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)

*Lukasz

I would go for A or B depending how strongly you feel about the w sound. Giving an English child name starting with a letter that doesn't exist in English is asking for a lifetime of nuisance tbh.
Actually I would probably go for Lukas but pronounce it the Polish way at home.

It's not uncommon for children of immigrants to be known by two different names: their 'home' name and their 'English' name. I have known several people of Chinese origin and of Tamil origin so this. I, myself, am an immigrant, and although I appear to use the same name in all contexts, I pronounce it slightly differently depending on whether I'm introducing myself to English people or to people who speak my mother tongue.

If it is important to you that your ds be called by the Polish pronunciation in England, then I suggest you name him Wukasz. The W is a reasonable English substitute for the Polish letter. If you're happy for him to have an English name and a Polish name, then name him Lucas and call him Wukasz (sorry, I don't have the Polish letter) at home. Either way, I expect you'll teach him the Polish alphabet and his cultural and linguistic history, even if he doesn't grow up speaking Polish, so his name will make sense to him.

I'd go for the polish spelling. Would you intend to use a nickname? My DC has a polish name but a nickname that's well recognised in the UK. They're mainly known by their nickname but now older they will happily correct people if they pronounce the full name incorrectly.

Definitely wouldn't use anything with letters such as Ł

Not only would you have to rely on somebody being able to correctly enter the letter in the first place but you'd also be relying on all sorts of systems to use an encoding that allows for those characters.

Have just had to sort out a whole load of data issues relating to polish names that had been mangled by being stored in a system that was not set up correctly.

I'd go for A, and accept that his name will be pronounced differently in n the UK and Poland.

My mums side of the family are Polish, with Polish names, but growing up here in their early teens they used more English versions for their names. As they have got older they have gone back to their more Polish spellings and soundings of them.
I would name him Lukasz and use the Polish version at home but expect the outside world to call him Lucas.

I would choose a name that works in both languages and crucially you can type on a standard querty keyboard if being raised in the U.K.. it's not just school, work but every time you order a taxi, talk to a call centre etc. Many or even most people with hard to pronounce names end up anglicising them for practicality eg long Asian names to a short one.

Because we lived overseas when my DD's were born and had the likelihood of living in non English speaking countries, I opted for names that were recognisable across Europe and beyond (Old Testament)

I agree with tal45
If you use Lukasz as a first name he will get called Lucas - may not be a problem of course
I had a polish tradesman called Lukasz and he got flustered when I tried to check the pronunciation of his name and insisted Lucas was fine, which made me sad as I don't think people should feel they have to anglicise

I would go for Lucas. He will be growing up in the UK and it will probably give him a easier time rather than having to spell it out every time he gives his name. Maybe a polish middle name to recognise his roots.?

I know a friend in the UK with a DD called Aoibhinn. In Ireland, we pronounce this as A-veen. Growing up in the UK, most call her DD Oybin.
Its the risk you take, at the end of the day your baby will be the one that has to live with it.

The l with stroke is going to cause a problem with keyboards. I use my iphone for the Polish alphabet and it's not too bad but find it annoying when using my computer. Most people in England are going to use an L and pronounce it as such. Lukas is a nice alternative, IMO. My dad's name ends in -sz and he's always been known by a shortened version of his name.

Don't erase your heritage for the ease of English speaking people.
Spell it in your language.
Say it how it's meant to be said.
If people get it wrong correct them or ignore them.
People that have respect learn to say someone's name properly or attempt to.
What's the point in giving a name from a different culture to your kid?

I would either use Lukas or use the polish spelling as a middle name and a different first name.

I think it’ll cause him a lot of problems - he’ll always have to explain the spelling/pronunciation, it will often be spelt incorrectly on any typed documentation as the special characters aren’t easily accessible on a keyboard.

I don’t think the option of spelling it with a W is feasible either as like a previous poster said, people may assume the W is pronounced as V.

I’ve got to admit I wasn’t aware of the -ash pronunciation either and would have assumed the ending is like Lucas.

