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.

So she was born in Italy and has lived there her whole life? You lived there until she was 16? How long did you live there before you had your daughter? Didn't you learn Italian whilst you were there? If you did, then I don't see what's the problem with using the Italian pronunciation as surely after 16 years, you would be fluently using an Italian accent and comfortable doing so? And very used to hearing it pronounced the way your adult, Italian daughter is asking you to?

Did you honestly spend 16 years pronouncing it the English way, when everyone around you was pronouncing it the Italian way? Did you do it on purpose to prove some kind of point. Has it really only just come up now at the age of 22?

I would be quite sad if my child refused to answer to the name I chose, because of course I think it's beautiful. But it's their name and their choice at the end of the day, and she's an adult. Also, I presume you expected it to be pronounced in the Italian way most of the time since you lived in Italy?

It's always a risk choosing a name where you are not keen on any common short forms.

I would use the name she has requested because having a good relationship with my daughter would be the most important thing.

You could use her full name when you write to her but get used to using her nick name, Isa, when speaking to her. Would she accept, Is, just from you?

If she doesn't like your accent then you need to tell her that you are British. Remind her that you have stopped calling her Bella and Isabella and not to mock your accent.

Sounds to me that this insistence on using her full name is more about you feeling she is pushing you further away by using Isa as a name rather than the one you gave her.

And? Many parents still do that (usually in jest)

It's still the name you gave her. I would respect her wishes and use the shortened version with the Italian pronunciation. Not doing so may cause a rift between you and your daughter which I'm sure you don't want.

Do you have any Irish heritage? Call her Eesa Creest (close enough to how you would pronounce Íosa Críost) meaning Jesus Christ in Irish. Is your relationship otherwise good or bad? Tell her if she wants to call herself Jesus, that’s her business - but you have religious objections 😉.

Just kidding but this is tricky because on the one hand, you should probably just keep the peace and she may chill out about it in the future…but on the other hand, she sounds massively immature (horrified anyone might ever think she was British for example) and I’d be shocked if this is the only problem.

Good luck x

I can't work out how any form of accent is needed to say Eesa. It is dead easy to say without doing a pseudo-Italian accent. It will just take a little mental adjustment, but if that is the name she wishes to go by as an adult, you should respect her choice.

Neither of my children are known by the names I chose for them. One because we started using a diminutive and he still prefers it, the other because he chose a diminutive in his teens. I respect both of their preferences.

Quite honestly, the fact that you left her, aged 16, in a different country, for whatever reason, is a far bigger problem. With that in the background, this is not a battle to pick.

If you choose to have an Italian child I don't understand why you would be upset when she wants an Italian name.

My DS has a name that change change a bit too and he prefers the Dutch version...because he's Dutch.

So that's what I call him.

My dad is the only one who calls me by my full name and is a name I hate. My name is shortened and my dad refuses to call me by the shortened version. It annoys me as I feel disrespected. I've picked my battles and decided not to argue over it.

You call your daughter what she wants you to call her. It's disrespectful if you don't.

I think ee-sa as a short form of Isabella sounds pretentious and odd. It doesn't even sound like a real name.

You are aware that the UK is only one country (and culture) of many; and that many of those countries don't speak English as their national language or use the same names that we do?

I have a name that has been abbreviated to a shortened version for as long as I can remember. The only time I ever get the long version is when I know my mum's really cross 😆. Occasionally new people will call me by my full name and still persist with it even when I say "Oh just call me X" and it annoys the hell out of me. Sorry OP but I'm with your daughter here.

I changed my name (completely) at 14. I very quickly had no relationship with people who refused to call me by my new name.

Your daughter has made a very simple request. Not respecting that is likely to be a very big thing for her and very damaging for your relationship.

It's pretty easy to see why she's a little bitter about Britain? She's spent her childhood with a mother fighting to take her there away from everything and everyone she knows, who then abandoned her to return at the earliest opportunity.

Plus huge swathes of this place are shitholes and our services are mostly a joke at this point. She's not far wrong without the above, I take no pride in being British and I've never met anyone who has to be honest.

I don't think this is an accent issue though. Imo, an accent difference would be when someone always pronounces a vowel sound in a certain way and would struggle to pronounce it otherwise.

This isn't like that. I have no doubt that OP can pronounce Lisa.

I think you can call her whatever you like. She can't make you use a particular short version of her name.

However, if you choose not to treat her with the basic respect of addressing her as she wishes to be addressed, then she may quite reasonably decide that the relationship simply isn't worth maintaining.

And I doubt that anyone would blame her.

I work with someone called George - except he's South American so it's pronounced Hor-Hey. If we were to all pronounce it Jaw-Juh we'd be quite rightly disciplined. It's not that flipping difficult to accept names are pronounced differently in different countries and you should call people what they ask you to call them.

Apart from anything else, a 4-syllable name is always going to end up being shortened in everyday use - that was one of the in-jokes in Mike Leigh's (glorious) Nuts In May: where Keith insisted on using Candice-Marie's full name every single time he spoke to or about her.

It's perfectly fine to pronounce a foreign name or word in the correct way, but without adopting an accent that isn't your own. If you can say 'Lisa', you can say 'Ee-sa' - nobody is expecting you to say 'Eeeeeeeee-sssaaaaaaaahhhhhh' like Mama Dolmio.

You should call her by the name she wants with the pronunciation she wants. She lives in Italy and has done all her life it seems.
It's not surprising she doesn't "identify" as British. She's Italian (presumably also has Italian nationality) and possibly a British citizen too but she feels more Italian and wants to use the Italian pronunciation of the name.
You have to accept that and accept the fact she is more Italian than British.

I think you, as her mother who picked her name, have a special role and you are entitled to call her by her birth name.

Imagine she’s not your daughter but a new work colleague. She says “hi I’m Isa” and pronounces it Eeesa, it would be very odd and rude for you to call her “Izza” when you know that’s not how she pronounces her name.

Accord your daughter the same respect you would a stranger.

I moved to America when I was 32. I'm now 50. I've found that Americans don't like being American, and now you're saying that some British people, including you, don't like being British. I can see both nations from an outsider's perspective, and they both have some awesome things about them. I find it very sad that you'd be so down on Britain. It doesn't have the extremely deep-seated racism that America has, and even if the NHS is underfunded, it's a truly wonderful concept. Britain is extremely tolerant compared to many nations. We have beautiful countryside where we can walk without fear of being torn apart by coyotes and bears, and we don't have extremes of weather like other countries do, nor do we have to worry about wildfires, earthquakes, and tornados. Count your blessings!

I changed my birth name because it was a very traditional English name and I don’t have drop of English blood, quite the opposite I’m Mediterranean. My mother refers to me still as my birth name, I’m low to no contact with her. Go figure.

Sorry but it doesn’t matter that you don’t like it - she does and it’s her choice. My sister changed her very feminine name by dead poll to something like Bob. Not because she had gender issues just because she was being a rebellious teen. My mum was devastated but yes we call her Bob.

Do you think someone's mother has more say over what they should be called than they themselves do?