Names with foreign letters

[midnightdreaming]

Iñaki

I absolutely adore this name, DH seems to like it too. I'm Spanish and he's British. However we can't look past the fact that it could possibly turn into a nightmare for our future son (due in October).

I'm sure loads of people from foreign countries manage to survive with their names in Britain but I just don't know how doable this name could be.

Has anyone here used names with foreign characters (I'm not sure what they're called?) How did it go for you? Or anyone here that has a name like this?

I know there's plenty of other more normal/international names we could use and are definitely considering but we always keep this one on the list just in case

I think as long as he accepts that he may have to omit the symbol (cedilla?) in online or digital formats, you should be OK.

And also bound to be mispronounced.

Accented characters/special characters aren't used on some official documents, e.g. passports. Only you will know whether this will bother you. Ofc the pronunciation of n isn't the same as ñ so you will have to correct the pronunciation and you might find yourself explaining that it's actually ñ not n so it's said...etc etc. Again, depends if it'll bother you or not. If you both like the name then go for it.

The accent is a tilde, cedilla is ç.

Most people I know in England who have foreign letters in their name constantly get their name spelt with the "normal" version of the letter.

e.g. Hallé becomes Halle
Zoë becomes Zoe

I've heard it can also be a pain with online forms and stuff.

But it's no reason not to choose a name. We shouldn't have to anglicise everything for it to be deemed acceptable.

Nobody will ever spell it correctly, with ñ. So it depends on how much it would bother you (and your son when he grows up).

It will be pronounced Inaki.

It's like Íñigo, as in Inigo Jones. Everyone spells it and pronounces it 'Inigo'.

Personally, it would bother me no end. But it sounds fine and not 'that different'.

Great, name by the way .

Will it become like having two separate identities though? I just don't want to enter into an eternal struggle of official documents

Ah, no, I don't think it will be an issue for official purposes at all. It's common for 'special' characters to just be lost between languages, like an umlaut if you are German, etc. Just give him the proper spelling in his Spanish documents but don't expect it to be spelled with an ñ on his British ones.

As far as daily usage goes, the sound of 'Iñaki' and 'Inaki' are similar enough for it to be obvious it's the same name. So he wouldn't really feel like having has two different names, depending on whether he is among Spanish or English speakers, IYSWIM.

I know an Iñaki who lives in a northern city. Nobody has any difficulty in pronouncing his name once they’ve been told how to say it. It’s not “bound to be mispronounced” at all

Iñaki is often short of Ignacio, would you consider putting that on the birth certificate to avoid the issue?

How is the ñ pronounced?

*Mariposa123
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Thing is that I don't really like the name Ignacio. Iñaki is the basque equivalent of Ignacio. The short version/nickname of Ignacio is in fact Nacho which I in fact really like for some odd reason but I am not a big fan of Ignacio.

MyNameHasBeenTaken

It is slightly difficult to explain but I guess it's somewhere between "ng" as in lasagna and "ny" in canyon so Iñaki would be like ee-nyah-kee

I doubt it'll matter when it comes to documents. Those organisations that use special characters will use them and those that don't won't. It'll be a policy to use or not use them so, for example, the UK passport office won't be thrown if you send in a Spanish passport with Iñaki. They'll be used to it and just put Inaki on his UK passport.

I am English but OH is not and we agreed early on to choose a name with no special characters that will be acceptable to both cultures and easily pronounced in both languages.
I don't want to burden dd with a lifetime of correcting people.