To continue calling DD by the name I gave her

[bannsise]

My DD is 22, her first name is Isabella, I chose the name as I love it and think it’s very pretty. Since she was little I’d always call her Isabella or Bella, her dad who I wasn’t with called her “Isa” (ee-sa).
As a teen she insisted I didn’t call her Bella, I happily just used Isabella.
Now she is insisting I call her Isa, she says she doesn’t like Isabella, no one apart from me has called her it in 10+ years. She also complains I say it wrong anyway (her dad is European and pronounces it ee-sa-bell-a, I say is-a-bell-a). I replied that I can’t say her name wrong as I picked it!!

AIBU to say I will continue to call her Isabella (with the English pronunciation) and not by Isa as that isn’t the name I chose for her and I don’t like it.

@bannsise This is about your ex. I get it. But please call your daughter what she wants, as it will only cause you more issues x

The pronunciations are completely different. The "ch" is the same, but the "a" is pronounced differently, the "r" is different. The "l" is the same" but the "o" different, and usually the "t" is different too, as some British people pronounce the "t" with a glottal stop and some don't. And the stress is on the first syllable in English, and the second syllable in French. Completely different, and yes, it would sound ridiculous.

It's impressive how, even though it's the daughter's choice to want her mother to call her by the name that every single other person uses, it's still a man's fault!

My daughter is called Evelyn. She decided when she was about 12 that she wanted to be called Adrastus. So we called her that. Now she's back to Evelyn at her request (now 16). It's really about respect for your child.

why should they?

This isn't the hill to die on, OP.

She's an adult, let her go by whichever name she chooses. It's not up to you.

She wants more of an adult relationship with you, and for you to respect her choices. Most of Europe (Romance, Germanic, Slavic languages) pronounces it as eessa/eezza, English is the outlier! Concede for now, she might change her mind in 5-10 years. Especially if she's going to live more internationally rather than sticking to southern Europe. I'm someone with a 'difficult' name with different pronunciations. You learn to love them all as you make friends from around the world.

Can imagine that she's in denial about her British side - it's still the embarrassing Brexit cousin to a lot of Europe... Sounds like she doesn't have dual citizenship?

I hated my full name as a teenager. It was a name from my parents’ era rather than mine. Think Carol or Sharon when all of your peers are Beckys, Lauras or Sophies. I chose to go by a short version of my name however my two best friends refused to adopt it as they didn’t feel it suited me and that it was weird. Everyone else who I asked, did.

I look back now and it is a comment on my friends’ love and attitude toward me. I asked them to stop doing something that made me uncomfortable/ sad. They refused, putting a mild inconvenience for them over my feelings. That is what I remember now. That what I wanted was unimportant to them.

I understand that you love the name Isabella and that is why you chose it for her. That choice was yours. You don’t, however have continuing ownership over her name. It is her name and you pronounce it differently to everyone she knows. You are making her unhappy in persisting to make a small change to what you call her. You are telling her that your wishes are more important than what she has chosen as her name. So what if you chose that- you chose it for a baby and she is now a full grown adult who you do not own or control. You got to call her that name all of her life until now.

It is a beautiful name and I understand why you chose it and love it and that it hurts now that she doesn’t want to use it. Decide what is more important: your pride and a weird fixation that a decision you made decades ago is the only correct one or your relationship with your daughter and her feelings.

She is saying ‘This makes me uncomfortable/ unhappy. Here is how you can help’. You are saying ‘No. My hurt feelings are more important.’

Btw, I love my name now. It’s unique for my age and not being pressured to just accept it gave me enough space to appreciate it.

I think you should respect what she wants!

I see. So I'd assume if your DH met an English Charlotte, he wouldn't pronounce her name as she asked? Or if you met a French Charlotte you'd pronounce it the English way?

I mean, you can keep saying this sort of thing, but at the end of the day it's personal preference. It would be extremely rude to deliberately mispronounce someone's name when you've been told the right way to say it.

Your DC has made a choice as to what she prefers to be called, and I think you should respect that, with the emphasis not on the name, but the respect.
She's still your daughter, no matter what name she goes by, and you must accept that OP.

Interesting, my daughter is 10, has a European dad but lives in this country and has a name that works in either but pronounced slightly differently. I am from part of the uk with a very strong regional accent as well. My daughter sometimes asks my husband to call her her name as I say it...but she is effectively asking him to change his accent which is not very nice.

A pp said you could call her 'ee' sa as its a sound you can say. Yes you can but it feels weird ans unnatural when you can see the sound in your head, like you're putting on a fake Italian accent, which feels like you're taking the piss.

I would talk to her about this. Say your will call her Isa. Explain why it's difficult for you to call her eesa and why, and it's feeling a bit like she is shaming you for your British accent. But stress that if she really wants you to then you will try although it makes you feel uncomfortable. I think that's all you can do. It doesn't matter that you chose her original name. She might go back to it one day.

