Name with 2 pronunciations

[Tesdor28]

Hi all, I am the end of my pregnancy with baby girl n.2. My husband and I are both Italian and currently live in the UK, although we don't know how long we will stay here. Among the names we are considering, there is one that exists with the same spelling in both English and Italian, but I believe it is pronounced differently in English than in Italian. The name is Gilda, and in Italian it is pronounced with a soft G, while in English, if I am correct, with a hard G. I am a bit worried that if we choose this name it will be confusing for my daughter. We don't mind the sound of the English pronounciation either, but for sure we would pronounce it the Italian way. What is your take on this? For my first daughter we don't have this problem as the difference in pronounciation of her name is less important.

Another think to think about is the English love a nickname. Do you like Gill and Gilly (which are often used as shortenings of Gillian) here?

I think if you are planning on staying here you are setting yourselves up for a lot of correcting.
My family is from Italy and all my children have Italian names but I discounted a lot because I didn't like the pronunciation here.

My name is Italian and I think pretty straight forward (female head of Versace) but my god does it confuse some people!

If you are just planning on staying here for a little while I would go for it.

If you love the name, just correct people when they say it!

We've just had a baby girl - fairly common but we've had to correct people already as they automatically add an 'ia' at the end of it (when it's just 'e'!). So don't worry about having to correct things - I'd stick to the name you love and just remind people in the UK if they pronounce it wrong :) good luck!

My son's name is pronounced completely differently by my husband's non English family than it is by my English family.
We also call him Spiderman. He seems to understand all of them so Id just go with the name you like.

In Celtic Dorset, Gillingham is pronounced with a hard G. In Anglo-Saxon Kent, Gillingham is pronounced with a soft J. Gillian may be pronounced Jillian in some parts, but in Wales Gwil is hard. I would look at the name and ask, because I wouldn't know what sound your DD prefers from reading the name.

I think it depends where in the country you are how much of an issue it'll be; South East is most likely fine but less so elsewhere; 15-20% of the population were born overseas though, so kids these days are very accustomed to a range of names and pronunciations / and unexpected mispronunciations crop up regularly too. As someone with a name that can be pronounced 2 ways, other kids/ adults correcting randoms is just as annoying as errors though, so I'd suggest a different name.

Thank you everyone who has commented so far! I like both pronunciations, although at home we would use the soft G one. So I wouldn't feel the urge to correct, say, a GP who would pronounce the name the English way. I also quite like the nicknames Gill or Gilly, so all in all I think no big issues there, just sometimes she will have 2 names to answer to probably!

I also considered Ilda as a PP suggested, it doesn't convince me fully for now although I don't dislike it, and it's true that it would solve the problem!

These can't rhyme in my accent because of the r at the end of builder

And they definitely don't rhyme with an Italian -a ending.

Both our sons have names which make sense both in the UK and in DH's ancestral home country, but the ways they are said are both different.
In DH's relatives' homes and country, they are always pronounced in that way, and it hadn't confused either DS that I've noticed, and it's nice to have a name which makes sense in both countries / cultures / religions. Both of them use the foreign way of saying it when speaking in that language and the English way otherwise.
I do think you might be making life more complicated for yourself (and for DD) in wanting to use the Italian pronunciation in the UK, though - if your DD appears and sounds (accent etc) to be a native English speaker, people are going to pronounce the name in the English way.