AIBU for pronouncing the name Brooke as BrOOKe rather than Bruck

[MoserRothOrangeandAlmond]

I’m a Geordie and pronounce words such as Book, Look and Cook with an oo sound rather than the uck sound.
A family who are from about an hour a way said that her daughter is sick of everyone pronouncing her name incorrectly.

I explained that it’s an accent thing as we pronounce those words with an oo sound rather that uck so it wouldn’t occur to most people to pronounce it that way and they wouldn’t deliberately mispronounce her name!

Just as if I go another part of the country or different country they pronounce my name differently depending on their accent.

AIBU?

Well, I'm from the South and we would all say Bruck, not brewk or Broooooooook. At the end of the day it should be pronounced how the child or her parents intended.

Considering that loads of people in NI say buckin’ instead of fuckin’ (as in ‘where’s my buckin’ money?’) a person called Brooke might prefer to just let them say their name with the oo sound. There’s something a bit intimidating in the way we pronounce the ‘uck’ sound. When that person asks for their buckin’ money, you give them their buckin’ money😂

There does seem to be a level of ignorance on this thread about differing pronunciations, but you are referring to words NOT names (grass, grahhss) etc.

Names should be pronounced how the person pronounces them, otherwise you may as well just call them a different word altogether, if OP can say truck, then she can certainly say Bruck.. If she didn't know how it was spelled, and she was told her name was Bruck, then she would just call her Bruck, so calling her brooook because of how it is spelled is just ridiculous.

Case in point, the name Niamh.. NO ONE says it based on how it is spelled, it is always 'Neeve' around these parts, yet no one seems to have any bother pronouncing it? It would be pig ignorant to purposely call them Neeeammmh when you knew it was pronounced Neeve.

Back to the point of the thread, I think it's completely normal to pronounce names in your usual accent. When I visited the US with my mum, who's called Anne, she didn't insist on people pronouncing her name with a British accent despite it being surprisingly different in an American accent because of how the initial A is pronounced (something like 'Ay-ann'). But it's cool, people have different accents and it would sound silly if we tried to change our accents all the time just to say names.

"checking" if her friend meant to be pronouncing words differently to her?

People accept that words are pronounced differently in different accents!!!

You don't change the pronunciation of peoples names to your own version of it like you do normal words, it's ignorant.

Here’s an example of how a conversation with my Scottish relatives might go.

Me - “do you want to go and watch a film tonight?”

Them - “yeah I’m up for a fil-um. Do you want to ask Will-yum (William) to come?”

Me- “cool I’ll text Willy-um and ask him. Maybe we could watch The milly-on-air (millionaire)?”

Them- “oh yes the mill-yun-air sounds great!”

People from different places just pronounce things differently. Including names. I can’t imagine anyone on here ranting at someone actually foreign that they weren’t saying their name exactly the right way.

The BBC regional news from Manchester has been called North West Tonight since 1980.

Look North is still the name of three BBC local news programmes from Leeds, Newcastle and Hull.

I’m an adopted Geordie. This is hard to describe but I’ll try. You’re all saying Brooke with what you THINK is an ooo sound but up here it’s not neatly enough. Think of the really exaggerated oooo sound when you say “juice” but elongate it. That’s how Geordies pronounce Brooke. Like, BROOOOOOOKE! Gan inside fa ya tea noo ya bugga!” 🤣

She's going to get annoyed with everyone she ever meets in the rest of the country, if she can't cope with people saying her name in line with their own normal accents.

Sorry. I stand corrected. Genuinely had no idea. We have no tv, clearly I belong back in the last century (or possibly the one before that, even 🙄).
Apologies.

For all the posters saying I have deliberately been mispronouncing the name after I’ve been told the preferred pronunciation haven’t read my posts.

The conversation came to light after her mother said her daughter is sick of everyone mispronouncing her name. When asked further this included people at school, outside of school clubs and day to day life etc.
Everyone we know mutually have always pronounced her name Brooke with an ooo rather than an uck sound. This is for the past 6/7 years. The parents are from towns around and hour away therefore have a different accent.

@oneleggedspiderI did try to explain to them that people wouldn’t mean to offend or upset her daughter by pronouncing it the way their accent is.
@MasterBeth exactly re the Sandra etc people put a ‘chol’ at the the end of my name when it’s pronounced in my accent ‘ell’.

The child’s mother adds an eeeee to my husbands due to her accent. It’s the same name just people with different accents pronounce things differently.

After 6/7 years I am not going to continue to call her the way I’ve pronounced it previously but probably will avoid using her name rather than slip up and upset her.

Not sure if you are trolling or not...

But this has nothing to do with spelling.

Niamh is an Irish name, so its spelling conventions are not the same as in English.

If an American called Andy introduced himself to you, would you put on an American accent every time you said his name?

I like the post that said it's about your ears as much as how you say it.

I'm well aware of southern/northern differences for most words HOWEVER when some people are saying they can't even 'imagine' a different way to say buck and book, it's maybe because they can't hear it. I don't notice my southern husband saying them differently, for example, but if I ask him specifically about it, he clearly does. For me they are the same, and I 'hear' them the same. I only notice big differences, like when my northern dad says 'bewk'.

Now I live in the south, I know that everyone thinks I say 'bus' and 'put' weirdly, but I honestly can't really tell, without focusing super hard, how I say it differently to them. The best I can explain is that to me they say 'paht' and I say a very short 'putt'.

I think maybe the confusion lies in the phonetic spelling we are doing.
For me some accents sound like 'Brewk' or like to rhyme with Luke.
But now I'm trying to think of how to phonetically spell my own pronunciation of it. As all the other words would have the same sound. I guess I could say it sounds like 'Fook' as in a regional way of saying 'fuck'...
Gawd I'm confusing myself now! 🤣

Now I think about it, maybe I do say 'Brooke' and 'Truck' a bit differently, but at first glance I'd say they were the same to me! For my ear, the differences are super subtle.

Yes we do. A number of people have explained that book and buck sound exactly the same with a Yorkshire accent.

No-one should have to fake a Yorkshire accent just to pronounce a name though.

If I read "fook", I think of the word food. I'm sure you're not trying to write it to sound like that.

Saying people’s name is different to saying words in general. If someone introduced themselves as Daniel would you automatically start calling them Dan?

Shame you can't add voice notes on here - would be good to hear OPs pronunciation of Brooke vs how the parents pronounce it

Also if I started called her Bruck when everyone Geordie was calling her Brooooooke (which hasn’t been highlighted until now) the family may have took offence that I was mocking their accent!
I guess I couldn’t win!
Just like if I started calling my husband with a prolonged eeeeee like they do, they would’ve asked if I was feeling ok? 🤣

I can't think of any English accent that would say Bruck for Brooke. There are two ways of saying the phoneme 'oo' (long as in moon or short as in the way most English people say book) - in some accents the longer of the two is always used but not an 'ugh' sound.

Aaaaaaarrrrrgh!

Just imagine someone from Yorkshire saying 'fuck'?
I'm trying to make it rhyme with book phonetically without it also sounding like the other pronunciation...it's not easy is it? 🤣

Consider how, in some northern English accents e.g. Yorkshire, people would pronounce the word "bruck" to rhyme with standard English "book".

Your confusion is because you assume that "bruck" is being pronounced in the way that a southern English person would say it.

Yes. I know what you mean, But someone from Yorkshire saying fuck would write it down as "fuck", not "fook".

This whole thread is fooked because no-one seems able to perceive that the way they say or write something is not the way everyone else is reading or hearing it.