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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Dad 'choosing' to pronounce DD's name differently

602 replies

runningaftermydreams · 19/12/2016 19:09

This is the first post I've written. Apologises for bad spelling... I am writing in anger.

So my DD is 3 months old and I given her an usual name, which I have accepted people will/do pronounce it wrong because they don't know how to say it, its easy Once you know though. My Ddad seems to struggle with it, except today I was visiting with my DC and my Ddad said her name wrong (Again!) so my Dsis corrected him (again) to which my DDad response was "Well it shouldn't be pronounced like that it should be pronounced the way I said it, I am saying it this way"

It then got heated because I told him you can't do that it will confuse her as it doesn't sound anything like her name. He said shes too little to notice. I said he needs to call her by her name that we have given her end of!!
Im fuming because he blatantly told me hes choosing to pronounce it differently, I know this won't be the end of it. I am hurt by this. I know he doesn't like it because it's not a "solid english" name (hmmm my mom is german so hes being a dick), but I wish he would respect our choice.

I am worried about what DP will say when Ddad says her name over Christmas at family gatherings. Think its going to kick off, as this won't be the first time recently where DP has disagreed with him.

AIBU to be angry about this? Wwyd?

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 22/12/2016 08:49

Lots of names have alternative spellings. Fewer have alternative pronounciations. And fewer still have pronunciations which people in the country where you live are more likely to get wrong than not. And even fewer have pronciations which people in the country where you live have been trained to get wrong because of a popular scent!

StrawberryandCreamPips · 22/12/2016 09:10

And fewer still have pronunciations which people in the country where you live are more likely to get wrong than not.

Actually, Bert, the more widespread the name, the more likely it is to have a variant spelling and pronunciation in every single European country. That's exactly why my name and DD2's routinely get spelt/pronounced "wrong" where we live.

cardibach · 22/12/2016 11:07

Bertrand
Dole haven't been trained to say it wrong by perfume ads because the perfume ads are correct - have you played any of the multiple videos of them posted on this thread? For some reason some people ignored the clear 'An-eye-ees' in the ad and still said 'An-ay'. It annoyed me in the 80s and it's plain bloody stupid now.
Naïve is a perfectly common word. All you have to do to get to the correct pronunciation of Anaïs is add A to the start and change the last v to an s. It's almost bloody identical!

cardibach · 22/12/2016 11:07

People not dole. Stupid iPad.

user1480946351 · 22/12/2016 11:10

Naïve is a perfectly common word. All you have to do to get to the correct pronunciation of Anaïs is add A to the start and change the last v to an s. It's almost bloody identical!

It's not at all. It's three syllables, not 2. Naive ends in an e, which english speakers are comfortable with pronouncing, Anai has a very odd S sound to English ears.
It's not even slightly the same.

cardibach · 22/12/2016 11:21

Naive is two syllables. Adding the A makes it a three. An then the ay-ee of naïve and the s on the end like in geese. Not unusual or un-English in sound at all.

user1480946351 · 22/12/2016 11:23

Apparently you are wrong, because clearly lots of people struggle with it.

cardibach · 22/12/2016 11:24

And lots of people don't, user, so maybe you are wrong...

wictional · 22/12/2016 11:56

I say it as An-eye-eese because of the ï. It's simple pronunciation.

BertrandRussell · 22/12/2016 12:01

I would put my house on most people not knowing about the dieresis on naive (don't know how to produce one of the iPad!). And my car on most of the people who do know there is one not knowing where it goes or what it's for.

cardibach · 22/12/2016 12:04

I must move in different circles then Bertrand. People I know might not know what it was called, but they would know how to pronounce the word - which is all that is relevant here, isn't it? People are suggesting Anaïs is a really strange and foreign word with sounds poor English people can't be expected to be able to remember or say. It really isn't.

Jux · 22/12/2016 12:09

Well, I grew up with Ann-A-iss (Nin), so that's how I pronounce it in my head: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaïs_Nin. I would learn a new pronunciation if I met someone who had that name and pronounced it differently, though.

CancellyMcChequeface · 22/12/2016 12:57

People I know might not know what it was called, but they would know how to pronounce the word - which is all that is relevant here, isn't it?

