Unexpected ways your baby's names are mispronounced

[CoalCraft]

I have two daughters, Beatrix and Lois. I thought these were two classic names with a single settled pronunciation each, with minimal room for misinterpretation, at least by native English speakers. Both was I wrong!

For the avoidance of doubt, we pronounce these names...

• bee-uh-trix
• lo-iss

And yet DD1 is often called "beet-rix" and DD2 is often called "Loyce", as in rhyming with voice.

i usually let the first go as I just think "close enough", but I can't resist correcting "loyce" 🤢

Beatrix is sometimes also called "Beatrice", which is an understandable mix up that we did expect but is annoying when even family do it, and Lois is often misheard as "Lewis" so that people assume she's a boy. Not bothered by either of these when the general public do it though.

So what unexpected mispronunciations or misinterpretations did you encounter after naming your baby?

I’m another that would pronounce Beatrix as ‘beer-trix’.

Lois would be an obvious one for me.

I have heard Isla been mispronounced before as is-la instead of eye-la.

My son had a nursery nurse called Niamh and, when looking at the name for the first time, double checked with my husband that it was in fact ‘n-eve’, but he had no idea! Of course it was but I can imagine that gets a lot of interesting mispronunciation.

I struggled with Sean as a young adult, too.

My daughter is Cerys and we live in England.

I thought it was an obvious name, or at least heard of because of Cerys Matthews but no.

At the doctors it's always Seris or cerise

Yeah, honestly I say Besatrix exactly the same way as I'd say "beer tricks" 😅

I definitely say beer with two syllables though - "bee-uh" - whereas when people mispronounce DD's name they say "beat tricks".

@FirstFallopians I have a Sadhbh, which I grant you is unfamiliar to most, but the amount of times it gets misheard as Scythe is bananas.

Please tell me how you pronounce your child's name.

I think first language Welsh speakers are inclined towards the loyce pronunciation but non-Welsh speaking Welsh people are not. Not in my experience anyway.

My daughter has a name like Lara and first language Welsh speakers roll the r in a way I never expected when naming her.

@SemperIdem , that's because Lois is pronounced Loyce in Welsh. It compares with Elias. Both are from the Bible, so would be pronounced phonetically. Both names are popular.
DN had a Daniel and a Daniel in his class. When I said something about Daniel, DN said, 'That's not Dan-yull, that's Dan-yell'.

You could be in a school in Wales and find that there's a Loyce and a Lo-is, and an Eleeas and an Eleyeas, or a Serr-enn and Serr-un, or Ow-en and an Ow-in.

@SemperIdem - they probably say LAR-rah not Lar-uh too.

@KirstenBlest

Yes exactly that! I’m Welsh and live in Wales, though not a Welsh speaker. My daughter goes to a Welsh medium school, I would probably be otherwise unaware of the pronunciation difference with her name as I don’t live in an area where the Welsh language is (currently, but that is steadily changing) highly represented.

Incidentally, some lazy-arse 'journo' has now turned this thread into a post on the Mirror's FB page....

Because clearly there's no other news happening in the world....

@SemperIdem , I'm not keen on the welsh pronunciations of english names, but the anglicised pronunciations of welsh names hurts my ears and brain.
You've got very little hope of getting people to use the welsh pronunciation of names like Dylan, Rhian, Alun or Rhys.

Not strictly a mispronunciation (maybe a local accent thing?) but I know a Holly who is sometimes called Pauline.

It's often the case where the parents have heard a name but never seen it written down, we once have 4 Siobhans in a years group all spelled differently.

My DD has a name with a th in the middle- think Martha.

Soooo often people who have read the name (like drs calling her in from the waiting room) will then pronounce it with a hard t like it’s Swedish or something? Like Marta? I don’t understand! It’s pronounced just as it’s spelled! It isn’t a name from a culture without th, I don’t know why they assume this!

Omg really 😂 That's pathetic of them, but I'm nevertheless kind of pleased, like it's some kind of right of passage.

I have an ashley pronounced asherly by other small children, and spelled ashely by a few adults. Don't mind the children mis pronouncing but the mis spelling annoys me.

I used to know a guy called Owen who went to work in Latvia for a bit and spent his entire time there being called Oven.

My name's Helene. Pronounced "Hell-lane-ah". I go by Lene ("Lane") for short. Always have done.

The amount of people who hear me say my name in introductions - and assume that they know best, and I clearly meant to say "Hell-lean-ee" or "Lean-ee", is ridiculous! When my new company of carers/PAs started to come in, last year, I very clearly said my name. Know what? Not one of them (and I've had 3, long-term ones) has ever got it right. I gave up correcting them after a week or so with each one. It's disrespectful, I think, to have people consistently brush aside how I prefer my name to be pronounced as though they know better than I do. The only person who gets to call me "Lean-ee" is one of my oldest friends - because she knows it winds me up, and she means it affectionately. I still don't like it, though.

Then again, my mother's name is Jeannette - and that's constantly pronounced as "Janet" rather than its actual "Jen-ate" (she gave up in the end and allowed people to call her "Jan" as a compromise) - whilst my partner's called Eoin, which is pronounced "Owen" - he spends a lot of time answering to "Ian".

My dd born in the 70s is Joanna but she was constantly called Joanne which none so liked. She began to say A decisively when she heard Joanne . By the time she was 12 she was Jo as are many Joannes and Josephines so it’s all the same now.

If you're going to pronounce names in a non-intuitive way (in what world is -ette pronounced -ate?) I'm afraid you can't be mad at people for getting it wrong sometimes!

@RambamThankyouMam , ate, as in 'Julie ate a sandwich' is pronounced ett in English.
ate
[ɛt, eɪt]
VERB
past of eat.

I have an Elodie DGF always calls her Ed-a-lee

You would not say Julie ett a sandwich!

It would be ate rhyming with eight

I would pronounce Jeanette as Jan-ett rather than Janet

You would if you speak the Queen’s English, darling. King’s, now, one supposes.

@dementedpixie , I wouldn't say 'Julie eight a sandwich'

Well I would
Probably regional variations in the way people pronounce words.