Kacpar

[Theresacatinmywashing]

I've just had an email announcement from a friend (her DD has just given birth).

Its Casper isn't it? They called the kid Casper but spelt it Kacpar. I'm going to do a bland congrats reply and not even mention it.

There's an English surname Cockburn which is pronounced Coburn. If I were thinking of using this name for a child, I could go with the version everybody could see immediately how to pronounce or the one that would cause a significant percentage of the population to snigger and/or mispronounce. Gosh, that's a tricky decision!

I see this as similar. Kacpar to the average Briton looks like Cackpar. That is presumably not how the parents want it pronounced. Why put your child through that endless irritation of having to correct the pronuncation?

Cockburn isn't an English name - it is Scottish.
It's not at all unusual and I've never heard anybody mispronounce it, far less snigger about it. But then I live in Scotland.

And then there is the English names of Featherstonehaugh. Or Cholmondley. Or Belvoir etc. All are impossible to divine unless you know how to say then.
Different strokes for different folks.

DSs middle name is spelt Caspar, it's one of those names with many spellings.

OK, it's an English language surname then. My point still stands. It's not pronounced as it first looks and it's not so common that everybody knows it anyway.

But Cockburn is not mispronounced in Scotland! And while it might not be as common as MacDonald or Farquharson or even Dalyell it certainly isn't unusual. In addition to the famous Cockburns port, there is also a well known street in Edinburgh called Cockburn Street, the Cockburn Society and a village called Cockburnspath.

I must be exceptionally immature but when I see Cockburn and Kacpar I do laugh to myself, even though I know it's not pronounced as it's spelt, it's just the association the word cock or cack has in the English language.

Once you know how to pronounce it you don't see the rude words. Similarly when I first saw Aiofe spelt, I hadn't a clue how to say it, but once I did it was fine I didn't see the spelling, I didn't laugh though like I did when I saw Kacpar.

Incidently I doubt the child will be able to sail through school without sniggers. That's why I find it such a strange choice when there is no obvious family polish connections. I think there have been a lot of replies with people getting on their high horses because they don't want to admit they also found it funny!!

It's okay because we Scots piss ourselves at English people not being able to say "loch".

I think Kacpar is a fine name, no different from giving a child an irish name.
I would read cack par in my head then work out what it should be.

Perhaps we should avoid Welsh, Irish and Scottish names too. It took me ages to figure out Eilidh but I worked out it probably wasn't Eyelid and asked. I wouldn't suggest the parents of an Eilidh should choose Aylee or Ailie why should parents of a Kacper choose the less common Casper.

For the same reason that if I had a choice between the surname Coburn and Cockburn (and I didn't live in Scotland) I'd choose Coburn every day.
For the same reason that DH's colleague in Hong Kong, Fanny Pong, should have consulted a native English speaker before choosing an Anglicised name.

Welsh names are tricky but in England they're pretty well recognised and generally don't look rude or nasty if they're not recognised. Poor little Cack-Pants (putting on my 8yo boy hat) is not going to thank his parents.

I would read cack par in my head then work out what it should be.
But most people won't automatically know it's Polish nor know enough about Polish pronunciation to realise c is pronounced t, how would people even know that there isn't a name that is pronounced cack par?

It's okay because we Scots piss ourselves at English people not being able to say "loch".
Bahaha! But it's not really about not being able to say it Scottish-style, its just that you feel like you're putting on a funny accent if you say it that way.

Good grief, it's not difficult - most teachers can manage six unfamiliar names before breakfast, & it's not even on our official superpower list ...

I've taught a few Kacpers, all of whom pronounced it like the English 'Casper'. Patrycyja, for example, might be a little trickier as I know one who calls herself Patricia & another who pronounces it as Patrick-zia.

You just have a stab at pronouncing an unfamiliar-looking name correctly, accept being corrected with a good grace if you get it wrong (you are unlikely to be the first to mispronounce it), & try to get it right next time. Manners, innit. If you keep getting it wrong you're going to look a bit socially inept, frankly.

