Do you change your accent mid-sentence to pronounce foreign names?

[ShapelyBingoWing]

Not a current situation, but something that's played on my mind many times since knowing this person.

I used to have a colleague called Joao, a Portuguese fellow. We didn't work particularly closely together but he was known for getting very annoyed when those further down the pecking order than him didn't say his name the Portuguese way. He did seem happy for his superiors to call him "Jow".

I can't think of anyone else I've ever come across insisting that their name is pronounced their native way. In fact, nearly everyone I know whose name doesn't gel well with the English accent has always introduced themselves and then said "call me X" (X being a version of their name that an English accent can easily manage).

I don't really know what the reasonable expectation is in this situation. It must be frustrating when people always say your name wrong but equally I've seen how difficult people seem to find a mid sentence accent change...most people simply tried to avoid ever actually addressing him by name!

Hillarious - how do you say Porsche?

I say:
Vee-double-U
Poor-shuh

Porsch-uh, with a non-silent "e", just like in Deutsche Bank.

I've never had a foreign friend ask me to speak their name in their own accent. Possibly because its done so badly they've given up introducing themselves as such to the English crowd.
For instance we have a friend called 'Jaime'. (from Colombia) Its pronounced like you're clearing your throat and sounding (to us) like it starts like it starts with a raspy 'H'.
He introduced himself as 'Jamie' and we all call him that, because frankly most of us would sound like twats if we attempted to pronounce it correctly.

I have a relatively rare English name, that most natives of the country I live in now have a) never heard of and b) can't pronounce as it has not one but two problematic sounds in it for them, including the first letter.

If I introduce myself to someone and say my name the normal English way I get absolutely nowhere, am just immediately asked to repeat it and then they try to repeat it back to me and it's inevitably wrong and then they try again and it's wrong in a different way. So I just always pronounce it with the accent and vowel sounds of the country's language now. Even then I still have to repeat it and spell it but they can at least make a fair job of repeating it back.

I'd never get arsey with someone mispronouncing it, but might get a bit annoyed if they got it even wronger than the already wrong version I expect them to use!

Remembers my PIA Mother telling Glaswegians how to pronounce 'Glasgow', 'Glaswegian' and other gems. She is from Kent.
Surprised she made it out alive tbh

that's just making a simple effort to pronounce the name correctly which everyone should do barring speech impediments

Well maybe. But I can't pronounce the German R for example - either the Northern more standard version or the more rolled southern version. So if someone were called Rachel, I'd have a hard time pronouncing her name with anything other than a very English-sounding R. My husband on the other hand, who speaks German far less well than I do, would pronounce it perfectly because he is much better at mimicing accents than I am.

My son is learning Spanish and has the same issue with the Spanish R. Again, DH can do it just like that, despite knowing about 5 words of Spanish!

The Dutch G is a thing of beauty, though they do have regional variations. Try saying the name of the city Groningen! That's something I can't pronounce, either.

I can't roll my Rs either (which is a problem living in Finland where Rs are very much rolled) but I'd class that under speech impediments, can't pronounce 'th' either which isn't great when in the UK but I do my best otherwise to get the pronunciation correct (have had lots of practice with names from many different countries as I spent a couple of years in immigrant school - some people prefer you to say a simplified version of their name rather than try to pronounce it properly but others prefer that you try, its only fair to do as the owner of the name prefers because it really sucks when no one ever says your name right (something my brother experienced his entire life living in the UK with a Finnish name.

What's even worse is when people spell names wrong despite it being written down for them because they're so arrogant they think the name owner must have spelt it wrong - my mum had that problem applying for her UK driver's license, three times they sent it with her name spelt wrong and she kept correcting them and eventually wrote them a stern letter saying that she's a grown woman, with a linguistics degree, and she knows how to spell her own bloody name!)

I remember a thread in Baby Names where a poster wanted to call her baby 'Pearl', but she was getting annoyed with her Scottish MIL who 'mispronounced' pearl as something like 'peril'. You know, because she had an accent where it sounded like that and she was pronouncing it fine. I have to say, the idea of the MIL saying 'Peul' (or however you would convey a non-rhotic English accent pronouncing pearl) just so she would be pronouncing it 'properly' always amused me. I imagine her pulling an interesting expression and rolling her eyes every time, because the DIL was being a dick.

Anyway, I don't think it is necessary in most cases to change accent to pronounce a name appropriately (and in my experience, most people with 'difficult' names (i.e. with sounds that don't exist in English) will suggest alternatives rather than having their name mangled).

There is a difference between calling Jorge 'George' and calling him 'hor-hay'.

Having said all that, I usually would change accent to pronounce a name, and I would certainly ask how someone would prefer their name pronounced if I wasn't sure (e.g. I know at least 5 correct pronunciations of 'Lucia').