No one can pronounce my baby's name!

[Bewilderbeastie]

Had my baby this year - decided upon a name which is definitely not common but (we thought) really not difficult. It's very short, two syllables, no special characters, nothing odd about how you pronounce it (it's very say what you see).

We both saw it, loved it, didn't consider people would she trouble with it... But they do! I've heard every wrong iteration of it. Even when we say what the correct pronunciation is, people continue to struggle?! We've been witnessing this with growing horror and worried now we've saddled our child with a name that will haunt them for life. Every time I hear someone say it wrong, I cringe inside. I can only imagine what it's going to be like for my LO.

It can be shortened even further, so that's an option. But it's not the name we fell in love with.

Any tips on dealing with this? Both my husband and I have very trad names so never had this ourselves. It gets a bit awkward to keep correcting people... Help!

I have to tell people how to pronounce my name every single time I am not in the country of its origin. It is only the odd time maybe once every couple of years I meet someone who has travelled to that country and knows the name that I don't have to say it's XXXX. Because it is not with an English alphabet that also helps as people often ask "sorry I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly?"

I think you have to accept you seem to have unwittingly set your baby up to live this life too. They will cope!

It doesn't bother me and depending on where I am I sometimes let it go...i.e. when the Starbucks barista shouts a certain word I can guess he means me...

Is it angharad? Or Blodwyn? Are you welsh?

I think I might know what it is now you've said about the extra sounds.

I've got a name which is similar to another name - my friends all (of course!) know what my name is but I do have to mention it quite a bit to other people which is a pain. I also get lots of different spellings which doesn't really bother me so long as they are spellings of my name and not the other name - which also happens. And mine isn't difficult, it's more that it's close to another name.

If yours is worse than that and it's already bothering you, I may be tempted to go for the easy option!

I say stick with it. My son, with an unusual Irish name and surname, spent his first school years in an English village where all children were called George, Louis, Harrison, Emilia, Sophie and Alice. (That’s only a slight exaggeration — his Reception class had three Alices, three Harrisons and a Harry, two Louis, two Georges and three girls who had variants on Emilia/Amelia.) People managed. His classmates didn’t turn a hair.

He’s now at a school with Irish, French, Polish, Czech, Arabic, Nigerian, Spanish and other names.

My friend has two girls with names that match your definition (4 letters on each name) and I have to think so hard about the correct pronunciation because you could say the names in a multitude of ways.

I really liked Louis as a boys name but knew that he’d get called Lewis even though my chosen pronunciation would have been Louie.

It sounds like something is happening similar to the boy's name Dewi. A friend's husband is named this and it always takes me by surprise, I can never remember how it's pronounced because it doesn't look like an English word (of course, because it isn't!) so my brain tries to bring in all kinds of foreign pronunciations - I go through Duey, De-vee, Doey, Duvey, Dowey, Dee-wee.

It was only after seeing a MN thread about the name that I clicked it was Welsh and it really is say what you see (Deh - wee) - that pronounciation simply never occurred to me which is why even though I'd heard the name spoken, I could never remember it.

The thing is that a short e in English is usually followed by a hard consonant such as t, n, d - for example, met, pen, bed. When you just have a short e alone it makes the sound ee, like in be, me, he. When you have a softer consonant like l, s, it's usually doubled - bell, mess. And when you have a w, the w doesn't act like a consonant at all but a modifier for the vowel - see words like sew, new. So in fact in English, Dewi isn't especially phonetic because that combination De | wi wouldn't exist like that.

I am guessing your daughter's name has a somewhat similar pattern, where the two syllables have a different spelling than would commonly appear together in English.

Honestly, just change the poor little buggers name.

Unless you are:

a) Both Welsh
AND
b) living in Wales

Then you are just setting them up for a life of misery any time they have to do the slightest admin (which is pretty much constantly as an adult!)

My parents did this to me (they had lovely traditional names that no one would even blink at!) and they fell out with me when I changed it the second I hit 18.

They were so bothered about my name being ‘unique’ that they didn’t bother to make sure it was useable at all for where we lived. It’s a weird kind of snobbery that their baby just couldn’t have a normal name, even if it makes their life hell.

