To let people mispronounce my name?

[zagot]

I grew up in a country that isn't England. My name in my native language is very similar to an English name. I also grew up speaking English, and when people spoke English they sometimes pronounced my name the way people do since I moved to England.

In my native language, my name is Ann-ee-ya, but in English everyone calls me Anna. When I first came here I would politely correct it, but since then I've given up and just go by Anna. It's spelt Anja

My family back in my native country think I am trying to Anglicise myself. Does anyone else let people call them the 'wrong' name, and it not bother them? AIBU to let people?

I agree, its the same name.

I used to work with a girl called Morag - she was Scottish, so am I. We were working in England. Most of us had no issues with her name, it's not that hard to pronounce. But the poor woman constantly had Megan, Morgan, Maureen, Moira, and even "what sort of stupid name is that anyway??" 🙄

I'm so confused! I know two (British) Amies, but they're both pronounced Amy. I also know a Sera pronounced Sarah....I don't know how you could pronounce those names differently! This might be because I'm common and Northern though.....it is an accent thing?

I'm not sure about 'Sera', but presumably with Amy/Amie, the poster meant the usual English pronunciation 'Ay mee' vs the way the French would pronounce 'amie' meaning 'friend'.

To me in my southern accent the difference between Sera and Sarah is Seh-Ra versus Sair-rah.

I would read it as Sera - S-eh-r-a (a at the end like in "A"rabia"
Sarah as S-ah-r-ah

Actually same "A" (Arabia) for the first A in Sarah

I sometimes wonder why parents choose to spell their children's names in a confusing way, giving them a lifetime of having it pronounced incorrectly. I knew an English couple who named their daughter Rosa but insisted it had a sibilant S, like roe-sa, instead of the obvious Rozer sound. I found this precious and slightly cruel.

I absolutely make the effort to pronounce people's names correctly and definitely think it's rude when others don't bother. I correct them when it's not even my name they're mutilating.

The challenge with many of these naming issues is that some accents don't differentiate between some of these sounds.

In my accent, there's no difference between the a sound at the beginning of Arabia and the a sound at the end of Sarah. I genuinely can't hear a difference.

It's totally up to you. I have a name that has an English pronounciation and a pronounciation that everyone in non-English-speaking countries uses, so I kind of expect anyone from the continent to pronounce that way, although it's not how I pronounce it.

I knew a woman who named her dd Isla, usually pronounced eye-la, right? Nope. "Izz-la."

Never heard that pronunciation before.

The latter has h sound at the end? Like "ah ok" that is in my head.

I am assuming that's from spanish.

@masterbeth no his name is Eben which is pronounced with an 'eh' sound, it's a fairly unusual name but not unheard of. Ee-ben sounds ridiculous to me just like ee-ma or ee-dward or your example of eh-than as that's not ho2they are supposed to be pronounced.

*how they

And no non-native speaker - however long they've been in the UK - ever pronounces my name right. (It's about the R - always tricky - and the stress falling on the correct syllable. Non-native speakers rarely get the stress patterns dead right in English ) But I would be very rude to correct them every time. So I don't.

However, your name, up to you.

And I worked with a Merrie once. Naturally everyone spelt and pronounced it Mary.

English family. No idea where the pronunciation came from but the child is going to have a lifetime of correcting it.

I'd pronounce it Merry, unless I was told otherwise

I've never heard the name Eben before, so I wouldn't know how to pronounce it if I only saw it written down. But there's no reason not to pronounce it properly if you've been told how.

It's like Evan, not Ethan.

Of course - but if you heard someone say - "Oh Merrie in accounts needs the figures by 4" - you might think they'd said Mary. Of course you might not - but a lot of people did!!

That´s how Isla is pronounced in Spanish. I only learned that the pronunciation eye-la existed when I read one of these names thread some months ago.