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.

Surprising the amount of pp's who deem.themselves entitled to correct the pronunciation of someone else's name, just because their grandma's postman's sister's dog was irish/Scottish/Welsh and they know the correct way to say it.
We still (just about) live in a democracy in the UK and therefore you may call yourself and your children whatever name you please.
Other people don't have to approve it!!

in a scotland there are many diminutives that are quite different from the original name, eg

Dod/Doddie for George
Senga/Nan/Nancy for Agnes
Pearl for Margaret
Shug/Shuggie for Hugh
Ina (eye-na) for any name ending -ina

these are all recognised as traditional diminutives - so much so they do not have to be declared when signing legal documents

No it isn’t! It’s Leece-a.

What's the difference between Leece-a and Leesa, @toastinateapot?

Senga is Agnes backwards.
And some dimutives make sense, Shug/Hugh, Margaret/Meg/Peg/Pearl people were pulling from a small pool of names often multiple cousins formally called after the same Granny so using dimutives makes sense.

But I've never came across anything as unrelated as an Agnes known as Jenny or a Hugh going by Ian unless they were using a middle name.

Nothing - that’s the right way to say it.

I was responding to the person who said it with a soft S which is assume is like Leeze-a.

I’d just like to add: people who pronounce Leah as Lee-ya.

It’s a Jewish name, pronounced Lay-uh.

I’ve always wondered about the surname Davies. Is is Day-Veez or Day-Viss?

All three of those pronunciations are nee-uv. In the third, the secondly syllable is barely there but it is there. I (Irish) probably lean towards a very short second syllable compared to the longer one in the second example. But it is still there.

Irish and Northern Irish accents and dialects make for huge variation especially given the small size of the island. I live on the north coast - James Nesbitt type accent, go 30 minutes to Ballymena and you get Liam neeson and another 30 takes you to Jamie Dornan type - 3 different accents and dialects within 60 miles which are audibly different. I ask how names are pronounced instead of barrelling in now.

I once worked with a girl from Essex who could not get her head around Irish names or pronunciation - Cahir was pronounced Cat-hair to one very disgruntled mother 😂

@toastinateapot But that’s not a universal rule either! I’m Jewish and I pronounce Leah as Lee-ya, not Lay-uh.

My great aunt was called Leah and I’ve definitely heard more family members refer to her as Lee-ya than Lay-uh.

Jewish here too and my mother is Leah pronounced Lee-ah.

Listen to Gary Davies' jingles.

My family tree is full of these - Tomos registered as Thomas, Lowri as Laura, Huw as Hugh, Mari as Mary and Catrin as Catherine. Makes doing the family tree fun!

Pretty much everyone of my great grandparents generation is like this. Nain and Taid's generation is a mix of Welsh and biblical names. Mam and her siblings all have Welsh names and me and my cousins all have Welsh names. Quite a few have the names above that would have been anglicised a few generations before, like Ieuan and Sian.

My Welsh name is one that some people love to tell me I'm pronouncing wrong when I'm really not. Think Eleri (El-erry) but some people - mostly English - are adamant is pronounced Elery, to rhyme with celery as in they won't just mispronounce it, they'll tell me I'm wrong!

Senga for Agnes was always seen as a bit of a joke name. People are more accustomed to Nan or Nancy for Ann, not Agnes where the most common diminutive is Aggie.

The reason people named Margaret were often called Pearl is because the meaning of Margaret is “Pearl”. Nothing to do with Peg.

i worked with a Hugh who was known as Ian. Don’t know why, but there you go.

To me, Shug and Dod (which is pronounced Dode) are markedly different from Hugh and George. Especially to non Scots.

Ian, John and Sean are all versions of the same name.

used to be tradition in some parts of Scotland to add “ina” (pronounced “eye-na”) onto a male name. We’re all used to Georgina, Williamina (where “ina” is said as “ee-na”) etc - but I have seen Ianina, Hughina, Hamishina etc. not surprised it didn’t catch on in the rest of the country.

Very outing but my surname is Davis. So I get a variation of Danyell Davies, Danyell DaviS, Dan-e-ell Davies, Dan-e-el DaviS. Its neither here nor there but it has always left me feeling abit confuzzled!

@TrashyPanda the actress Anna Maxwell Martin was on Who do you think you are? Recently and she discovered that she had a great Aunt in Scotland called Joeina. (And the father whose name poor Joeina had to carry was a horrible convicted wife-beater, it was such a sad story).

OMG @LadyLothbrook you really were dealt a difficult hand name-wise!

I'm most confused on this thread by people objecting to an Elle being called Ellie. It's just a nickname like Dani, Ali, Jools, Benji, Bob, Maggie etc.

I say Dan-i-yell or Dan-yell fairly equally.

I have a name that's commonly mispronounced, I find it annoys others much more than me. Many times I've had a work meeting and someone says "Hi Z, X said your name is pronounced Y, is it Y or Z?", so I tell them it's Y. I suppose I'm mildly grateful to all those making the effort to correct on my behalf. The only puzzling bit to me is why people who've met me only twice think colleagues who've known me 10 or 20 years are more likely to be wrong than they are.

I used to work with a woman called Karen who wanted everyone to call her Care-ren
Ridiculous
I never did i used to watch her get mortified at correcting me (and everyone else) as she knew it was spelt "Karen"

I know work with a Lisa who on the phone called herself "Leesa" but again we all ignore it and just call her Lisa 😂

Care-en is an accepted pronunciation of Karen
Leesa is an accepted pronunciation of Lisa
What isn't acceptable is low-level workplace bullying.

@HaveringWavering Tell me about it! I may change to something simple through deed poll. Something madonna-esque

I'm thinking you're best just picking the version of each name you like best and sticking with/telling people it's that. 😅 I'd say your name dan-yell day-vees

My Gog relatives more naturally say Ifan I think? here in W Wales it is closer to Efan but with a longer e at the beginning, so perhaps inbetween the two? We say names like Mrs Lewis with a similar e sound, rather than Mrs Loo-iss.
It is interesting that older generations had their names written as Thomas, Evan, Hugh, Mary etc even though they were Tomos, Ifan, Huw, Mair in daily life. Although my great great aunt was Gwenllian, no changing that on the census or birth certificate ! Literacy rates must have affected this, the English way being treated as the correct way to write a name, even though the Welsh name is pronounced differently.

On the Lisa/Leesa thing, I have a friend that spells it Leesa so I guess that makes it even clearer how to pronounce it. Then there's Liisa which needs a longer ee sound but people often get that wrong.

No, wait! If it's Danielle Davis (not Davies) I'd say dan-yell day-vis