This. I'd say that most people wouldn't know that it's called a diaeresis, but even if they call it 'two dots' or 'an umlaut' the idea is familiar. Most people in the UK have come across someone named Chloë or Zoë, I'd think, and the word naïve isn't exactly obscure either.

user1480946351 · 22/12/2016 12:58

People are suggesting Anaïs is a really strange and foreign word with sounds poor English people can't be expected to be able to remember or say. It really isn't

It is a foreign word that makes sounds that don't occur much, if at all, naturally in the english language. You keep banging on about naive but I can't remember the last time I saw that spelt with a diaresis, its usually left off. And there isn't another word comparable.
And again, you're ignoring that pesky S sound. In Anais it makes an "eece" sound, which is not a normal sound for an english S.

scaredoffallout · 22/12/2016 13:09

Ah-nay must have come from people thinking the "ais" was pronounced the same as the ais in the French word "mais"?

Still completely wrong and oddly stubborn colonialist though.

NightWanderer · 22/12/2016 14:11

As a kid we pronounced it A-nay Nin. Not sure why.

MikeUniformMike · 22/12/2016 14:44

I am seriously tempted to try to persuade my DDs to change their names to Anaïs. DD1 will be pleased as she is Katherine Katharine Catherine Cathryn Kathryn Caitlin Kathleen UniformMike, but we always call her Kate. Her sister is Catherine, pronounced the French way, Cat-REEN.
DS3 is Lilley. My nose has grown a bit long.

Anaïs is not the easiest names to say compared with say Annalise, but I had a collegue who really struggled with the name Annalise, calling her Anne Louise, Anna Louise or Anna Lisa. Suspect someone like that would struggle with Bob. Muppet.

BertrandRussell · 22/12/2016 15:06

"People are suggesting Anaïs is a really strange and foreign word with sounds poor English people can't be expected to be able to remember or say. It really isn't."

They are really not saying that. They are saying that it is a quite unusual name that if you are a monoglot (see, I do know some quite tricky words, even in my "circles") English speaker you are not displaying colossal ignorance if you can't say correctly. Yes of course they should remember told. The question is, would you want a name you have to teach people how to pronounce all your life.
NightWanderer why on earth were you talking about Anais Nin as kids? The mind boggles!

Jux · 22/12/2016 15:46

BertrandRussell I think Nightwanderer was responding to what I said.

Fair enough, Nightwanderer. I got it from tv but that could still easily be wrong.

Buttercupsandaisies · 22/12/2016 15:53

I've never seen naive or spelt with the dots in this country - maybe that's why people use different pronunciations here?

I know two anais who don't use the dots and pronounce an nay

I remember learning French in school and je suis anglais (same ending) was pronounced a bit like on-glay. I think that's why on anais I would presume the end s is silent.

Buttercupsandaisies · 22/12/2016 15:54

Or anais

roundaboutthetown · 22/12/2016 17:08

It goes back to how people mispronounce names, and how often, more than whether they will, as lots of names can be pronounced in more than one way. As this thread has made clear, Anais is regularly going to be mispronounced in ways that make it sound like an arse, an ass and a neigh. Children love picking up on names they can deliberately make sound silly, so this will probably not go unnoticed at school. You can't force people to say a pretty name in a pretty way. Still, I'm sure they will find other things to tease her about, too.

GreatFuckability · 22/12/2016 17:19

All this is moot. Because the OP said she realises,some people will misspell or mispronounce it, that's entirely besides the point. The point is a family member who has been told how to say it, repeatedly and seemingly deliberately still saying it wrong.
I have a dd with a name that is often misspelled/pronounced. I knew giving her a very welsh name meant this would happen. I don't care because I love it, she loves and we are happy and what strangers do isn't a huge deal. However if her grandfather was to mispronounce it all the time I would very annoyed.

GreatFuckability · 22/12/2016 17:21

And I think using 'but people will be mean' as a reason to use a name is mind-blowing to me. Should we not be teaching people not to be dicks instead of insisting we all fit into a box of sameness??

roundaboutthetown · 22/12/2016 17:47

Of course we should be teaching people not to be mean. However, people will be deliberately mean, including grandfathers, apparently. And remember, you are choosing the name for someone else, so you liking the name is less relevant than what they think of it, so don't kick up a fuss if they change their name at a later date. It's only a name, after all, so not that important in the big scheme of things.