to stop my children speaking with the local accent?

[workshy]

95% of the time I accept that my dcs speak with the local accent -I'm not a fan but they fit in with their peer group, I chose to live here so it's fine

but when they pronounce their own names differently to me it drives me insane

they both have an 'a' in the middle of thier names which when I was naming them I pronounced with a short 'A', like the name of the letter
locally it's pronounced 'aaaaaaaaaa' -children in their classes are telling them they are saying their names wrong!

AIBU to insist they say their names the way I intended or do I just go with the flow?

YABU - why does it matter so much?

I'm from east yorks and would say it like kaaytee!! My ds says things like nuh for no but I have the accent too so probably just don't notice it.

Oi, Wordsarenouse I'll have you know the Mackem accent is beautiful! Far softer that Geordie!

THAN Geordie, obviously.

MrsGypsy

" Look on the bright side. At least they don't have a west country accent and sound like they're a few straws short of a bale........

My luvver. "

How very dare you! You have me in tears now!

Swine! :)

Getorf, I think I took the opposite approach to you. "No, DS, it's not Fronce or Carsel, it's Frrraaance and caaassell". .

I try to minimise the very extremes of DS's local accent. It is strange having a child who has a significantly different accent to me though.

If it is a sound that he doesn't often hear, then he says it a bit like me :D. I encourage him to say words like 'lough' and 'ich' just to practice the soft sound at the back of his mouth.

Sorry, to answer the OP, I don't think YABU about their names.

My DCs are as Essex as you like.
I love their accents (DH and I don't have Essex accents)

But I realise they can nevvvvverrrr leave because people look at them when they leave the M25.

Sorry Pendeen - I speak from experience, though...... Personal experience......I didn't know that you didn't put "to" at the end of a question until I had it pointed out to me by a snotty very kind London person, eg. "where you gwain to?" which apparently is grammatically incorrect. So is "Pass us the paper, will 'ee?", which resulted in much merriment amongst the snotty concerned London people. "Willy? Willy? Who's Willy?".

I speak posh now.

I think one's name is a very personal thing- so ultimately something for the child to have control over, not the parent. Dd has a new nickname which is not the one I intended for her- sob- but it is her nickname and not mine, so I can't really stop her from using it. Though I don't have to use it

We also have a Katie and live in Yorkshire (York to be exact). Dd often comes home from Nursery calling herself Kerrrrrrty. It doesn't really bother us - we think it's cute!

YANBU

We live in the Black Country and I hate DS speaking like a BC yokel. I do have a Black Country accent myself but I speak proper, like. It's all Yams, Ays, Cors, Dows rowund ere. Sounds frightful and I will come down on DS like a sack of bricks if I hear him say "Mom cor I ov faggits and pays for tay?"

oh but 'faggits' are lovely ;)

My kids are picking up the kiwi accent ie "noiy Mammy,yis mammy!) it's very strange and I have to try not to correct them!

I think if they are growing up speaking with a northern accent then it is a bit unrealistic to expect them to pronounce their names with a southern accent. It will sound out of kilter with how they speak generally, and may be mistaken for something else entirely by the locals as they will be expecting to hear syllables pronounced in a certain way.

Yanbu - you probably chose your dcs' names because you like the sound of them but the way you say them. Not sure you can do anything about it tho.
Angry beaver, my DCs say door and four with nz accent. Couldn't write it down tho.

There aren't many people who can pronounce my name properly or who even try. No matter what the accent but especially in nz. Drives me nuts.

I can understand the frustration, but probably best to leave it alone.

I have a brother Peter, and where we grew up, it was common to drop the T and L sounds in words, so he was often called "Pee-uh". When someone phoned asking for "Pee-uh", my parents were known to reply, "I'm sorry, there's no-one of that name here." Pause. "But we do have a Peter, would you like to speak to him?"

featherbag agree totally

Best to leave it - they are in danger of getting a reputation of being snotty/ snobby if they keep insisting people pronounce their names differently (given they are not being pronounced "wrongly" just in a different accent). This is rather unfair if it isn't the children who are bothered but their mum!

We live in Germany and the kids are bilingual - they pronounce their names one way in German and the way I intended when speaking English - they swap with the language swap, which amuses me, but I guess it is clearer cut and less "personal" when its an entirely different language. One of DS1's 4 yo Kindergarten class mates came up to me the other day and told me she could speak English the other day - I expected her to count "One two, Tswee" (which is a skill random children demonstrate for me about twice a week) but instead she said my kids names to me in my accent!

We're northerners living down south and have an Eleanor (we say Elenna) and have to accept that here she is El-ee-a-nor. Doesn't seem to bother her.

I can cope with that more than the Sarf Landan twang my number 2 son is developing...

I'm a southerner who chose to live in Yorkshire. I love the regional variations in accents and dialect and don't want DD (who was born here) to be ashamed of her roots.But I do want her to have what I call an "educated Yorkshire" accent, not the local really broad dialect. I pick up on her saying haitch for H for example, but when she says bath and grass with a short A it sounds correct to me, even though I say barth and grarse.

OH is from the north east and when his mum was deciding what to call him she took into account how the name would be pronounced in the local accent.

YABU- they need to fit in with their friends. you are also a snob but you know this. If you are that worried then send them to private school. That's where I got the regional dialect knocked out of me and I now talk posh.

When we lived ooop North, my DD switched between broad Lancashire and standard English with ease. Many bilingual children do the same thing.