A beautiful story on foreign or hard to pronounce unique names...

[MinusculeAtBest]

the-toast.net/2014/01/15/the-names-they-gave-me/

That is a lovely piece of writing. Thanks for posting it.

Gorgeous!

Very compelling.

Totally philistine of me, but I could really do with a UK phonetic pronunciation breakdown of her name....

I think part of the author's problem is with the American 'a' sound, that would sound like 'eh' or 'ay-a' to someone in the UK. How could that name be shortened to 'Tess'?

I think the name is pronounced 'Tass-beeH', with the 'h' being similar to how an Irish person would pronounce it in 'Doherty' - the sound doesn't trail off, it is stopped in ones throat.

Amazing, feel quite tearful. I respond to the pause too when someone sees my combination of letters. I just know its me. I go by so many names now, I answer to all mispronounciations. I don't have the energy to correct anyone.

My name is a burden. I am a burden sits heavily.

Lovely story. :)

Rummikub I feel for you, as the bearer of an Irish name that is fairly popular in Ireland, and one I never gave a thought to growing up -- but it doesn't sound the way it looks and I am now in the same boat as you; I answer to all mispronunciations, and listen carefully in doctors' offices and other places my name might be called.

On the bright side, I use it to screen unsolicited sales calls.

A nice story Miniscule.

Mathanxiety, you get used to seeing that confused look that flickers across their faces! I just stand up before they say anything

Yes, I can see the bewilderment. My name has a rather soft sound so it's hard to get it across even when I raise my voice a bit as some people will cock their heads as if they haven't heard properly.

Some of my family have Hungarian names - they have all anglicized them as they got so tired of the endless mis-spellings and mispronunciations. For some it was easy, but for others, there was no English equivalent, or they didn't like it, so they went for something that "sounded" similar. So now we have Jimmy and Hilda for Imre and Ildiko.

I really enjoyed reading that. Thanks OP x

Happy to see many of you enjoyed it! I thought it was a reallly lovely story...