Dad pronouncing my DD's name incorrectly

[JoanFontaine]

I've namechanged as am about to divulge the names of my DCs.

My DD is called Esmé. That is, Esmé pronounced Ez-May rather than Ez-mee.

When we chose it, DH and I agreed that it as it is one of those names which have two common pronounciations, we would just swallow that fact and not get all het up about people saying it "wrong" because life is too short.

However we did choose to use the accent as a pointer to our preferred prounciation (and also 'cause Salinger's charcter has an accent and we chose the name partly because of that because we love it.)

Anyway...My dad insists on calling her Ez-mee. It pisses me off royally. Because while I don't expect random teachers etc to get it right all the time, I think her grandfather could make a bloody effort to say her name correctly. He speaks good French too, so he knows what the accent is for!

I've said, "It's Ez-MAY, dad" several times but it just doesn't seem to sink in, and he behaves as though I'm being insanely picky for mentioning it.

DH thinks I'm not being totally U, but reminds me that we agreed that we weren't going to get wound up about it. I think I'm right to be annoyed.

What do you think, AIBU?

I've only ever heard it pronounced EzMay as well - Es Meee is a new one to me!

(Catno - pleased to see it's the pronunciation only! Phew)

Catno - I agree! Bloody Irish.

When she is old enough to care she will start putting him right.

"I'm NOT esme, I'm EZMAY grampy" etc.

DS age 4.9 is starting to get annoyed that his grandparents spell his name wrong. He intends to tell them so next time he talks to them, I'm now trying to persuade him to do it politely " I like my name with 1 t not 2" rather than what he plans to say " I do not want 2 ts it is wrong and I do not like it and I am cross"

My gran could never pronounce my name correctly, she had a strong regional accent and maybe just couldn't get her tongue round it, although everyone else managed. Even I can't manage to pronounce my name quite like she did but I used to find it endearing and it never bothered me.

I've heard Esme pronounced both ways, your Dad probably knows it winds you up and that could be why he keeps on doing it.

I can understand your upset, but is it a Dad Thing?

My Dad once wrote me a birthday card with "To Liam" written in it. Liam.

I am a woman and my name is not Liam.

My Dad is a lecturer. He is an educated man. But he forgets my name/gender/address. If I didn't have such an understanding postman I'd never receive any correspondence.

Never heard of Ez-mee but love the name Ex-may and YANBU in my opinion! lol.

xx

i agree, when she is older she will get hacked off about it and correct him.

i know this because i have a name which can be pronounced two ways and quite often get annoyed when i introduce myself. it goes like this...

me: hello, my name is tan - yah
them: tarrrrnye! how nice to meet you!
me: sigh

btw esme is a lovely name :-) and actually the op's pronunciation amkes more sense.

i want to call (if i ever have her) my dd2 Xanthe and expect to have all this hassle too.

thing is Esme should only really be pronounced Ez-mee. Where on earth did Ez - May come from?

FWIW DS1 is called Fabian, and he/we have to correct loads of people who call him Fabien in the French way. You just get used to it. Besides which Fabien is a girls name..............

Our daughter Romily is also called Romney or Romany - I think people don't really listen when they are told the child's name. They also assume the written name is pronounced in a way they are familiar with - the two ways of pronouncing Esme is a case in point. But family members really have no excuse - they hear the child's other relatives saying the name in the way the parents prefer, so why pronounce it differently? We have a new baby Henry in the family - his dad is french, mum is french-english- and they pronounce his name the english way. Yet when I announced his arrival as Henry, english people said: "Ah - Henri" By the same token, then, it's Peter Cardin, James Chirac, and that famous Italian opera meastro Joe Green?

Pick your battles... this is a relatively small thing. You knew that there was a good chance of mispronunciation and your daughter is going to yet used to that throughout her life unless you're living in France. Your choice to name your children but this was forseeable.

My SIL named both my niece and nephew English names but with a Welsh spelling... both children get birthday cards, invitations, etc. misspellt.

Either way, it's not worth falling out over.

YANBU my mum and aunt have decided to shorten DD's name and it pisses me off royally.

My dd's name is not that unusual but on occasion my parents and inlaws would mispronounce it. We corrected them but not very often tbh. Now there is only dfil left and he still gets it wrong. Dd doesn't mind she loves her grandad and finds his version of her name kind of cute. He is quite old and doesn't hear so well and he hasn't got an unkind bone in his body so it's no biggy- I think you are being a little unreasonable.

my FIL says my daughter's name wrong, with an e at the end instead of an a

I don't know why, it's not a name with an e at the end, not that I've ever heard and it's not that uncommon a name

i just let him, she's 10 she's old enough now to object if she wants to