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.

Read it again mumsnet... She mentioned MIDDLE VOWEL - three syllable name 100%

Is it Mia?

Confusion between Me-a and My-a?

I see this a lot at my children’s school.

If it was unheard of a year ago and is now popular the likelihood is that it will continue to gain in popularity because that’s usually how names work.

You will have to stick with the pronunciation that you originally chose, but yes, it will be a lifetime of correcting it although hopefully only the once. Be prepared for people to try to explain to you or your child that this pronunciation is wrong though.

My daughter is called Esme and I used to get irritated by her name occasionally being pronounced Esmay !
It was never a problem when she was a young child .
Still love her name and would never have considered changing it.

How should it be pronounced?

How is it pronounced then

I would leave it as is and leave it to her when she is old enough to choose for herself it is now her name so when she is older go with her wishes

It's difficult to say without you saying the name.

A Bethany in one area will be pronounced very different in another- Bethanaye Vs Befknee as one example. And if you "corrected" people, you'd sound like a twat.

Or Sara as Sahrah or Saira, where most people are aware of both alternatives.

Without the name, it's hard to help.

It is annoying to go through life correcting people, I think it is different whether people are just not reading a name, or are providing due to their own accent, though.

I teach lots of girls called Esme, it's really very common, and is always Esmay.

They're not pronouncing it wrong, they're pronouncing it differently. Give yourself an easy life and go with the obvious pronunciation in the UK.

Jaysus this is the most frustrating thread ever. Just tell us the name op or we can’t help

you won’t offend anyone, just say the name. I think 1 is too old to change her name. You should keep using your pronounciation but without knowing the name it’s difficult to say what others will do - as in is it a different established pronounciation or is it subtle and it just sounds different due to a different accent.

I'm curious as to how else it should be pronounced. In French there would be an accute accent on the e, it's Esmay

@mypafology as es -mee

I am now thinking this was the whole point of the thread.

You're right, @isthismylifenow .

My DD has a very unusual name…in Britain. In Italy is just a normal name. She can shorten it to give her an English-ish name, but it’s always annoyed her when people mispronounce it so she’s always insisted nobody shortens her name to the English variant.
What she’s always done (and I didn’t teach her that) was to keep repeating the correct pronunciation, over and over. With a smile, but quite insistent: it’s xxxxxx.

She likes her name. She says it’s part of her identity, it helped that in Italy nobody has ever batted an eyelid when she introduced herself, so she’s just got on with it.
HTH

@BuddhaAtSea - it doesn't help. What's her name?

Sophia?

All the Esmees I know don’t have accents over the letters and the name is pronounced Ez-me.

I’m in the Warwickshire area.

No one with a child that has the name spelt the same is going to take offence at your pronouncing it differently. Get over yourself.

Without knowing the name it's very hard to comment.

You said middle vowel, so I’m going with Clara, pronounced Clair-a by you, but Clar-a by everyone else.

I have a name which has two different pronunciations. I accept either, it has never bothered me at all in my many decades of life.

I’m guessing it’s something like Amelia where it’s pronounced Ameeelia in the uk and A- mel- Lia in countries like Poland.

but I don’t think it can be Amelia because you’d have heard of it before last year.

no one can help without knowing the name op so it’s all a bit pointless

And most of the cafes you know probably don't have an accent over the e either in this country, but they're not pronounced cafees 😂