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.

The diphthong in Maen is /ai/ that is an ah and ee.
the diphthong in main is /ei/ thats a welsh e and ee.
I did say that mine isn’t the same, but it’s as close an approximent as can be explained in type to people who don’t know the IPA as many English accents don’t have a distinction in the /ai/ diphthong that we do in Welsh.

No one said anything about OPs daughter being called Maentwrog.

@TheOriginalEmu , listen to how it's said in Maentwrog (Welsh pronunciationⓘ) in this link: Maentwrog - Wikipedia. The pronunciation is spot on.

The diphthong in Maen is /ai/ that is an ah and ee. Not true for most of Wales.

the diphthong in main is /ei/ thats a welsh e and ee. True for most of Wales.

the pronunciation is right and is exactly what I said. Do you have any linguistics background? I’m a speech and language therapist and my PhD is in welsh speech sounds. What I said for Maen is true for most of wales and is what he said in the example you shared.
what part of wales are you from?

My youngest is Naomi .
We pronounce this NAY- oh -me .

I have checked and this is the biblical pronunciation.
However, many reduce the first syllable and emphasise the Omi
Hard to write but something like nayomi
That is acceptable.
The worst pronunciation is Ny- o- mee
Which is nothing like the spelling but a common mispronunciation .
Even my best friend chooses to call my daughter this last variant despite her hearing me pronounce it the way we prefer for over 30 years ( daughter is now 32 )
I've learned to ignore how other's pronounce the name and just stick to the pronunciation we like.
Some will learn from our example.
Clearly, some will not... but it's not the end of the world.

How would you pronounce Azadeh? One of my best friends has this name and people get it wrong a lot.

It’s not a name I’ve ever heard before - I’d probably go for A-ZAH-duh until told otherwise

AZZ-a-day

And you would be right. People mostly call her Az-a-day and she has to correct them, but she's given up now and answers to it. Her ancestry is Persian, from Tehran.

Welsh pronunciation - Original Emu is correct for most of Wales although there are district and regional variations in all parts of the country.

This is further complicated with interspersed dialect words and of course, Wenglish, which is heard mainly in the south but occurs in most parts of Wales.

@Lplatecook , TheOriginalEmu isn't correct for most of Wales.

She contradicts herself by saying the pronunciation in the link is right.

The IPA for 'ai' and 'ae' is the same, but the IPA doesn't cover all the sounds in Welsh and only gives approximations.

If what TheOriginalEmu said was true, pairs of words like maen and main, maeth and maith, llaeth and llaith, traeth and traith would sound exactly the same, but they do not. They will sound the same in some accents, but not in most. In other accents the i and e won't be sounded.

What she is posting is like claiming that all English speakers speak with a certain regional accent, which is obviously not the case.

I have no idea of why she is derailing the thread. It's not relevant.

This is the 561st post on this thread. It was irrevocably derailed pages ago!

I wouldn't presume to know how to pronounce it.

I would ask Azadeh how she pronounces her name, then I would do my best to repeat how she does it.

But fairly often it’s necessary to use a person’s name in order to identify which of the people in front of you is Azadeh, and there is little choice but to sight-read!

My best guess would have been a-ZAH-deh or a-ZAY-deh so I am pleased to see that one of them is close to correct.

Definitely derailed. But entertaining nonetheless!!

But fairly often it’s necessary to use a person’s name in order to identify which of the people in front of you is Azadeh, and there is little choice but to sight-read! This.

But entertaining nonetheless!! For you maybe.
I find it hard to take seriously anyone who says that eye has a 'uh' sound at the beginning. It hurts my uyes to read it.

I wasn’t derailing anything, or if I did you also did because you decided you needed to contradict my reply when Someone asked a question regarding a pronunciation and I answered it, if you cared about not derailling the thread you could have scrolled on by.
The ipa for maen and mine are not the same. Mae, Dai, Cae and Maen use a different diphthong to mine or meinir or eifion. It’s /aɪ/ v /eɪ/. I didn’t contradict myself, I contradicted what you said which is that maen is a ah and an eh vowel. It isn’t. It’s in the diphthong symbol it’s ah and ee.
you fundamentally are misunderstanding what I said if you think I said maen and main are the same, I didn’t.

You can continue to disagree if you must, but given my 20 years of experience as a speech therapist and my PhD thesis in Welsh language sound productions, I’m going to be secure I know what I’m talking about.

And now you’re just being incredibly rude for no reason. Accents exist.

You are misquoting me @TheOriginalEmu . You said that 'ae' is ah+ee but said as a dipthong, and I said that it was more like ah+eh said as a diphthong.

You are arguing that my using this to base my posts on is wrong:
Diphthongs
ai ai tai eye
aɨ cau, nesáu pie
aːɨ hael, cae Yael
aːi Cymraeg
(source: wiki)

Of those IPA explanations, i only agree with the ai ai tai eye one.

The others might be fine for some or most South Walian accents, but the majority of Welsh speakers do not have a South Walian accent.

I'm not being rude, I'm pointing out inconsistencies in your posts.

Im not misquoting you. You said ah and eh was the diphthong in mae’n. I said ah and ee is the diphthong in mae’n. Becuase it is. The IPA symbol for the dipthong in Mae’n is /aɪ/. Those two symbols are used because individually /a/ is ah, and /ɪ/ is ee.

I fully appreciate that variations in dialects exist. I acknowledged that way back. I speak for my own accent and dialect. From the word go YOU were the one I insisting YOURS was right and mine was wrong. YOU make rude personal comments about how I must have a ‘weird accent’ or how I say eyes means you can’t take me seriously. That is rude. I didn’t say anything inconsistent, you have just misunderstood me.

those diphthongs you’ve cut and paste have diacritics on them that changes them from the basic example. But you don’t have to agree, I believe you that to you that doesn’t work. But you don’t get to decide for everyone else that the way they speak is weird.
/eɪ/ is the diphthong in eyes. /aɪ/ is the diphthong in mae’n. For me.

/eɪ/ is the diphthong in eyes. /aɪ/ is the diphthong in mae’n. For me.

For me eye is /aɪ/. /eɪ/ is the diphthong ai in pain.