My daughter’s middle name is Seren, because I am welsh and wanted a little nod to that. I now live in England which is why I gave it her as a middle name so people wouldn’t have to say it much. I also understand that people aren’t welsh, so although it’s a very easy to pronounce name, if people do struggle or say it wrong I just go ‘Ah, it’s Welsh, it’s actually said Ser-en’ (no way to write it any different as it literally is how it’s said)
My guess would be that the name is Eira, which to me is pronounced Ay-ra, like ‘may’, but I know some Welsh dialects say eye-ra for the same word/name.

I have a constantly mispronounced Welsh name. Nearly 70 years of this.

I wish my parents hadn't called me it. We live in England, although Mum was Welsh.

@SuperEkstra, Blodwyn isn't a welsh name. Blodwen is.

I guess this is always the possibility when going for different sounding names/names that can be spelt or pronounced in lots of way.

No tips I'm afraid, just correct and move on each time.

If it makes you cringe shorten if you can.

@RedRumTheHorse, OP says
It's very short, two syllables, no special characters, nothing odd about how you pronounce it (it's very say what you see).
so it is probably something like Megan - but gets said as Mee-gun or May-gun.

As @BertieBotts' reply illustrates, there are linguistic patterns and rules which govern how a particular language community will pronounce an unfamiliar word. To take the 'Karim' example from upthread, English two-syllable nouns (including proper nouns) are normally stressed on the first syllable, which is why English speakers will most naturally reach for KAR-im, not kar-EEM.

It's not malice, or ignorance. It's each of our language brains trying their best in a complex, multi-lingual world.

@MikeUniformMike so she is basically moaning because people aren't saying the name how she likes but are using a correct pronunciation of the name.

@BadBanana my DP went through the same. When he told me his original name I was like "So???" then I remembered I grew up in London so any name from a different culture would get positive interest from people who weren't bigots.

My name is consistently pronounced wrong (there are two main options, I'm the least common version). But tbh you just get used to it, it really doesn't bother me - except when I sign my name in an email and then they get it wrong in the response!!

@RedRumTheHorse, your use of the word moaning is a bit insulting. I bet you that the name is a really straightforward one.

The name Karim/Kareem is pronounced Karreem. Karim is not correct. The arabic is کریم, so can't be Karrim or Kah-rim or it would not be written that way.

@ShellsandSand

My DDs name is Gia. GEE-AH. Just like Gina but without the N. The amount of people who read the G as in Gate. It surprises me but we just raise an eyebrow until they realise its Gia as in Jia. Like you wouldn't read George as in Gorge(ous). Also, It's so hard to write down this example 😁

well I would have assumed the G was the same as gate, because the name looks very close to Gaia, and I would have assumed same pronunciation, whereas I have not seen Gia before.

I think you have made rod for your own back there.

@Bewilderbeastie, are you in Wales, and is it something like Carys (and get Careys, Careece) or Megan (Me-gan, May-gan)?

This would be so much easier if you just said the name.

I get that it’s rare but why does that matter? This is hardly a scandalous or insulting thread. And you could always name change after?

Is it Rhian.

I know a Rhian and everyone pronounces her name wrong, we’re in England. It does bug her a bit but she just accepts it.

I would have assumed the G was the same as gate, because the name looks very close to Gaia, and I would have assumed same pronunciation, whereas I have not seen Gia before.
I think you have made rod for your own back there.

I’ve never heard of Gaia (which I would pronounce Guy-ah would that be correct?).
I would pronounce Gia like Gina without the N as @ShellsandSand said.

I have a two syllable first name that no-one can spell and a lot of people mispronounce. My Gran gave up and called me Sandra (name is nothing like Sandra) and my great gran called me Christina!

My daughter is Corinne. Pronounced Co (as in cot) rinn. I've heard people say Coreen, C'rinn. I haven't ever corrected anyone, just made sure that I say her name in conversation, and hope they pick up on it. The one I find difficult in my own family is a relative from the North of England, called Sandra. I have to make a real effort to say Sandra and not Sarndra!

I know someone with 2 daughters

Maya - which is pronounced May-a
Kaya - which is pronounced to rhyme with higher

My daughter is Kya (rhymes with higher), although it should have been spelt as Kaya. DH and I decided to remove the first A because we didn't want people to call her Kay-a. A lot say Kee-ya when they see it written down (as in the car make Kia), sometimes you can't win. And despite correcting them, some people will insist on saying it their way.