I know a few polish people and they all seem to have an anglicised or shortened version of their first name (presumably because they get tired of having to explain how it’s spelt or pronounced).

That’s the first time I’ve seen the Ł letter, I think. Actually, I thought it was an oddly written lowercase k. So that might be another mistake other people make - I’d have wondered why it was all written lowercase, and (if I didn’t have a chance to check online / ask first) I’d have tentatively gone for “ku-kass”. So really wrong!!

I do think the Ł would be a bit of a nightmare to deal with in the UK though. But obv up to you!

I love the spelling of Lukasz. I think people will pronounce it Loo-kas naturally. It is clearly a non English spelling so gives a nice nod to heritage without being too different or difficult to spell or say. It's lovely

I don’t want to repeat others but I think it’s could be annoying for a child to have a name that people often mispronounce. Like someone else suggested I wonder whether Lukas could be a compromise. I think I lot of English only speakers wouldn’t know how to pronounce it initially, but that being said though once I’d been told how to pronounce it I would know for future.

I'm married to a polish man and we named our first child Kasper though we spelt it as Casper as assumed that's how most people would spell it at school etc. However I regret doing so as every time I need to state his name I'm always asked if it's Casper with a 'K'.
My work colleague is called Lukasz, he quickly corrects anyone one who pronounces it Lucas rather than Woo kasz, it's not a problem for English to pronounce once corrected.
On the birth certificate they can put the accent on, the registrar done it for our children's surnames over the 'n' so I imagine they can do the same with the L. Apparently they have a system that has the letters and accents from around the world so they can accurately record names. Everywhere else it's just a N without the accent though.

@SortMyHouse

Don't erase your heritage for the ease of English speaking people. Spell it in your language. Say it how it's meant to be said. If people get it wrong correct them or ignore them. People that have respect learn to say someone's name properly or attempt to. What's the point in giving a name from a different culture to your kid?

Yes!

I came on here to say the exact same thing.

Thanks.

My brother went to school with a kid who had a Polish name - granted it didn't contain the sounds and letters you're looking at, but nobody struggled with it and they were primary age. Also, I used to know someone with the name Ochocka, met as a young adult - I think the ch ended up more like a 'h' than the throaty ch sound in Polish but they were known as o'hot'ska, again no issue once the pronunciation was given. I think if you explain to people, and the child will correct them too (my kid is forever correcting people who call him 'she' and it doesn't bother him in the slightest), you'll be fine. I have other Polish friends too and I love knowing how they pronounce their names. I'm not great at rolling my Rs but I love the way Polish pronunciations sound. People are going to mispronounce it, but once your child's friends all know how to say it, I bet they'll be the ones correcting the adults. They love doing it.

As a native English speaker I would recognise that the z at the end makes it Loo-kash. I wouldn't recognise the Ł being pronounced as W.
I think you'll get a mixture of Loo-kash and Loo-kas and that your DC will at some point make a decision as to whether he accepts Loo-kas or whether he corrects people.
I think the Ł would be too much like hard work though.

I'd definetely pronounce Lukasz as Luc - kash but I'm quite used to Polish names. I think pp are right that most would see that as Lucas though, sadly.

Łukasz is perfect! As others have said, keep the Polish version, and how it is pronounced. People will quickly learn. I grew up with a Łukasz, and we all knew his name was "woo-kash", but by early teens he went by "luke" to some people, but that was his choice. We didn't struggle with pronouncing Łukasz once we had been told.

Don't lose your culture for the sake of the British! Its a beautiful name just as it is, no changes :)

Also agree you definitely should call him Łukasz if that is what you prefer. You'll only have to tell people once how to pronounce it; it's not difficult, is it. I worked with plenty of Polish people, we'd always pronounce their names like they wanted. And the polish children at DC's school were pronounced like they wanted too - Szymon, Kasia etc... No one batted an eyelid.

Why not use nikita as the first name - nothing to go wrong as far as i can see?