Everyone pronounces our daughter's name wrong

[StarShine23]

Hi all, advice needed please.

We named our daughter after someone we know from abroad. Its a pretty simple name but we had never heard it in the UK before. Baby is now 1 and the name has become more popular here, but it has a different pronunciation than we use. The problem we have is we don't like way its pronounced here, but everyone we meet now calls her by the UK version rather than her name, even though we correct them.

Do we:
(a) stick to our original pronunciation, even though it will be a battle for her growing up when other people with the same name all pronounce it the UK way
(b) accept the UK version, even though we dont like it and to us, doesn't suit her
(c) change her name

Has anyone else been through this? What did you do / wish you had done?

We feel awful that we have unwillingly picked something that is going to be tricky for her now all her life, but we love the name.

What is the name? I don’t think anyone can help you without knowing.

Could you post the name? It's hard to say without knowing what it is

Can you tell us the name? or give a similar example?

I know an Ada who always gets Ay-da rather than A-da. Is it like that? I don’t think it’s a huge annoyance as long as you have chosen a correct pronunciation of the name and it’s not completely out there.

This is always a risk with a 'foreign' name. I would keep using it the way you do but accept that others will use the uk pronunciation.

You have to tell us what it is otherwise this thread is pointless.
If it's Claire said Clairé then that is going to have different response to a different name.

Yes would need to know the name.

i’ve always loved Leon, but pronounced Lay-on, rather than Lee-on. Didn’t use it for that reason.

you call her what you want to call her. You remind others what to call her. When she is older she can decide for herself whether to let the other pronunciation stand, but you will always call her her actual name

i really think you need to give the name if you genuinely want relevant advice op

Stick to the original pronunciation, as that is her name and you don't seem to want to change it.

a year ago you’d never heard of the name in the uk
and it’s becoming more popular already with a UK version of pronouncing it?

A. You just need to correct them once and then they will remember for next time. You say you don’t like the UK version and so option B isn’t going to work for you. Carry on using the name that you love!

I worked with a man called Guy. Everyone referred to him as Guy when they first came across him and he politely corrected them that it was pronounced Ghee. Everyone remembered and called him Ghee from then on. It’s a pain for him I’m sure but there are so many other names with this issue out there.

@GlobetrottingPercy out of interest what nationality is he?

I have the less common pronunciation of an unusual name. The majority of the time it annoys me but I don’t bother to correct people. If it is people I work closely with, I try to get them saying it right, and my team are great at correcting other people on my behalf! Be aware you are setting them up for a lifetime of correcting their name. I am 54

Maybe you could change the spelling to reflect the pronunciation?

I wish it were that simple.

we had never heard it in the UK before.

You were setting yourself up for trouble one way or another then. You can persist with your version as you please, but she'll spend her life correcting people. And even if this new UK version (agree that's happened rather fast) wasn't a factor, there'd still be pronunciation hurdles as it can't be a clear one with an obvious way to say it or people would say it that way.

While you say it is wrong a lot of names change between jurisdictions. As an Irish person the versions of our names make my teeth itch.

If you are happy to keep correcting then carry on but if that will frustrate you consider an alternatives, either accept the accepted version or use a diminutive or middle name

He’s British but I didn’t know him well enough to ask about his background / wider family

Just keep correcting people. She may have to deal with new people saying it wrong her whole life (I have a few friends with unusual pronunciations and they seem to live with it fine), but the people she spends time with will soon pronounce it properly.

You can't blame everyone else for getting her name wrong if you choose an usual way to pronounce it.

She will go through life with it being pronounced the way people read it.

So you decide between the three options. As it will affect you too if one year in you are upset about it.

Sometimes names we love as parents (trying to be a bit different) doesn't always work out that way for a child. Or if you get upset about mispronounciation as it's going to happen.

4th option is a nickname instead.

You should stick with the actual pronunciation if it’s something like Isabelle pronounced Izza bell rather than Issa bell. That kind of difference should be easily remembered if corrected once.

Definitely don’t change her name to a new one.

We had genuinely never heard the name here before, but didn't really know a lot of young children before we had ours. Its not a fancy name, and the way we know it pronounces it as it is spelt, its the UK version that seems to shorten the middle vowel. But that may just be what we are used to. Its a very nuanced difference.

I'm not saying the name, because I don't want to offend any one who is or has children called it and use the UK variant.

I would think there is a partly French background, since that is how Guy is pronounced in French.

People can’t really comment or help without knowing the name.

One is too old to change her name, really. She'll know it, and she'll have two birth certificates, etc. Mine was changed and it's a ballache. It's bothered me my whole life.

I think you'd be better to try and come to terms with the way that it's going to be said here, but if that's not an option and you really hate it, then correct people. She'll do the same when she's old enough. It's not an unusual problem - people called Katy/Katie or Cat/Kat have to clarify the spelling all the time, etc.

If it really bothers her, she might adopt a nickname.