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.

Ah right, thanks.

Knew a girl at school called Andrea who insisted everyone call her Aundrea (Orn-dree-a)😳

She might but the pn of her surname is a whole separate controversy!

Worrick in the UK.
War-wick- in the US.

In French, yes. However the anglicised version is long established and is Zavier to rhyme with Saviour.

The Americans pronouncing the second W in Warwick always sounds so comedic to me.

Once knew a guy who’s surname was Little. He insisted I pronounced it Lit elle.
paranoid much ?!

This thread is very reminiscent of the episodes of The Thick of It featuring poor tragic Mr Tickell, variously pronunced ‘tik-ELL’ and plain old ‘tickle’.

My parents are Swiss and my name (Anna) is pronounced Uhnaa… I don’t appreciate English people telling me I’m pronouncing my own name wrong even though I sound perfectly English…

My friend taught a girl who insisted her name was pronounced shob-hawn

Not mispronouncing their own name, but years ago my mum (a speech and language therapist) once assessed a young child who was about to start primary school.

The mother pronounced her son's name as "Gooey". Mum said, "That's an usual name" to which the mother replied that it had been the name of a character in a book that she had read, and she had loved the name so much that she had decided she would give it to a son if/when she ever had one. And now she had kept her promise.

"And how do you spell it?", Mum asked. "G-U-Y" was the answer. Mum half thought of pointing out the correct pronunciation, but wisely decided to let it go.

irish spelling is Ciarán… fada changes the sound of the second ‘a’ so it is pronounced Keer-ron… perhaps this is where they’ve got this from

Bingo! Another Gooey

Just pronounce people's names the way they tell you to. It's quite easy.
My name is Simone; 'si' as in 'sip' 'mone' rhymes with 'phone'
When I was a child, an ignorant adult told me I was pronouncing it wrong and it should be pronounced 'Simonne'. His name was Colin, so I started calling him Coe-lin. Funnily enough, he didn't like it.

I pronounce my own surname wrong! Although doubt anyone knows. It's a tricky one and at some point during childhood I got sick of correcting people and just started saying it like everyone else.

My name is Rhiannon - I pronounce it between the Welsh and English ways because I don't pronounce the rh as it would be in Welsh but I do pronounce the final syllable as -on, rather than reducing it to schwa (un).

When I meet other Rhiannons, it's always a quandary as to how to pronounce their names. If they're Welsh, I do my best to give them a proper rh (I have a Welsh speaking, native Welsh parent but I have never lived in Wales and don't speak Welsh myself) and an on at the end, but I wonder whether I'm inadvertently mispronouncing some English Rhiannons' names by NOT reducing their final syllable. Would it bother them to have their final syllable pronounced differently? I used to HATE being called rhiannun so I can understand that from the other side.

There were two Rhiannons in my year at school - me, and a rhiannun. We always pronounced each others' names like we did our own, and I do wonder if this was part of the general enmity that existed between us!

The correct pronunciation of a name is that used by the owner of that name! There are lots and lots of names which have different spellings and pronounciations.

How rude are we to set ourselves as judge and jury for individuals names .

My sister pronounces her surname (her married name) differently from her own husband. It is a subtle difference but different none the less. The name is multi syllabic and quite complicated and her way is just easier for her to pronounce.

She laughs about the time (after some 12 years of marriage) that she mispelled it when on the phone to the bank trying to prove her identity.

oddly enough the bank did not seem to notice at all.

Karen who insisted it was pronounced Kay-Ron

"I knew someone called Ciara who pronounced it Kee-ar-a. I was sure in my little head it was Keera."
You're right - the first 'a' is an Irish spelling convention and doesn't get pronounced

A name on an online application form was spelt Chole, confirming the name on the phone the applicant said her name was Clowee. My colleague said I’ll correct it as it’s been spelt C H O L E on here. She said yes that’s how it’s spelt.

There's also (Hungarian?!) "Noami".

Of course, Oprah Winfrey's real name is "Orpah" but no-one got it right outside of her immediate family when she was growing up and she gave up correcting them. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey#Early_life

When you write "Irainer" does that include a pronounced 'r' or an unprounced one...?

Italian pronunciation of Irene = Ee-REH-neh

Yes, they're both widely used in Ireland and using either is fine. Nee-uv is an Irish language pronunciation of the name and the Neeve pronunciation is a more anglicised version, that's the difference. (Lots of Irish language names have been anglicised - spelling or pronunciation or both.)

Yep, another Gooey where they insist it’s true! I bet your mum knew a La dash A too.

About a dozen people have said they know someone this exact thing (gooey / guy) happened to 'someone I know' on this thread alone...

I think your mum might have been pulling your leg!