Wrong pronunciation?

[MerlinsBeard87]

Our ds2 is due next month, we wanted to call him Caradoc. We aren't Welsh but we love the name, and would mainly call him Cary for short. Yesterday we met a Welsh lady who told us we are saying it wrong. We have been saying CAH- rah-dock with the emphasis at the start. She told us it should be cah-RADuk. I don't want to look like a fool that's appropriated a Welsh name and not bothering to say it right, but does it really matter if we prefer to say it our way? Can you tell me how you would say it please? Please don't criticise our choice of name as it's the only one we have loved from the start

Where I come from, eww-an and ewe-an are pronounced exactly the same?

This is why I like the proper phonetic alphabet

Think pp means eww as in just the ew sound, and ewe as in the same sound as 'you'. That makes sense to me. Iwan would never be You-ann, always Iwww- ann.

Yes indeed Iwan is EE-wan not you-un as in the sheep.
And in welsh the letter a is always like the a in cat.

I nearly called my son Ioan- i'm welsh but live in England.
Pleased I didn't. Smashing name tho.

Iwan sounds a bit dated to me but here is how I would say it.

I like the I in English 'big'
wan as in English wan (rhymes with pan, ban. can)

Stress on the Iw part.

Ioan is better.

Is saying Meredith the English way frowned upon then, or is it an accepted form of the name?

Meredydd has the stress on the middle syllable and the 'dydd' rhymes with the English word "with". It's a boy's name.

I don't know why Meredith is pronounced MER-uh-dith or why it is used as a girl's name.

Meredith has been used as a girls name for at least 80 years afaik. It's generally referred to as suitable for either sex, although I'd assume the Welsh spelling is still used as a male only name? From the ONS data in England and Wales it looks like it is almost exclusively used for girls in the last 20 years. I guess it's just one of those names that has changed over time.

As a Welsh first language person I'd say if you're going to use a Welsh name then don't mangle the spelling and pronunciations. I'm not sure how you're pronouncing Cary but it's not a 'natural' nick name of the Welsh name Caradog (which is definitely a g ending not a c) at all!

Please, please don't call a boy this! He will not only be bullied his entire childhood but also be resound to a lifetime of "erm, could you spell that for me please?" "Oh sorry, we had you down as female! I do apologise"

Take it from someone who knows! It is the case with both my first & surname and it's a nightmare! Puts me off telling anyone my name and has resulted in me browsing Deed Poll websites to adopt my daughter's name as a marriage is way off!

Genuinely not being nasty, just giving you some foresight

DD's name's pronunciation was changed 4 days after her birth. My DDad and DH randomly decided they liked the French pronunciation more

I still see my midwife around and she still calls her the first version!

Hiya! I love Welsh names, lived there for ages and planning to move back soon.

Sian in Welsh is pronounced ShhAan, and we once met an English lady called Sian by her English parents who insisted it was pronounced See-Ann. Which everyone found ridiculous.

I would say, try and use the correct pronounciation OR at least make sure your son is aware of the correct/original/Welsh pron.

They will spend a lot of time correcting/explaining! But if you use a simpler, abbreviation then it won't be too bad.

I love your choice... it doesn't matter too much at the end of the day if you pronounce it in a different way - look at what Americans have done with tonnes of words! Language and pronounciation evolve.

I also had a former partner who loves Wales and named his daughter Serenna after 'star/seren' in Welsh. He made up that spelling himself.

Do what you want/feel xx

Do what you want by all means. Poor little kid will get a lifetime of misspelling and mispronunciation.