Dafydd

[Welshgirl2019]

My husband and I are Welsh (kinda obvious ) and live in south East England and love this for a boys name. Just checking ppl are familiar with the spelling and pronunciation of the name? silly question really.
I've never come across a Dafydd in England before

In my experience, English people trying to copy my North Wales pronunciation of Rhys land on anything between Hreece and Hriz because none of the sounds have a familiar equivalent for them.

I'm intrigued now! Can you think of a way to transliterate the way you'd pronounce it? When I approximated it to 'Hreece', I didn't mean a fully pronounced 'h' - as in 'HA-reece' (in my own head anyway) - more like the sound you hear at the end of a sigh adjoined on to the 'r', if that makes any sense at all - like the way a lot of Scots pronounce the 'wh' in which, when, why etc whereas in most English accents, the 'h' is completely silent.

The h in Rh is at the same time as the r. if you say rrr-huh very quickly, then try to not say the uh bit, you might get thr RH sound.
The y sound in Rhys doesn't have an english equivalent - nearest it ee, if you are aiming for the south wales pronunciation.

It is lovely (and gets bonus points for making non-Welsh folk adopt a Welsh lilt when saying itwink)

yep! that's swung it for me :)

People in Wales do struggle with Dafydd! I live in Cardiff and have heard "Daff-id" for Dafydd, "Lau-ri" for Lowri, "Oh-shan" for Osian, the list goes on and it drives me nuts!

It's a lovely name OP but people in England will struggle.

People in Wales do struggle with Dafydd

No they don't

I live in Cardiff and have heard "Daff-id" for Dafydd, "Lau-ri" for Lowri, "Oh-shan" for Osian

Could be accent, could be non-Welsh people. Also, some people do pronounce Lowri as Lauri. In all my years of teaching and volunteering with children though, I've never known a Welsh person struggle with a Welsh name.

The thing is that people do struggle with names that aren't simple.
Dafydd is not going to cause you many problems (other than Daffid) but many of the names will.
There are Welsh names that will give very little grief and many that will be a pain.

stopmakingafooloutofme see my post, I live in Cardiff! The incorrect pronunciations are all from Welsh people. I work where there are a LOT of Welsh speakers with Welsh names. So many are pronounced incorrectly, by Welsh, non-Welsh speaking people.

It annoys me as Macsen was on our list for DC2, but I know it'll be pronounced "Max-un" instead of "Max-en".

Plenty of Welsh people in Wales don’t speak Welsh or very little and yes they do struggle with Welsh names.

I am in Wales and work with people with Welsh names and some of them are mispronounced by colleagues every day!

Yippeee maybe we work at the same place!

Cross post there!

Odd. I'm from Cardiff and have never come across anyone who struggles with a name once told how it's pronounced. It's not rocket science, is it? A two syllable name?

Some Welsh names (people and places) have anglicised pronunciations which are quite accepted.

Of course not StopMakingAFoolOutofMe. Could it be that you only mix with Welsh speakers. I'm not in Wales but work with a Geraint.
Depending on who is referring to him, he is Jeraint, Jer-ant, Guh-rant, Guraint, Grant etc.
I've worked with a Rhian. The welsh-speakers had no problem, but she got called Ree-Ann or Ree-un.
And that's just 2 examples.

Love welsh names but this reminds me off Little Britain

I definitely didn't mix with only Welsh speakers in Cardiff. I don't think I knew more than two. I went to a very multicultural school.

Again though, once people are told, that's usually that. I went to school with a Rhian pronounced Rhi-un and a Rhian pronounced Rhi-anne. We just... Said their names.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll Yes, the Hr in my pronunciation of Rhys is like a breath leading into an R.

If you listen to the people here, you can hear the lead in on the R: www.bbc.co.uk/wales/livinginwales/sites/howdoisay/names/index.shtml?rh
I think it is more evident amongst speakers in the North.

It's certainly not rocket science haha! Drives me nuts. Every time my colleague says "Oh-Shan", it hurts my ears.

Rh is not Hr.

my mums flesh and had 2 uncles dowi (sounds like doweee no idea how to spell it )and brin

welsh

Dewi and Bryn (it means hill)

Love welsh names. Had I had a girl she may have ended up as Gwendolyn, and possibly Dolly for short because I like a cutesie nickname.

I know a Welsh Dafydd. Nobody I knew struggled to pronounce his name. I always liked it.

Dewi is often mispronounced. It is pronounced De like in Depp, followed by wy like in Dewy.
It isn't Dowie.