To change our surname because no one can pronounce it?

[PotterAndHisWand]

I mean no one, unless they're Irish, but we live in South East England.....

Oooh what is it? I'm Irish and have been surprised how much English people struggle with some of our surnames. Its Ga-la-her not Galig-er damn it

PS Ditto spelling. I'm an O'Brien and have had O'brien, O'brian, Obrian....

We've also seemingly got a surname that no-one can pronounce OR spell. The variations I've had are astounding! I always have to spell it twice and they still get it wrong

I wouldn't change it though, annoying as it is :)

It's McKeown, people pronounce it Mc-Cown or Mc-Kewan... I often have receptionists repeat my name back to me as if I'm saying incorrectly. Yesterday I had to repeat it twice to a receptionist, on the second time of saying it very clearly she replied "Oh right, you mean McKewan", and patched me through without another word!

Meant to read Mc Kewan

How should it be pronounced?

Mck-yown, with yown rhyming with phone

Exactly, it's a pain in the arse.

If it bothers you that people can't spell it or pronounce it, then you should change it. But even with very simple surnames people end up getting them wrong. Think Brown/Browne, Wood/Woods etc.

I had one of those basic common surnames before I got married and it bugged me all the time!

To be fair, Irish names are bizarre when it comes to to spelling and pronunciation. There are loads of them that I just don't get, why can't they just spell them phonetically or at least with more commons variations?

KitchenRoll, you do understand that Irish is a different language and therefore things are spelled and pronounced differently in that language? Your question is really odd - if you went to France and they told you you spelled your name weirdly would you say "Oh sorry I'll change it??" Even if you had the name "Baker" or "Smith," in France you would still have to spell it for people a lot of the time and it would often be pronounced incorrectly.

Don't change your name OP, I know it's annoying, but I have the most boring common surname in the world and people still spell it incorrectly (oddly enough, the latest misspelling was the German version of my name - how weird is that??) so I don't think changing it will make any difference.

I know I'll be batted down for saying this, but I would change the spelling, keep the pronunciation to extent possible. McYone?

Ragged do you think everyone with a non-English surname should change it to make it easier to pronounce in English?

Why change you name? Maybe phoneticise the spelling but as a person who calls lots of names out daily and I'm happy to be corrected (and I might even remember, but please remember as well that I'm probably calling Mc Keowns that say theirs differently to you as well!).

I now have a very english easy to say surname but my maiden name was a nightmare and that hinged on a Y that had an eye sound not a short i sound.

My surname isn't too easy to pronounce. It has it's up sides aswell, cold callers who miss-pronounce are politely told that no one of that name lives here.

My solution to a difficult surname was to marry someone with a common easy one. It's acceptable to change then .

Nobody could spell or pronounce my maiden name which made me quite happy to change it to my much more common married name. The problem was nobody seems to be able to spell my 1st name which frankly isn't difficult or unusual, or at the time my maiden name or my company name so every phone call at work became very protracted and 9 out of 10 times it would still come through wrong. I am flummoxed as to why it's that difficult (I don't have a strong regional accent or anything that could confuse like that) but now it's a bit better.

lol pants, i do that, i just politly correct people, not that they ever listen.

I know that Irish is a different language, but when many of the people with those names only speak English and don't know any Irish at all, it's bound to cause a little confusion. I only speak English and I would expect people to find it odd if if I called my English speaking child Helene and then expected everyone to pronounce it the French way.

I would expect to have to spell my English name to a French person, and I would expect that they might have trouble pronouncing it. But I wouldn't expect the same of an English person. I'd think the problem was with the name, not the person, especially if the same problem kept occurring among lots of perfectly intelligent people.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Irish names, just that if you have one that has a pronunciation that is wildly different from the spelling, which many of them are, then you should expect to have to correct people all the time. And if you don't want to do that, then it's ok to change your name to something you find easier to use.

Helene is a first name, it's a name you choose. A surname is a family name, it's not something you pick and choose. If you married a man who didn't speak French but had a distinctly French name would you expect him to change it? Or change it before you took it yourself or gave it to your children?

That's not really the point Caitlin. Its not about whether you chose it or not, you still have to live with it. People can change their surnames if they want to just as easily as they can choose their first names, and people don't choose their own first names either when they have have to start using them.

If I married a man with a distinctly French name I would choose to either keep my own name, use his name and put up with the inconvenience, or suggest that we both change. I don't get your point.

You're Irish in England. The Irish way of speaking and pronunciation are very different to English ways of doing it. That's all. (I live with an Irish girl btw who mocks me for my pronunciation of Jamesons Whisky.) You can't get annoyed that we do it wrong here!

We have moved to the south of England last year. If people have trouble with our surname I spell it and pronounce it for them. Its our name and we wont change it. If they mispronounce it what can we do, millions of different accents in the world.

The other evening a dad at the school was laughing( in a nice enough way) at my DD for the way she was saying "bathroom". She asked him what way he would say it and when he told her she said to him "But there if no F in Bathroom".