I regret my daughter's name :-(

[storyofus]

It's Esmé.. (ez-May) she gets es - me all the time.. there's quite a few others.. I just wish I'd called her something else

I think that's a bit sad to be honest? I wouldn't predicate my child's name on unfulfilled class aspirations. Just choose something meaningful, and that actual people around you are able to pronounce.

As someone from a multilingual background, I've never got the snottiness around foreign names. Even if you took French to a high level, unless you actually grew up in France, it's virtually certain you're mangling it yourself anyway. French vowels for example are enunciated differently to English vowels, so the way you pronounce even the 2 basic syllables in Ez-may would sound off to an actual French person.

Surely this would make people even more likely to pronounce it "Ez-meeee"?

Esmae would be a better spelling of it and more likely to result in a preferred pronunciation.

It's a great name, no cause for regret, seriously. People can mispronounce absolutely anything these days, and if they're not doing that, they're misspelling it. 🙂

But that's not how the name is spelt and most people know that.

Hi OP

I felt exactly like you. Major name regret, and the way people pronounced it (I'm not from where I live now so the way I say it is different to everyone else)

Looking back, she was a very difficult baby as well (sleeping issues, eating issues, etc etc) and I think I actually had a bit of regret about having a second child.

Anyway when she was old enough to start saying her name, it became 'her's' in my head rather than something I gave her...and she likes it! Even though she says it how I dont like. I still sometimes hear a name I love and think 'why didn't i think of that!?' but now I've made peace with it

No help to you of course but Beyonce said she used to stomp around the playground shouting 'it's beyon-say! rhymes with fiancée!'

My name doesn’t have traditional spelling and uses the French one (not Esmè!) so gets mispronunced a lot.
It’s annoying but as I’ve got older I just correct people and it doesn’t bother me really.
Don’t over think it

Aw..it’s a lovely name

I think it's a lovely name!

I changed my sons name just before 12 months old so I was able to change birth certificate, could always change by deed poll? Although it is a lovely name

It’s a bery beautiful name. Both my son & daughter have names from nature, but people would constantly mispronounce their names regardless! Just gently correct them with the proper pronunciation, over time people you see often will soon start say it right.

I had a wonderful Great Auntie Esme, the name made our short list but sounded peculiar with our surname!

Apologies, sausage fingers strike again lol.

Once she goes to school she'll correct people herself and they'll eventually get it!

Is that copied and pasted from one of those nonsensical “baby naming” sites -ie, any made up tosh?

Thank you all. I found it really hard to think of a girls name and even now there's not many I love.

I liked Aurelia, Isadora and Scarlett.. I don't know if it's worth it to change it though. And there's none that me and her dad could agree on either!

It’s one of those things. My name is not mispronounced, but is mistaken for two other more popular similar names. I get called them all the time. My name’s not exotic, just less well known. I called my child a quite easy name (although my name is easy too!) as a result.

i actually liked much more flowery names, but DH only wanted this one!

No, I wrote it myself using my superior knowledge of etymology! 😝

As someone whose mother changed their name at four, don't. It's quite confusing.

I don't think it's one of those names that is going to cause her endless grief , you just correct it and that's that as there are generally two accepted pronunciations.

Names are never worth worrying about OP, I changed mine as soon as I could when I was an adult - and it wasn't anything outlandish or difficult to pronounce. People did get it wrong occasionally but never after correction, just simply because it was a name where there were two very similar names - think Joanne vs Joanna or similar I suppose. I changed it because I'd never liked it and never gelled with it, the pronunciation or people hearing it wrong never bothered me much.

My daughters name is NAOMI... oh my, Niomi, Neomi... its supposed to be pronounced Nayerme... But I have always called her Nayohmee...... Your daughter has a beautiful name. Carry on correcting !!

For ages (and occasionally still) my DS name was pronounced the girl's way. And yes it was annoying when he was clearly a boy, I just corrected them.
I've never regretted his name though. His nearly 9 and I still think it's a beautiful name.

So is your daughter's

It’s a lovely name but any name that doesn’t have an obviously typical English pronunciation is always going to be prone to people who speak English as their first language mispronouncing it, just as English names would be pronounced differently in another language. The accent as well means that people who don’t have accents as part of their first language will not use that or understand how it affects the sound of the letter e, so her name will often be written Esme and pronounced es-me by English speaking people. The fact it’s a beautiful make will hopefully make up for all the hassle.