Ever met anyone who (you thought) pronounced their own name wrongly?

[ErmineAndPearls]

Inspired by a few posts on the Secret Confessions thread. I once met a woman called Leigh. She insisted that everyone must call her “Lay”. Also, a whole family whose surname is Onions, but they pronounce it “O’Nyons”. Like, just own it or change the spelling. There are more.

Not their own but a mum came to a school I worked in to register her son. She said his name was Gooey. When she was asked how to spell it she said G-U-Y.

Had someone at work who was Theresa who was a pita Tbh I avoided calling her by name to her face as I know it can be a minefield . With our local accent it's usually pronounced Treeza. She got management to send an email round saying it was Tea - Razor. So that's how I said it from then on, carefully enunciating the two words.

DH works with a Gillian.

Every other Gillian I know pronounces it Jill - ee-an (like jack and jill)

She insists on it being pronounced Gill-ee-an (like a fish gill)

I know its spelt with a G but everyone else I know pronounces it with a J

@LadyLothbrook didn’t see your previous comment but Danielle is pronounced Dan-yell

DD has a friend called 'Imagine' who pronounces it as 'Imogen'. If you want to be called Imogen spell it correctly. The poor girl will go through her life correcting the pronunciation or the spelling. Why do parents do this?

@NippyWoowoo in that case your cousin is pronouncing it wrong too. Hélène is pronounced Ell-Enn not Helen-Ay.

@Genevieva

That pronunciation is still about in some circles, I know a couple, and it’s how Sophia Myles and Sophia Money Coutts pronounce their name. The couple I know are MC rather than screamingly posh.

@Louise0701 I hear that alot but I also hear Dan-ee-el. Its so confusing to me. I'm sure my mum goes between both too.

He probably chose to use Boris as it's more unusual here and thought it would make people remember him ( and it worked). Especially with a very common last name like Johnson. Now self publicity is one thing he IS good at!

Tall woman? Liked dancing to Abba?

How do you pronounce it 😅

How else would you say it?

That was my secret confession, I'm so glad for this thread!

Ahem.

LOUIS, YOUR NAME IS NOT PRONOUNCED FUCKING LEWIS. NOW GET OF MY HEAD. 😡

Ahh that feels better. Thank you 😌

My friend is Michelle. It's pronounced Mi-Shell, but as a child in particular people constantly addressed her as Mee-Shell. It drove her nuts.

Probably derived from that awful old Beatles song, which she hated with a passion: especially since when we were at school, particular creepy teachers persisted in singing it to her. Ugh!

The Daniel in our family has always been Dan-I-el. But this is questioned a fair bit. I don't think it was intentional, I think his siblings just called him it as children and now no one is sure

I've only ever known Leila to be pronounced Layla. I know it to be a variation of the same Arabic name. There could be another origin of the name, pronounced differently? There are a lot of countries and cultures in the world.

Yes, people called Soph-eye-a tend to be posh. Those called Mar-eye-a (rarer these days I'd say) are probably also posh and like to differentiate themselves from the 99.9% of Marias who are Catholic Mareeas.

As a teacher I encountered some unusual spellings that didn’t make sense phonetically. I had a Shanya pronounced Shan-eye-uh. Parents try to be creative, but I pity the poor recipient of their creative spellings!

I would pronounce Danielle as Danyell.

Sharon pronounced Share - on.

I didn't know of Mrs Fox-Custard, but I love that!

I had a long-running joke with a family member about everybody being boring. I gave myself the name Cuthburga Deadfly-Biscuit (pronounced Dreadfully-Boring) & they gave me the title Marchioness of Snooze. I think my name was inspired by hearing a lovely American struggling with 'Gloucestershire' & coming up with Glao-sester-shire.

I knew someone called Solange, but they pronounced it Solanji.

@Friffle

I'm Scottish and they rhyme for me. But I think that "oo" would sound the same in most accents?

Are there examples of pairs of words with "oo" in them that are pronounced differently?

Good, wood, tool, school, mood- all exactly the same sound to me?

Clara your name is Clara not fucking Claire Ah 🙄

But it is Kee-ar-a, isn't it? It's from the Italian Chiara, and that's more or less how it's pronounced.

David sedaris sounds wrong when British people say it, I think they're taking on his American accent.