How to pronounce the name Owen in Russian

[Rylee89]

Hello everyone, I have a particular situation going on, and really would love to hear some opinions about it.

My husband and I have picked out our baby boy name - Owen William. We both really love the name, however, now I am a bit insecure.

Just a bit of background, my husband is russian but we live in US. Over the weekend my husband mentioned the baby’s name to his mom (also russian). And she really hated the name. She said how ugly the name is and made fun of it as well. 🙁 These comments have made me have doubts about the name. Does anyone know if the name in russian is really pronounced as “oven”? She said she can’t say the “w” so the only way she can say the name is as “oven”. I tried asking if she could say it as “Ouen” or “oh-wen” but she says she can’t. I don’t know if she is just exaggerating lol.

At the same time this is kind of silly to me, but I really need some opinions. I hate to give up the name we both love, but I also don’t want to regret our decision later. 😭

The 'w' sound doesnt exist in Russian and the natural inclination of most Russian speakers would be to substitute the very common 'v' sound, so I can understand why she is finding it difficult. The Russian equivalent would be 'Ivan' (they're all variants of the English 'John' anyway). It's not a name that would work well with Russian speaking relatives, nice as it is.

I was just about to post but then I noticed that pp beat me to it.

The "w" sound doesn't exist in Russian. In a similar way as mentioned above, the name William will usually be pronounced more like Villiam

She said how ugly the name is and made fun of it as well. 🙁

On the other hand, that really is not cool at all. That's just being rude.

Russian DH says Oh-oo-en rather than Oven - Оуэн.

I opened the thread to say that they would probably it 'oven'. Perhaps just tell your mil and the other Russian family members to call him Ivan?

How does your husband pronounce it?

It's not a Russian name, it's the anglicised form of a Welsh name.
You can't really get round what your MIL thinks.

Ok, I can understand where my MIL is coming from now. My husband and my sister in law both pronounce the name as “oh-when” no issues there. The only russian relatives are my sister in law and MIL. No others bedsides them two.

Funny thing is that my husband is the one picking out this name to begin with. He fought for this name over any other I would mention lol. So, it never came to mind this could be an issue.

It's a nice name with a good meaning. (well born, noble)

Sorry but as far as I know Ivan is the Slavic variation of John. Owen is the Welsh variation of Eugene or Evgeni/Evgeny as your Russian family may know it as. So Ivan and Owen seem unrelated?.... I understand your disappointment OP when you have your heart set on a name, but I think you should at least choose a first name that your in-laws can pronounce properly. Good luck though, in case you want any other suggestions I really like Evan for a boy, which I think has a similar feel to Owen.

Just saw your update. Could it not be that as your partner and SIL speak English they can therefore pronounce Owen correctly? Does your MIL speak English? If not then that’s why it’s hard for her.

Honestly that sounds like a load of old crap from your MIL. My boss is Russian and he can say 'w' perfectly well. Just the same way I can say other sounds that aren't in English with a bit of practice. She sounds horrible. If you and your husband like the name then ignore her!

I guess the other consideration is that Russians are really hot on nicknames/diminutives (so in the family Alexander would always be called Sasha/Shura, unless he hadn’t done his homework or something), so frankly I’d ask your DH what diminutive he’d use and if MIL can pronounce that I’d go with it.

Both my Husband and SIL speak great english so that is why there are no pronunciation issues with them, even though they are Russians they have lived most their lives in US. My MIL has lived in US over 20 years now and does speak little english. To be honest I had suspected that she wouldn’t like the name because is not a Russian name. I just didn’t expect there were really going to be pronunciation issues. My husband is really set on the name, way more than me (although I love it too) it is hard to make him change his mind. Ugh! what a dilemma!

True. My older son is Alexander. I named him Alexander after my grandfather who passed away while I was pregnant. We all call him Alex, except MIL who calls him Sasha. ☺️

My DH is called Owen. He used to work with a lot of Eastern European’s and regularly got called Oven. It didn’t bother him at all, just a quirk of the people he worked with but they did have difficulty with it. He’s had no problems otherwise obviously.