I once had three Faisals in one class, pronounced Fessel, F-eye-zal & Fah-ee-zal respectively. You just quite quickly associate the name, including its pronunciation, with the individual, & it really isn't a problem.

Raven - adults being able to pronounce it is hardly going to be relevant for a little boy who is being called Cack-pants? I'm pretty sure he won't care and won't be impressed by his parents choice.

Very interesting thread. I've never heard of the name and if forced to guess I would have said the c like a "ch" like they do with Russian names.

None of the Kacpers I know answers to Cackpants. I can't imagine why any of their friends might call them that, just because some adults are a bit slow to take on board unfamiliar names & might mispronounce it.

They'll have been introduced to him as Kacper, pronounced with a soft c - they'd only make that connection if a teacher mis-pronounced it when taking the register, & in my experience at that point it's the teacher that looks a bit silly.

Kacper really is a perfectly unremarkable name.

Maybe in some circles, but I reckon in plenty of areas he would find the name was pretty remarkable indeed - this thread is proof of that!

It's not just his class teacher who will have cause to read his name either - awards in assembly, sporting teams etc etc will involved multiple teachers and students reading his name out in public.

I hope this kid goes to your school!

Oh well, in that case he will be in good company with "Pee-tolomy", "Her-me-own", "Pen-ee-lope" and "Ex-ander" - popular names that do not conform to traditionally British ways of pronunciation and could potentially cause gales of laughter.

You are completely missing the point Katie.

With Kacpar I would think that unless they were told how to pronounce the name they would probably get it wrong first time. The names you suggest aren't phonetic but they are familiar.

I consider myself well educated but had to think twice about how to pronounce it.

Exactly Bunbaker and nor do any of those names come with such an obvious and unfortunate mispronunciation and non of them has another well known local spelling that could easily have been used to avoid the problem.

We're not talking about a Polish kid with a Polish spelling here. We're talking about parents going out of their way to choose an unfamiliar and problematic spelling of a local name.

I am not missing the point - you are.
Obviously these names were not always familiar. They might be familiar to some people now (and I have only come across Ptolomy as a name in current use on MN, never in RL) but that was not always the case. Prior to the HP films, for example, many people did not know how to pronounce Hermione.

..and yet when they got it wrong it didn't sound rude, so wasn't an issue.
Nor was it an obscure spelling of a well known local name.

I live in a very non multicultural area. The only foreign people I know that live around here work in the Chinese and Indian takeaways. The only people that tend to move here are the English. I doubt that many people round here would pronounce it anything other than cack par as we don't have any field of reference.

They are pronounced the same but Kacpar is how the name is spelled in Polish, and Caspar/Casper is how it's spelled in English. Barring any ties to Poland, why would you choose the Polish spelling if you lived in Britain? It just makes life more difficult for the child.

My guess koala is because they are trying to make the name sound as interesting as they possibly can. (In NLondon, Caspar/Kasper is becoming very popular!!)
There is nothing wrong with trying to be unique in itself, but as this thread has proven, when you have a spelling that is ambiguous, especially providing a slightly, rude, humorous connotation, then all you are doing as a parent is setting your child up for cack jokes. It certainly made me chuckle when I first saw it, maybe because it was so unfamiliar that I had no point of reference to polish language but it's really pretentious to me and a little unkind to do to your child!

I have a foreign spelling of an otherwise well know English name and I have to say I find it incredibly tiresome having to explain it to every single person I ever meet. Nobody has been rude about it, it is more a case of curiosity and the occasional lighthearted joke. Every single doctors appointment, interview, etc I have ever been to starts with 'Is this a typo?' or 'That's an interesting spelling' and I have to explain that it is foreign. It is a constant reminder that I don't really belong here and drives me up the wall to the point where I have now just started spelling it the English way. Both my children have English names although they are not yet UK citizens. We plan on staying here permanently and I don't want them to go though the same hassle. So yes, I do find it a bit strange that an English couple would purposefully choose a spelling like 'Kackpar' but perhaps they both have 'easy' names themselves and don't realise how annoying it can be to have a name that is hard to pronounce.