelyn (EE-vlin or EVV-lin) and can also be male or female

I was asked how I pronounced my name once. It's Karen.

I have an unusual but really not hard to pronounce first name at all. It’s bloody obvious and yet people still get it wrong or call me something else entirely

My name is unusual and I prefer people just to ask ‘how do you pronounce it?’ Then I say, oh it’s x. And that’s that.

You’ll never instantly be able to pronounce every single name or word - just politely ask then learn to remember it quickly or make a note if you need to. Asking is necessary anyway because even with names you might think you know how to say there is variation - I know an Eva who says it Ava but then other Evas say Eeeva.

I once knew a Sharon - pronounced Sha-RUN
and would not answer to the usual pronunciation

Van Gogh.

It's totally okay to ask and check! I work for NHS and do it all the time.

All I can say is don’t have a bloody attitude @pancakes222 I’m seriously fucked off with the receptionists who sigh and huff and puff when it comes to our names. They are all white little englanders who do my head in. My advice is open your ears and listen. If they say a name ask to repeat slowly and repeat back. If someone says a name and then spells it with a for apple s for sugar don’t go ‘what’?! You sound like an idiot and are marked as racist by most. Just listen. Oh and accept that a name does not equal immigration status. That and there is such thing as mixed marriage. Finally there is most wrong with apologising for ignorance and asking how to say someone’s name - no one minds the first time.

I always ask for the correct pronunciation from people if I'm not sure. I'll take a stab if I'm fairly confident but if not just ask. People with uncommon names for the local area are used to it.

Ive got a very unusual surname and have yet to ever meet someone who can pronounce it first try

I think of all these I struggle with Irish names the most, the phonetics just totally blows my mind. But there's some I can mostly pronounce correctly from sight as I'm used to them.

DS is Castiel, apparently that's hard to pronounce.

Names like Evelyn (eve-lyn, ev-lyn) you'll always need to ask

I know two Karen’s

One is Ka-ren (short A)
The other is Kah (as in Car) en (long A)