Pronouncing a name in someone’s own language

[Brightun]

There’s an issue in my team. One member’s name is the same spelling as an English name but the pronunciation in their language is markedly different. Some team members are struggling with this and say they feel stupid/pretentious putting on an accent to say the name. I think they should make the effort and get over it. They are refusing. Team member is saying they feel discriminated. Who is BU?

The team members refusing to use the right pronunciation are awful. They need to be urgently told that what they’re doing is unacceptable at work and if they persist will result in disciplinary action.

They don’t need to ‘put on an accent’, they just need to pronounce it properly eg Marie if you’re French=marry, English is Mar-ee. No need for Inspector Clouseau style accents.

You pronounce a name how it is supposed to be pronounced according to the person whose name it is. The accent/foreign-ness is a bit of a red herring. I know a person called Alicia pronounced Ah-lee-sha and a person called Alicia pronounced Ah-lih-see-uh - I pronounce it how each says that they pronounce it. No one has to "put on an accent" - you could pronounce Laura the Hispanic way without putting on a Mexican accent to do so (for example).

I think an allowance should be made for accent, but putting a bit of effort into the correct pronunciation is polite. For example, I have a colleague with a French surname - say, Lambert - which would be pronounced differently in French and English. We use the French pronunciation (no 't') but we don't roll the 'r'. It's not 'correct', but it's closer than the English pronunciation. How far away is the English version in this case?

Does the team member pronounce other people's names the exact same way they pronounce them themselves?

It is hard to pronounce things in a different accent when it's a familiar word. Some names are pronounced differently depending on regional accent within the UK.

Your team need to pronounce the name the way the owner of it does. If I were introduced to Anna from Frozen, I’d pronounce it Arna (Ahh-na) as she does, not insist it’s Ann-a as I ‘normally ‘ pronounce it. How rude your team are!

As a manager of a large international team it would be wholly unacceptable to me to allow the purposeful mispronunciation of another team members name. You have a team member telling you they are being discriminated, you need to address this.

Your team are so rude.

Someone's name is what they say it is. That it looks different to how it sounds when they then see it written down is irrelevant.

It's like if someone said their name was (sound) Lewis, youd call them that sound. If you then discovered it was spelled Louis, you wouldn't suddenly change to calling them Loo-ee. Their name is said like Lewis. End of.

I’m conflicted. Whenever we holiday in France they always pronounce our names the French way even tho we introduce ourselves with English pronunciation. So my husband Henry is always called “on-ree”

my name is Mary they all call me “Mar-ee”

We’ve never thought it rude. It’s just different accents.

It's sometimes just not possible, it's not rude.
Some people pronounce TH as F, that doesn't mean they're rude for pronouncing names like Theo and Beth as Feo and Beff.
My name is often mangled by non English speakers, I don't mind, it's just their accent.

Do you think strangers you meet once on holiday who accidentally pronounce your names "their" way is the same as a work colleague purposefully calling you the wrong name even though they've been told not to, and you see them all the time?

Yes the issue is that one of them is arguing that they wouldn’t ask northern English team members say Alex-arn-der rather than Alex-an-der or Tarn-ya as opposed to Tan-ya so it’s just a question of accent.

Team member is unreasonable. It is a mark of respect to try and get it right.

If they were making an effort and mangling it then I’m pretty sure your team member wouldn’t be cross. It’s all about making an effort, isn’t it?

It depends a little on what the individual thinks and wants. E.g. if their name is a spanish Jesus and they instroduce themselves as "Haysoos" it would be pretty rude to carry on calling them [English] Jesus. But also e.g. my son's name is scandinavian and I don't expect people to pronounce it exactly as it is in Danish. The English pronounciation is fine, and its what my son uses.

Fine in eurocamp, not fine in the work place.

Say it how they say it. One of my friends for instance is called Laura. She is from Spain where they pronounce it differently than we would and we go with how she pronounces it. It is her name after all.

Of course it's rude.

It's fine if they're not quite able to get the accent right or if there are particular sounds that they might struggle to say, but they absolutely need to make an effort. It is utterly unacceptable for them to refuse to show basic respect for a colleague in this way, and I would be disciplining them for it if they persistently chose not to at least try to get it right. And I would be sending them on an equality and diversity course of some kind.

Some people pronounce TH as F, that doesn't mean they're rude for pronouncing names like Theo and Beth as Feo and Beff.

Disagree - both rude and lazy.

Bollocks is it rude or lazy.

Would you hold people from other countries to the same standard?

How about if you met a Beth that pronounced it Beff because of her accent, would you also say Beff?

They bloody should if the person whose name it is says so though. If Tanya from Yorkshire is being repeatedly and insistently called Tarnya by Jess from Kent and has been asked to stop and refuses then Jess needs speaking to about it. You pronounce someone's name how they tell you to pronounce it - it's not negotiable. It's like how if someone's name is Thomas then you don't insist on calling them Tom just because other Thomases shorten it to Tom.

Are they saying the English name in their accent or the European name in their accent ? For example Helena should be pronounced as close to Hel-ay-nuh if that's how it sounds in that person's accent.
Some languages don't have certain sounds eg my name has a "th" which is not a sound in some languages so I would accept an approximation like "ff" or "ss"

I had a member of my team who was Spanish and her name was Laura. It was generally respectful to pronounce her name the Spanish way, 'L-ow-ra' rather than the English 'L-aw-ra'.

This didn't mean going all out, rolling r's and 'putting on an accent' just changing the vowel sound.

I would treat it like a totally different name than the English version so the pronunciation is different.

I think there’s a difference between accents (for example the name Alexander will be pronounced differently in a northern and southern English accent) and just plain pronouncing the name incorrectly. Without knowing the name and how people are pronouncing it, it’s impossible to judge. I can’t roll my r’s, some can’t make the th sound, so pronouncing some names as they should for some people simply isn’t possible. People should make as much effort as possible to pronounce names correctly, though.

Personally, I have a name analogous to Claudia, where I pronounce the first syllable to sound like ‘claw’ but many other accents it would rhyme with ‘cloud’. I work in a large, multicultural workplace and I don’t mind if I’m called Clawdia or Cloudia, though I would try to remember if another Claudia had a preference.

If they want people to try and pronounce it correctly then they should