Name horrible in my accent

[Gemmahearts94]

Have you ever loved a name but couldn't use it because it's awful in your accent? Even if you said it properly you know everyone else you know wouldn't 😂

for me I live in a part of the country where T's are pronounced weirdly. E.g

water is (war-uh)
hunter is (hunt-uh)
bath path laugh (baff, paff, laff)

I know it's awful, but everyone I know speaks like this, I was actually talking to my friend about it earlier, she moved here when she was 8 from London and she now speaks this way too

When I was pregnant with my first daughter I loved the name Hattie, but when I said it to my partner he said it's a cute name but did you hear what you actually just said?

Hattie (Ha-ee)

Totally with you OP! I moved a long way from my T-mispronouncing home town two decades ago, but I still have to try really hard to say T’s correctly.

I strongly dislike the name Albert, even though it’s really popular, and I swear my accent is the reason. Sounds like Al-buh, unless I put a lot of effort in!

I was visiting friends who live in Scotland and they hosted a whole class birthday party for their dd. I was quite taken about when one of the girls attending was seemingly called "Peril" by all her friends! It wasn't until my friend (who comes from England) thanked her for coming and wished her goodbye that I realised that her name was actually Pearl! 🤦‍♀️

I couldn’t use my top boy name because it sounds horrendous in a non-rhotic accent and we live in England - Iarla should be pronounced ear-la (with a definite “r”), but most English people say it eahla which is just terrible.

I feel the same about Orla - all those awlas everywhere make me cringe.

I vetoed anything with an a sound in, Charlie, Grace, Kate etc as it gets butchered by the local accent, also anything with an H they tend to get dropped.

My neighbours were from Yorkshire and their daughter was called Helen but they pronounced it 'elen. Made me wonder how they differentiate between Helen and Ellen.

More general but I love the French. Pronunciation of Vincent (van son) but it would be a bit pretentious to expect people to use the French pronunciation 😂

Claire is a weird one in my accent - it would be Clay-err. Mind you I lived in the south of England and it was Clah

Im just curious, do you mean you physically can’t or find it difficult to?

How else do you pronounce orla?

In an Irish accent you hear the “R” - Orla.

Not sure how to describe it - the “r” at the beginning of eg Richard is also heard in the middle of the word. Maybe look up an Irish person saying it on YouTube or something!

And if you're called Ida or Eva you're screwed with the Bristol 'l' 😂

Imagine being a Hattie living in an area with that accent… 🙋🏻‍♀️🤣

@RaraRachael many years ago a friend was a volunteer for an elderly lady called Helen.
Well - as far as she knew she was Helen. She'd been that her whole life. It was the name her mother chose.
Until she died and it was discovered on her birth certificate it said Ellen.
The official filling out the certificate probably misheard and her parents were of the era where they probably were illiterate so would have never noticed the spelling mistake 🙁

We ruled so many names out because of the scouse accent. Anything with a 'ch' sound (Michaela for example) anything with an 'ee' ending and anything forrin (DH is Welsh). I really liked Gwynhafor (Guinevere) Gwenllian and Carys but DH REPEATEDLY said them to me in a mock-scouse accent until I agreed. With our surname, Carys #Ourname sounded like Carriage Clock so we chose differently 🤣

My SIL struggled with her DD’s name - she is from Yorkshire (with a strong accent!) but lives in Scotland. Her DD’s name is similar to Harley. But in SIL’s accent everyone kept hearing “Halle” as in Berry 😂

I’m Irish and you should hear the way I pronounce Lady GaGa.

^

🤣

Yep. Totally agree with the Orla issue. I have an Orla, thought it was super easy to pronounce (my mistake maybe because lm Irish descent!) But we get lots of Awla or Ola -seriously don’t ask

South west here, any name ending in A will sound like it ends in R

DH liked Caroline for DC2 that was vetoed straight away because I used to sit opposite a woman at work and had no idea if her name was Carrie, Kerry or Carey. In a lot of American accents they sound exactly the same. We didn’t work together, I got given that desk as my team’s area was full, so never exchanged emails and never got to see it written down. Then thankfully a desk came up elsewhere and I got to move and avoid the awkwardness of trying to make small talk but not say her name!! I was delighted when my next job was on a trading floor and we all had name signs on top of our computer screens.

I'm from Leicester and you have to be careful of any name ending -ie or -y as they're pronounced -eh in a Leicester accent...Kate-eh, Emil-eh, Alf-eh etc, I know it sounds awful but I can't pronounce them any other way without really thinking about it

Was that in Buffy? Confused me too

To be fair, it depends on your Scottish accent. Plenty of us Scots can pronounce our t’s and can say Charles without the rolling r sound.

I always loved the name Nathaniel but I'm irish and I don't do the "th" sound very well, so it just sounds shocking

Yeah my friend thought this guy she knew was called Kreg and it was a name unique to the US and then discovered that’s just how Americans pronounce Craig.

Lottie for the same reason as you

Also Fiadh which was ruled out because people would assume she was a Thea.