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)

Sorry I forgot to answer your question. I’d go with A.

I am an English speaker with kids in Japan. If your kid is going to grow up in X country, it's important to make sure that their name is not going to cause headaches there.

I would go for Lukasz, and accept that it's pronounced one way when Polish is spoken and a different way when English is spoken (Lukasz is reasonably straightforward for English speakers to look at, but yes, everyone will say "Lucas").

My kids' names are said a bit differently in their respective languages--it's fine. No, it is not racist for members of a majority culture to pronounce a minority language's name differently. It is just the way things are.

It's a lovely name, by the way!

My FIL was Polish and we have loads of relatives in Poland. It saddens me a bit that many Polish men of my FIL's generation anglicised their names when they got here. My FIL changed his surname to a random English one when my MIL was expecting my DH, as he didn't want his children to go through life spelling their name. Yet he was fiercely proud of his country and his heritage. They went with names for my DH and SIL that were English, but had a Polish version, pronunciation-wise. The English version was used here (MIL was English) but when we visited the relatives they used the Polish version (and also the Polish pronunciation of my name!)

I'd go with Lukasz. I'm surprised that people think he'd be called Lucas. The sz is easy enough to cope with when it's been heard once. I like it much more than Lucas. But yep the Ł in Łukasz might cause problems.

Lukasz is nice, long as you are able to accept it will be pronounced Lucas

Erik is fine but not as nice

Vladimir - tell your DP he’s lost the plot - all people will think of is Vlad the Impaler or Putin.

It will only be pronounced Lucas by people who haven't met him or come across the name before. It's not like one of those names that no-one can remember how to pronounce, or that's difficult to do so. Once people have heard it, they'll find it easy and he'll be Loo-kash.

I taught for many years in a highly multi-cultural area. There were many many names that we really had to work hard at pronouncing correctly. Lucasz doesn't even come close to that level.

I'd go with Łucasz. I've taught lots of children (and adults) with names that don't have an intuitive pronunciation for an English speaker. One of the things I do when I get my class lists is to look up pronunciations online. I think you'll have to accept that lots of people are going to get it wrong the first time. That's understandable. But anyone who continues to say Lucas after being informed that it's pronounced Wukash is just being rude.

If when he's older he prefers to call himself Luke, Lucas or Lukash he'll have the option to do so, but if you give him an Anglicised version, he can't really switch to the original.