English speaking advice on polish name

[szscesliwedni]

As a polish speaker I’m struggling to see what would be best to do with the name I like.

I would like to name unborn DC Łukasz Nikita.

In Poland Łukasz is pronounced like woo-kash (not perfect but the best i can mange)

The letter Ł (lowercase ł) doesn’t exist in English and I’m thinking this could cause some difficulties? Łukasz would more then likely end up being written as Lukasz by most people (and machines which don’t accept polish letters). So would be pronounced Loo-kash or Luke-ash. I have a feeling this might cause unborn DC a nightmare with name spelling questions for their whole life as they will be English, not polish, and will grow up in the UK with the likelihood of about 10, (probably less, as I have no intention of ever living there), visits to Poland in the first 18 years.

Would you go with
A. Lukasz (pronounced Loo-kash/Luke-ash)
B. Wukasz (which would be more like the polish pronunciation but the Ł changed to W)
C. Or stick with the Ł for Łukasz (pronounced Woo-kash)

What about a compromise Iike Lukas or Lucas?

Failing that, I'd probably go with Lukasz and accept that people will pronounce like Lucas.

(also, I think a lot of
people in the UK would probably struggle to know how to pronounce the end (as in ash)).

Honestly if he's going to grow up in England I would give him a first name that won't cause him so much frustration and use his middle name as an opportunity to add a nod to his Polish heritage.

I think most English people would pronounce it "Loo-kass" rather then "Loo-kash", so that's another thing to consider.

If I were you, I'd stick with the original version and people around him will soon learn!

Interesting what you @APerfectSky, Łukasz is the polish version of Lukas so that’s a possibility. I’d have to have a think about that though.

I know an adult Łucasz who goes by Lucas in the UK. I'd go for option 3, use the name as it should be but as he grows up he could choose to use Lucas if he preffered. Not sure if that would suit you? I think most people will learn how to say it - I have an Irish name and people get it right once I've told them the pronunciation

I love a polish name.

I do think your baby will be called Lucas, which I also like. I think you should give him the correct polish spelling but accept Luke or Lucas as a nickname.

A . If you want an sh ending to be more accurate rather than S then you will have to correct/tell people exactly how to say it. They'll learn eventually. Do you have a preference for the L vs Woo Sound as well?

For ease I would go with Lukas or Lukasz pronounced the same but I'm lazy and I gave DD the English version of her name.

I am also a foreign person who had a baby in the UK.

I will be completely honest, it seems very difficult to pronounce and to write. All three options don't seem like you are making life easy for him, name-wise. I think I'd go for an easier name and use the name you like as middle name?

Also I find at work, that the w at the start of polish names is proninved as a "v"

So wiktoria is pronounced Victoria etc....

No idea if that is actually correct but yoy might find people take that approach with the W spelling you suggested....

I only know its an ash sound at the end as I worked with a Łukasz. But I thought it was Loo-kash. That's definitely what I thought both my Polish and English colleagues called him. I'm now wondering if he anglicised his name a little, or if the w sound is very subtle and my English ears didn't pick up the difference.

There were a large cohort that insisted on calling him Lucas though, the same ones that insisted on calling Marcin Martin, and Tomasz Thomas. So that might be something you want to consider.

People will pronounce it Lucas

I think prefer the Woo sound, but that might be what I’m accustomed to, the L sounds quite strange to me when I think of the name, again probably what I’m used to. However, the L makes it sound more “exotic” when I think of it with a polish brain on. I’m not quite sure.

I'd got for A really - just realistically that is the way most people will pronounce it.

I would spell it with Lukasz, use the English equivalent pronunciation of Lucas in England and the Polish pronunciation when in Polish. Kids can learn they have different names in different languages.

I’d go with Lukas, accepting that anything else will make life difficult or be a compromise anyway.

And it’s a lovely name anyway, I think.

Given that your child is going to grow up in the UK I really wouldn’t give them a name that is spelt using a letter that doesn’t exist in English. I can find an Ł on my iPhone keyboard but thinking about forms veing filled out on a normal keyboard etc I think it would be a nightmare for them. My postal address has an apostrophe in it and that causes problems with filling in forms! . My kids have a hyphen in the their surnames and sometimes that’s an issue too.

Can you go for Lukas pronounced Lukas but give him a Polish middle name or nickname, or call him the Polish name at home and with family?

My brother has a sound in his name that only exists in my parents' country of origin. At home and when with relatives or speaking that language, we use the 'correct' sound. Otherwise he uses the local equivalent of that letter, even though it's pronounced differently. His name is also spelled the local way, not the 'original' way.

What I mean is, you can always call your child Lukas/Lukasz as he'll be living in the UK and that would make his life easier, but then you pronounce it 'properly' at home.

I would name him the polish name you want, and just accept that he might get called Lucas or Lukash. I have a friend whose parents pronounce her name with the proper pronunciation for their home country but everyone here calls her by the English equivalent. Never caused an issue. So you and your family can call him Woo-kash and at school he would be known as Lu-kash.

I have a name that no one can spell or pronounce (not Emma, the other bit!) and quite frankly it's a pain in the arse and mine has letters that all exist in the English alphabet! I went somewhere with a friend recently and she was giving her details for a booking and it dawned on me that she just said her surname and they knew what it was and she didn't have to spell it for them, my automatic is "xxxx, that's x-x-x-x....." and then I still have to repeat it because it isn't spelt how it sounds. Personally, I wouldn't burden a child with this.

I think that Łukasz might end up written as Lukasz anyway, as many people in the UK don't know how to find special characters, so will write Ł as L. I also don't think that diacritical marks can be written on UK passports - so would need to be transliterated there too - but that may be outdated information now.

If he's going to be spending most of his life in England, then Łukasz (as Woo-kash) might be frustrating - and he may well end up choosing the Loo-kash pronunciation on his own. Like a poster above, I worked with a guy who spelled it Lukasz and pronounced it Loo-kash; I assume as an Anglicisation, but never asked.

I will be honest and say that from young children it sounds like a speech impediment. So the L being pronounced W it will seem that his name is Lucas but he can't pronounce frontal Ls. I think names like Wiktor (pronounced Viktor) are different because the V sound comes later in speech.

Also choosing a letter that is not readily found on a keyboard without looking for special characters could mean it just gets replaced with an L.

Ds2 has several friends who have Polish, Russian or Latvian names, they have usually simplified them in primary and they stick, sometimes just a shortened version or a more Anglicised version. They are year 11 now.

Some children will always have to correct a pronunciation, ie Helena can be said both Helen ah and Hel Lay na. I have a child in class who spells her name every time I have asked her (hard to memorise 30 new names as a volunteer who isn't with them daily) to be fair it is nothing like you expect.

I did mean to say it is a lovely name. Just a tricky one. It could be frustrating for a child or they just accept no one can pronounce their name.

I m Irish and many Irish people of my parents generation had English first names on their birth certificates but had were called by the Irish version. I have an Irish name that has an alternative pronounciation in English and it drives me nuts when people pronounce it the English way.

I live don’t live in the UK any more and am surrounded by lots of nationalities with many different forms of many names... friends often accept the anglicized version of their name and use a combination of names fro their children.

I would call him Lucas Nikita or if you want the Lucasz bit to be properly Polish then I would use it as a middle name and have Nikita as his first name.