Pronouncing Scandinavian names - pet peeve

[dylexicdementor11]

This is meant as a friendly reminder to all the Liv’s, Sören’s, Astrid’s, Freya’s etc out there.

As a Scandinavian, I think it’s quite charming that Scandi names are all the rage. However, if you do not speak a Scandinavian language and you decide to name your child a Scandinavian name, or if you have a Scandinavian name please be aware that you are probably mispronouncing the name.
So if a person that actually speaks the language correctly, pronounces the name, please don’t throw a hissy fit and correct them. 😊

Another pet peeve of mine is when people don’t read the OP. 😉

(please keep in mind that my posts on this thread are ‘tongue in cheek’. I know we all have more important things to worry about). 😊

Unless you're a classicist. Pompey the Great, and all that.

Exactly, I did try to make that point early on but defensive people have lost the thread a bit!

I always thought it was seer ( to rhyme with deer) sha

Does anyone know how Edith would be pronounced in Icelandic, please.
Amazing information on here!

@MumChp there are sounds a lot of them can't pronounce as well but most British people can.

Only know this due to my own name. 😂

My DD will only have that problem with part of her last name.

That's such an ignorant comment and is typical of the English bias on here that does not recognise the separate history of Scotland. Magnus has been used as a boys name in Scotland for over a thousand years (as long as in Scandinavia). How long does a name have to be used before you consider it to be a native name? And since it comes from the latin name of Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus) then should we all still be pronouncing it with a Medieval Latin accent? Or maybe we should accept that the pronounciation of names change over time and one is not more correct than another.

St Magnus Cathedral is 900 years old, do you think Orcadians pronounce its name wrong? Orkney was part of Norway when the cathedral was built and only became part of Scotland in 1468.

Freya is both an old norse name and a relatively modern name, it started becoming popular in both Britain and Scandinavia in the 19th century so neither can claim to have the 'correct' pronounciation.

Am I right in thinking that your brother would be say, Magnusson, and you would be Magnussdotir?
So brothers and sisters have different surnames?

Saoirse is seer-sha

Sorcha is surrika (more or less)

I can see that the names might look similar to a non-Irish eye.

I don't mind that at all.

I think you're being a little precious, they are English people in England.

My name can be pronounced many different ways and I definitely have a preferred one, but don't bother correcting anyone.

You said: However, if you do not speak a Scandinavian language and you decide to name your child a Scandinavian name, or if you have a Scandinavian name please be aware that you are probably mispronouncing the name.

Posters have rightly pointed out that people with the names you listened are not mispronouncing their own name. That's not failing to read the OP, it's right there in your opening post.

In the replies you focus more on people with these names correcting scandi pronunciations, which of course is silly if you mean that you use the name about someone scandi and they correct you by saying "actually you are wrong, the name is said like this and I know because I have that very same name" . However if you are saying their name the scandi way, and they correct you to the English way, then that's totally fine. You literally are mispronouncing their name. If you persist they'd be right to throw "a hissy fit".

I had a friend called Angela (Spanish speaker) who loathed the English pronunciation. Sometimes people would try to fob her off with a cheery "ah well that's how it's said over here!" and I really respected her for sticking to her guns and retorting that since she wasn't in fact from "over here", the person could bother to actually learn her name.

Have just asked DH (Swedish) and he can't think of anyone he knows or grew up with that followed that naming convention, and typically surnames are just passed down from Mum or Dad to all DC as they are in the UK.

I believe it's still done in Iceland, at least I know an Icelandic lady in her 30s whose surname is '[her Dad's name]dottir'

I’m on the fence. I think you should pronounce someone’s name how they want you to but take accents, etc into account.

My friend is an Alicia. She pronounces it A-leece-ee-uh rather than A-Liss-ee-uh or A-leesh-uh. People should try to say it her way when they know.

My DD is a Kara and we say K-ah-rah with a long a sound. My dad’s family are Scottish and say K-a-ra with a short a. It doesn’t bother me because it’s their accent.

According to a random internet source , first use of Freya as a name in Sweden 1816, https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Freja, first use in England and Wales 1876, thought to be part of Victorian interest in the Vikings, https://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2013/04/freya.html so not that different and both drawing on Old Norse mythology, and we have longstanding Viking influences in the UK!
if you look in Wikipedia there are famous Freyas from many different countries , so I’m not sure that it is exclusively Scandinavian.

Also, I guess you maybe haven’t had to let go and let live with your home language as much as British English speakers do. I speak a dialect of English with a regional accent it’s not any more correct than any other dialect of English eg Indian English.
So I think we have to accept that names travel and your way to pronounce it, particularly with a long-standing international name like Freya is not ‘the’ right way and people are quite entitled to say that is not the name they’ve called their child and to correct you about how their child’s name is pronounced.

This is what I wrote:
“As a Scandinavian, I think it’s quite charming that Scandi names are all the rage. However, if you do not speak a Scandinavian language and you decide to name your child a Scandinavian name, or if you have a Scandinavian name please be aware that you are probably mispronouncing the name.
So if a person that actually speaks the language correctly, pronounces the name, please don’t throw a hissy fit and correct them. 😊”

Context matters, but please, this is really not something to get het up about. 😊

Do not see how the context changes anything. You at right not to ask people to "throw a hissy fit", but you're wrong to ask people not to correct you from saying their name wrong. And you're wrong to say that your OP never implied that you think people are mispronouncing their own names.

I'm not het up. I like names and have opinions on cross cultural names.

Firstly, I don’t care how people pronounce a name.

Secondly, Finland is not in Scandinavia.

'Secondly, Finland is not in Scandinavia'

You learn something everyday - I have been there, to Levi. Where was I, if not Scandinavia?

@gardenmusic

If you visited Finland you were in a Nordic country. The Nordic Region consists of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland.

Finland belongs to the Nordic countries (Norden), not Scandinavia. But many of us here in Scandinavia basically see them as Scandinavians.

It’s still done in Iceland.

I feel this way about Irish names. It's my pet piamh 😏

You shouldn't hiss no matter what...

Dd1 and ds have Danish variants of Hebrew names.
I just smile then people say it in Hebrew.
We have often been asked in Denmark if we were Jewish because of dd1s name. It's spelled Scandi way but not common known in Denmark but British spelled common in UK.

Names are great fun.

Thank you for the replies. Sorry, feeling very dim, but:

'If you visited Finland you were in a Nordic country. The Nordic Region consists of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, as well as the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland'

So where is Scandinavia?

I am 66, and I did not know this, and I have been to Sweden, Norway, Iceland...