As an aside I have come across a couple of people who insisted that people pronounce their name, in their (other countries) accent. It felt so uncomfortable and like I was taking the piss amd doing a bad impression of their accent. And although I don't like how the majority of English people pronounce my name, and its very different to how I'd pronounce my name in my accent, there is no way I'd be asking them to try and copy it. It's very difficult to make sounds that aren't sounds in your native language (which isn't the case for you with 'ee').

They're not valid if she doesn’t want it pronounced that way.

What is difficult about saying eesa?

This sounds very controlling. Your daughter isn't your property, you don't get to call her whatever you want to call her.

I am sorry that you are in this situation - there is clearly a lot of emotion involved about where she was brought up, her language, the pronunciation of her name etc. She has grown up in Italy, with the name Isabella and she pronounces her name the Italian way - which she has been surrounded by, her entire life...

I get that you choose Isabella with its English pronunciation and have always called her that - it is not straightforward and I can see both sides.... but you gave her that name - it is not yours... I think you should respect her wishes... painful as it is for you...

What is important is your relationship with your daughter not the pronunciation of her name

@bannsise I think DD is being unreasonable in insisting her British mother uses the Italian pronunciation. (When she was a teen, you say she insisted you called her Isabella not Bella; did she insist on the Italian pronunciation back then?)

Nevertheless, I voted YABU because it's really not worth 'making a stand' about it and alienating DD.

She's very young, and hopefully the name obsession will subside with maturity and some more experience of non-Italians with different accents to her.

The putting on a fake accent to say her name is tricky - I am Irish, I live in France - people ask me how I pronounce my name and they try but I don't mind if they use a French approximations - I also ask English people to pronounce my name using the Irish pronunciation, and oddly, I do mind, if they insist on not pronouncing my name in my preferred way..

I cannot imagine calling my friend Florence in anything other than the French pronunciation but another friend has a daughter Florence - pronounced the English way. - except by her French teachers - and she is fine with that - we live a bilingual life..

It is not straightforward - but you are her mother - unconditional love... and there is no manual - we have to make it up as we go, hoping we get it more right than wrong!

Yes, I agree you don’t have to put on an accent to say Eesa @GiddyRobin. We don’t really know how close OP is to her daughter.

You had said when you go to Norway people use the correct pronunciation of your Irish name (without putting on an accent). I just think if there were a Norwegian equivalent of your Irish name you might find that people there tended to use that more than the Irish language version. They may do this naturally without intending to be disrespectful. It’s in this way I think the situation with Isabella is a bit different to many Irish or Norwegian names.

In this case, now that DD has asked for a particular version of her name to be used, it would be respectful to use it if possible, so I think we’re in agreement there.

I have hated my name with a passion since the day I became sentient. There is no rational reason for it as others with the same name seem fine with theirs. I haven’t been called that name by anyone who knows me since about 1973 and if I get called it at a doctor’s surgery (for eg), I still bristle with discomfort.

I sometimes wonder if there is a very historical reason (could be going back centuries lol) as to why I loathe the name (on me, not others) so much.

I have often thought about changing it but my medical notes are probably the only thing my full name is on and I don’t want to cause confusion over that.

Carry on as long as you don't expect a response!

Parents pick a name for their children, but ultimately adults can choose their own names.

Am I missing something here? If she asked you to call her Rainbow-Flower-Bunny-Bear or something equally silly, you should do it (with an internal eye-roll) because it is HER name.

@HowwillIgetyoualone I do agree with you on that; it's very possible they might naturally pronounce it differently in that scenario. I think the respect/disrespect would come in if, for example, I worked in an office there and asked to have my name pronounced the Irish way but everyone insisted on the Norwegian way. And vice versa, if it was a Norwegian person here.

My DH's name is Jonas. He's had people pronounce it literally "Jo-nass"; in Norway it's "Yonah". He gets irate when people won't say it properly, but for the most part they do when corrected. I can understand the OP's daughter's annoyance based on this, despite the different situation.

But yes, I do think we're in agreement here!

This is actually a very good question, @Drfosters, and it has really made me think.

For me, choosing to go by the shortened version of my name was symbolic of a big change I made in my life at that time - I gave up nursing, where I was unhappy, and went to university. I can remember thinking on day 1 that this was a new chapter, and so I would mark it with a new, everyday, name.

My life was a lot happier after I'd given up nursing than it ever had been before, and I guess that influences how I feel about the shortened name - it epitomises the new happiness I felt.

But both my parents were still alive at that point, and I did not want to hurt them by rejecting the name they had given me - plus, if I am honest, I was still afraid of my mum, and didn't want to face the huge fall-out there would have been, if I had officially changed my name. Mum was a very forceful personality, and she had never respected me as a person - I had never been able to express my feelings to her because she would simply refuse to acknowledge any validity in what I was saying - and her reaction, when I finally did pluck up the courage to ask her to use the shortened version, was not positive. Basically she refused, point blank, and didn't change her mind about it for years - and even when she did start using the shortened version I had chosen, she made a big song and dance about how difficult it was for her.

She only died a couple of years ago (dad died back in 2000), and there is no way I could have legally changed my name while she was still alive - and now almost everyone knows me by the name I have chosen, so it doesn't seem worth the effort.