Spelling my DS name

[FootrotDog]

My DS is nearly 6.
He is irritated with people mispronouncing his name (there's a kid a couple of years older in school with the same name but he goes by the mispronunciation).
DS has argued with me for about the past 8 months on how to spell his name!!
He wants to spell it slightly differently to reflect how it should be said.
I much prefer the "correct" spelling.
AIBU to insist he spells his name correctly?
YABU: It doesn't matter, let him do it if it makes him happy
YANBU: Of course you should insist he spells it properly.

I went to school with a kid called Jacques, his parents were not French at all but my Dad is and he he regularly balked at their pretentiousness. Anyway he changed the spelling to Jac in secondary school because nobody every pronounced it jhark as it should be, he was always just Jack.

Anyway, I say let him change the spelling temporarily. It’s his name after all and he has to live with it constantly being mispronounced.

DS1 was going to be called Xavier but we chose another name at the last minute for exactly this reason as we were afraid people who pronounce it ex-avier

@FootrotDog

Pretty sure you were gonna need the name, hence my NC!

It's Xavier.
We pronounce it zay-vier
The older kid is an exay-vier

He wants to write it Zavier

You're both pronouncing it wrong.

It's French and therefore pronounced something like:
Zah-vee-ay (with the middle consonant really short so it's more like Zah-Vyay)

Either way, it's definitely a 'Zah' sound first, not a 'Zay'.

@80sMum

Interesting! I've always pronounced the name Xavier as "Havvy-air". Have I been saying it wrong for the last 30 years?! 🤣

That is the Spanish pronunciation, so it isn't incorrect.

You're both pronouncing it wrong.

It's French and therefore pronounced something like:
Zah-vee-ay (with the middle consonant really short so it's more like Zah-Vyay)

Either way, it's definitely a 'Zah' sound first, not a 'Zay'.

No, as explained above there are several correct pronunciations, including French, Spanish and English (and if you want to be purist it's not French, anyway. It's Spanish). Zavier to rhyme with saviour is a legitimate, long-standing Anglicised pronunciation - see all of the Catholic churches dedicated to St Francis Xavier.

Plenty of names have correct pronunciations in different languages, e.g. French dah-veed compared to the English day-vid for the name David.

Does the ‘English’ pron rhyme with saviour? I would say ‘za- VEE - ur’ over ‘za- viour’. I mean I’d want to pronounce it in a French way ‘za-vee -ay’ but if I had to pick an anglicised version rhyming it with saviour seems like the least nice way to say the name…

I feel like the X spelling is better too but the Z works too.

The English pron I’m thinking of rhymes more with ‘behaviour’ than ‘saviour’.

I dont think spelling it the way he wants to change it to will solve the problem, and he will still get several different pronunciations.

Let him spell and say it how he wants.
We have a Xavier in our family.
He likes to go by X.

@Parpophone it is the wrong the pronunciation though.

I know someone called Sean whose parents thought it was pronounced "Seen".

@FootrotDog

Pretty sure you were gonna need the name, hence my NC!

It's Xavier.
We pronounce it zay-vier
The older kid is an exay-vier

He wants to write it Zavier

Neither of those pronunciations are particularly right, actually.

I used to work with a chap from Spain and his name was pronounced 'Hav-ee-ay'.

He needs to spell his name correctly as per his birth certificate - or he'll have trouble with it later on in terms of school records and exam certificates - but he needs to correct people when they mispronounce it

We have an Xavier in our family. It's pronounced right by most people and he doesn't get stressed if people mispronounce it - it's only a slight mispronouncing- nowhere near as bad as the Niamh's, siobhans and Saoirse's get!! , just corrects them

Why give him a difficult name, mine is easy folk get it wrong, they get corrected!
I get called Diane rather than Diana, hated and still do at nearly 60

Ahhh I know someone who says it the EX way. I would let him spell it Z I quite like it !!!

@MaggieMooh

Your son goes by a mispronunciation too, because it’s correctly pronounced Zha-vee-air 🤷‍♀️

Yy this Zavvy ay

It's unfortunate, however, he should be taught to pronounce it properly. Anyone not bothering especially teachers and support staff, after being advised, should be pulled up on it. Deliberate mispronunciation is a tactic used by some racists towards people with a non-UK heritage.

I know a Xavier who is French and he pronounces his name Zavv - ee -- eh.

I would let DS spell it how he likes.

Or Zavvy - ay probably looks closer

I have never heard it pronounced any other way to be honest.

From a legal perspective for future use and exam papers etc he needs to use the correct spelling. Maybe you could consider changing the spelling by deed poll. Personally I would consider the first pronunciation as the correct more common version.

@FootrotDog

Pretty sure you were gonna need the name, hence my NC!

It's Xavier.
We pronounce it zay-vier
The older kid is an exay-vier

He wants to write it Zavier

Ha ha was just coming on to say is it xavier!

I have a Spanish friend with the same name and it’s pronounced Haveeair 😁

Id say a few xmen fans would X - zavier. Is it that he just wants to be different form the older boy?

@FortniteBoysMum

From a legal perspective for future use and exam papers etc he needs to use the correct spelling. Maybe you could consider changing the spelling by deed poll. Personally I would consider the first pronunciation as the correct more common version.

He will, but given that he is six I think there’s a fair bit of time to worry about that just yet. My sister declared that she wanted to be called Bessie when she was six. Her name is not Bessie and the phase passed in a few months.

Get the school to change it on the register. You don’t have to get it officially changed.

Pick your battles.
Let him spell it how he likes.
One of my sons changed his name to Nick at around the same age. Lasted about a year.
Obviously your spelling and pronunciation is far better (and strictly speaking the original pronunciation) and it's a beautiful name. He'll eventually come back to it.

@Nsky

Why give him a difficult name, mine is easy folk get it wrong, they get corrected! I get called Diane rather than Diana, hated and still do at nearly 60

I genuinely didn't think it was a difficult name, to be fair!