AIBU to think correcting a slightly unusual name pronunciation is unnecessary?

[Slownie]

Hi all,
So my niece has a parent who isn’t from the uk, she has a name that’s very common in the uk but pronounced slightly different. Think Isabella but pronounced “ee-sa-bell-ah instead of iz-ah-bell-uh or Eva said eh-va not ee-va.

My sister insists on correcting the pronunciation every single time, even if the person mis-pronouncing is most irrelevant and my niece also has started doing this (and also insisting on the longest version of her name)

AIBU thinking that if you are born and raised in the uk you should expect the name to be pronounced the way it normally is, in the uk and not correct everyone, every time?

Is it pronounced Shhan? How would you pronounce it? I woke with an Irish Sian and she pronounces it as Cyan, and some people say Shan, I’m confused.

I know a number of people who adopted English names. It's very common in the Chinese community and seems to be what most prefer, and I know a few Africans who do the same. I find their names almost impossible so I can see why they'd prefer that to people struggling and failing to say them correctly.

El-eh-na is the Spanish way. Likely that's more common over there.

Also, saying a foreign word in the middle of a sentence can be quite jarring to the flow of the sentence. Like the name Julie is much easier to say with a softer J when speaking French. It's not that they don't like people called Julie, it just feels unnatural in a French sentence. I think Julie would be quite petty to insist that her name was pronounced the English way.

This reminds me of my primary school. There was a Susan but the teacher pronounced it Syoo-san (like the u in music). Poor Susan was thoroughly confused because he insisted he was correct, which doubtless meant her parents and everyone else were 'wrong'.

Saying someone’s name wrong all the time won’t make them like you much either though….

I think it’s good when people include how to pronounce their name in their email footer - I think that’s really helpful.

I know a Sophia/Soph-I-a who this is an issue for.

Same with emails. I sign off my emails with the short version of my name, and it is also part of my email address (partly because people are too thick or lazy to spell my name correctly) and yet they reply using my (wrongly spelt) full name!

Sometimes it just about being rude

Pronounce a person’s name the way they say it themselves.
My name is shortened to Dani as I can’t stand the way Brummies (aka my family) pronounce Danielle. They say Danyell instead. There’s a I in my name for a bloody reason!

I think you’re being really unreasonable so insist on pronouncing her name the way you think is correct.

It's incredibly annoying when people pronounce your name incorrectly... even more so when you're at school, and you get into trouble for not answering to the incorrect pronunciation! (I've been there and done that).

I meet a lot of young people with Welsh names that I've never come across before... and I always check the pronunciation beforehand. Pronouncing someone's name properly is polite and respectful. Insisting on pronouncing everything the English-speaking way is daft, especially if your niece has heritage from a different country.

I have a name pronounced different in Italy than in the uk, but spelt similar. I kept getting told to stop trying to be different by teachers who wouldn’t pronounce it how my parents wanted. My surname is also non uk, so they do go together. They still couldn’t pronounce it. I gave up at school. wish I hadn’t. My parents told the school but they didn’t listen.

I gave up correcting people as people just read my name as it’s spelt. It’s become a nickname or my professional name. only my family and friends call me by my proper name.

it’s annoying to constantly be correcting the same people. Just call the kid by their proper name.

i think this is just an accent thing though, different pronunciation of a vowel. I actually know a FRAN-cis who pronounces his own name like that as do the vast majority of his family and friends as it’s the local pronunciation. His partner is from elsewhere in the country and uses a different pronunciation though, the one that’s usual for her accent. It would sound like she was mimicking him to say it differently perhaps?

I have a surname with this exact pronunciation difference, and I would find it extremely odd if someone altered their accent to pronounce it the same way I do. In fact, I’d probably wonder if they were mocking me.

I have never once encountered people changing their accent to pronounce my name the same way I do in my accent. And nor should they!

We need to know the name to judge tbh 😄

You are SO unreasonable and actually rather xenophobic.

I have a name that people mispronounce, and by mispronounce, they call me a different name, one that is more common than mine but not mine. I correct them every single fucking time.

I've had a lifetime of people being too fucking lazy and ignorant to call me by my actual name, even replying to an email signed off with my name with my name in the fucking email address and they still reply stating the other name that isn't my name.

Because of experiencing this for my whole life, I am always very careful to pronounce other people's names correctly. It's just darned right rude and lazy not to.

DD’s friend has done this. In her home country her name , which begins with J, has a y sound, in this country a J sound. So she just tells people her name is one or the other depending on which country she is in.
My dd has a name that people mispronounce and it is annoying. In some European countries there is a similar well known name. It doesn’t have the same spelling but it sounds similar, the vowels are pronounced differently . She does correct people but sometimes just goes along with it as it’s easier.

Of course she should correct it. I have a name which is often mispronounced and there is nothing worse than hearing it incorrectly repeatedly, even when you have corrected someone multiple times. I have worked at my current workplace for 9 years and some people still can’t be bothered to pronounce it correctly. (This is despite it being a classic name which is reasonably common, spelt normally and pronounced normally.)

For me to not bother correcting someone, it would have to be really irrelevant, so someone I would probably never see again, such as cafe staff calling out to let you know your order is ready. Otherwise, everyone else gets corrected.

If it is something like Eleanor it could be the r causing confusion? For example, Eleanor is usually said El-uh-nore in the States, and they mostly wouldn’t be accustomed to El-uh-nuh said without the r being pronounced. So they might think someone is saying Elana not Eleanor when they say their name.

It's pronounced Sharn. Rhymes with Darn.

In Wales, anyway.

It's OK to not get it right if you're trying. In my experience, Welsh and Irish names can be quite tricky. It's not OK to not even bother.

I have friends who have called their DC a very common name but they have chosen to pronounce it differently. Not something I would do - must be a right pain for the child - but I wouldn't dream of pronouncing it 'the right way'. OP should get off her xenophobic high horse and show her niece some respect.

YABU.

My children have Yoruba names. My son’s name is often mispronounced, and for a long time, he didn’t even recognise that the mispronounced name was somebody attempting to say his name, so he didn’t respond. At an awards assembly in Reception, so when the Headteacher didn’t know him too well, she mispronounced it and my son didn’t stand up. One of the kids from his class shouted, “it’s X, not Y”, and only then did my son realise she meant him.

He will correct people now when he hears it. If people can learn how to pronounce Schwarzenegger, Schumacher, De Bruyne, Mbappe and others, they can learn how to say variations of names, too.

Yeah, frankly I think it is really weird that anyone would expect this. It's like they don't understand what an accent is.

Correcting Isabelle to Isabella is reasonable.
Correcting an accent difference such as a stronger Izabella to a softer Isabella can be unreasonable.

I can struggle as I have non-local vowels in my accent. They're not wrong. I'm not wrong. We're just different and I do my best.

I once had a James "correct" me to say "Jay ums". Natural in his accent, but sounds false and like I'm taking the piss to mangle my accent into two syllables to mimic the way he said it because it's not a natural flowing speech pattern to me and doesn't blend with the rest of my speech.
I don't "correct" people that put their natural glottal stop into my name and miss out letters.

I'm a long way from Brummie and I'd pronounce it Danyell too. How do you pronounce it?

This isn't always the case. It really depends on what the differences are, if the sounds are even in their language, and to o some extent how often they will encounter it. There are languages with sounds and sound combinations that can be almost impossible for to Jose whose first language is from another language group.