Anyone Else Put Off by a Name Because of Their Accent?

[Wanderlust20]

I really like one name in particular but after hearing a few friends and family members repeat it, it's put me off! The way I pronounce it sounds softer but, in the area I live, some people have a really thick accent and the name just doesn't sound as nice!

Anyone else been put off by a name due to pronunciation?

Oh I'm in Scotland by the way!

Yep - ‘Luke’ was a non-starter because of the accent in our area.

At a theme park once and I don't know where the family in front of us were from, but the mum kept pronouncing her daughters name 'Sophia' as 'Sphere' which really put me off it...

Annoying isn't it?! I guess you either live with it or forever correct people! One of my friends has a very unusual name and she detests the way most people in our area pronounce her name...

Yes I really liked Ariella for my dd- shortened to Ari but after hearing my husband’s family’s broad Lancashire pronunciation we went with something else.

Is it the hlottal stop you're avoiding? I decided against names like Natalie for that very reason!

Glottal stop

Helena and Eleanor

I love Eleanor when it’s pronounced El-uh-NORE (like knorr stock cubes) but it sounds awful where I live - very Northern broad nasal EL-uh-nuh. And Helena becomes exactly the same.

ie becomes very short here too, or becomes eh or ih. So Jessie (Jess-ee) might be Jess-eh or ih. That rules a lot of ie names out.

Natalya sounds truly vomit inducing locally.
Imagine it being said by Bez. Or a Gallagher brother.

Fleur. There’s few non French accents this sounds good in.

Oh my lord, I have one of those names and one of those moving-about-a-bit lives and families.

It's like having a Masterchef contestant cook your name three ways, with abbreviations for starters and desserts. So it is.

Thing is depending on the sounds and accent, you might be on to a hiding to nothing trying to correct pronunciation though.

Amelia I can say properly and most times remember to, but it still sometimes comes out amealya instead.

Anyone called Carl - is going to have to be nameless tbh...

Yup! I’m in scotland too and most names with a T, especially in the middle, are a non starter for me due to most people not pronouncing their T’s.

Brooke. Pronounced BrewK not Bruk

In some accents local to me, (London accent).

Anything with an -er sound at the end; SpencAAAH, DextAAAH.

Anything ending in an L sound; had to write down, but sort of like Annabey-oh, Estey-oh.

Th sounds; FEEyo, FEEyaDORAAAH.

So wouldn't use some of these. The one name we really wanted but I didn't use due to the accent, was James. Here it can become JAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYmes, with a really drawn out first part, which I really don't like. It's much shorter when I say it.

I have a weird accent myself btw and probably ruin a lot of names too!

I like Heather but a lot less keen on 'Evvah'

*Hard to write down

I ruled out Daniel and Samuel because I couldn't work out how to pronounce them. The more I thought about it the more confused I got - how many syllables? Ull or Ell at the end? I got to the point where I didn't know how to say them at all so definitely couldn't use them for my child!

My DM wanted to call me Helen but the northern town I live in would have dropped the H. Got called something else!

Yes, I love a few names with a th sound - Arthur and Edith for example. Nobody can pronounce the th where I am so I abandoned that idea.

Im in Ireland so have a different 'th' problem - it just becomes 't' instead, ignoring that the h exists.

I went for a name with 'th' in the middle for ds anyway and the majority of people do copy me and say it the way I do, with the full 'th'. Others with the same name though are lucky if even the 't' in the middle is pronounced.

Anything ending in an L sound; hard to write down, but sort of like Annabey-oh, Estey-oh.

This stuck with me after I shared a train carriage with a young woman and her two young male travelling companions, travelling from Kings Cross to York. We had the toilets nearby and of course they were truly disgusting 🤢!

I think I heard her say "What's that smey-oh? What's that smey-oh? What's that smey-oh? What's that smey-oh?" approximately 50,000,000 times during that journey. I really wanted to stand up and shout, "it's SHIT, of course"! But I didn't. That's called maturity 😏.

My sister had Pearl on her baby name list. It only took my mum going 'Oh I love Purrrrl!' in broadest Somerset once for her to swiftly remove it!

@Lemoncurtain

I like Heather but a lot less keen on 'Evvah'

Exactly this. It was on my list for dd.

Same as hername, I’m in London and hear nails up a chalkboard at Ar-fa, Mar-fa, Feo etc.

I'm glad it's not just me, DH thinks I'm being a snob 😂

I don’t think it’s being a snob, it’s no different than avoiding names that are tricky to spell.