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. 😊

Yes, but everyone knows the Danish society is on the brink of collapse.

Magnus is indeed "Mang-nus", according to current best practice in Latin pronunciation. At school we would still say "Mag -nuss",.and I daresay this was the case long before the doubly-mispronounced Magnus Magnusson came along! (And spare a thought for Pompey, who somebody mentioned upthread: not only "standing in the shadow of a great name" but of one that would end up being badly pronounced as well. No idea how we are now supposed to pronounce his first name, Gnaeus!)

Why don’t you re- read the text you quoted? I don’t insist…

@Feelsodrained , the way I hear it, something like:
UK: Fray-uh, Swedish: Frey-Ah
Ass-drid (or even Ashdrid), Ahst-reed (short ee)

The differences are fairly subtle but they're there.

Out of curiosity, If you were talking to someone British and they had a name with an a that could be either short or long in it, would you use their version, if it wasn't how you'd normally say it?

e.g. Xander (Zarnder/Zannder), Tanya (Tarnya/Tannya)

But he was Icelandic and that’s how you pronounce it there! And if you think about it the Swedish way is would be technically incorrect because it uses an ‘ng’ sound when there is none there.

Ah okay - id see the ah/uh as sounding more or less identical although I’d be more inclined to pronounce it with the ah.
With Astrid I don’t actually know any English people called that so I’ve never encountered Ashtrid being used. Was the Ahst-reed mean to be the Swedish one because I’ve never heard it said like that? Only ever as Ass-trid (short i) with slightly more emphasis on the first syllable. I’ve heard it said a lot as it’s my cousins name (Swedish).

i would probably go for the version they introduced themselves with and my instinct on reading those names would be to use the short a, so Tannya and Xannder. But if someone says they are Tahnya I’d definitely use that.

Top tip - if you sign in to Mumsnet you will be able to see all ‘OP posts’. This is a very useful tool that could - if it was used- ensure that people don’t repeatedly ask questions that have already been asked and responded to on the same thread.

There, my work here is done. Thanks for your participation and engagement.

Rest assured I will continue to pronounce Scandinavian names the way in which the person with the name would like me to - even when their pronunciation grates on me.

@Feelsodrained but that's just it, Magnus should have an "ng" sound - Mangnus - even if there's no N written before the G. It's a hard thing for us to get our heads around when we did Latin decades ago and cheerfully mangled the pronunciation (maybe the word "mangled" is a useful mnemonic here, lol).

I'm loving the revelation here that Astrid isn't pronounced the way it looks to an English speaker. Such a harsh, ugly name I always thought, but now it makes perfect sense!

Yes true in Latin but ask any Icelander or German if it should and you might get a different answer.

Anyway, one thing I found amusing in Spain was that when the gossip rags write about Prince William, they change his name to Guillaume. We don’t do that here unless the person also uses an anglicised form of their foreign name themselves. I also know someone called Claire who lived in Spain and people invariably called her Clara.

@Feelsodrained , the saying s as sh is regional and you might not hear it everywhere. Ursula might be Urshula, Street might be said as Shtreet.
I don't like it at all.

With the 'ee' sound, I mean i like in a word like big or the e in Evie, not the i in a word like him, it, thin.
The uh and ah sound quite different to me. Think up and app.

Please can you explain how “current best practice in Latin pronunciation” requires the g and the n to be transposed?

We don’t know how the Romans spoke, do we? I recall at school being told that we should say “servus” as “serwoos” but not sure how that conclusion was reached.

As mother of a child called Magnus I’d like to understand this. Thanks.

Also, as my username suggests, Magnus Magnusson was not the fabled quizmaster’s real Icelandic name as it did not follow the Icelandic patronymic tradition. His Dad was called Sigurstein Magnusson (ie MM’s Grandad’s first name was Magnus) so his birth name was Magnus Sigursteinsson.

MM just took his Dad’s surname when the family moved to Scotland, as it was easier for them all to have the same name.

MM’s own sons were called Magnusson so the convention actually righted itself a generation later, but his daughter was Sally Magnusson when she should really have been Sally Magnusdottir!

Haha I thought it was just Icelanders who did this. Good to know the Spaniards are in on it too.

They call him Vilhjálmur prins here. And the rest of them: Karl, Kamilla, Katrín, Georg, Karlotta, Lúðvík etc. Strangely they don't seem to have worked out that Harry should be Henrik according to the 'system'.

They usually confine themselves to royalty these days but back in the 80s they would call Michael Jackson Mikjáll Jakobsson and talk about Páll McCartney and Jón Lennon.

I find it hilarious.

It also used to be impossible to become a naturalised Icelandic citizen unless you changed your legal name to an Icelandic name! Not any more, though.

So there are people in Sweden who pronounce it Ahstreed? I’ve never heard that. Ursula is a good example of different pronunciations actually as it would be Err-su-la in English and U-shuh-la in Swedish.

And agree that uh and ah can sound different but I haven’t heard English people say Frey-uh, the people i know say Frey-ah. All very interesting.

haha, I love it! Yeah same in Spain - Guillaume and Carlos but always just plain old Harry.

Actually Guillermo on reflection, I think Guillaume is the French version 🙊

This is us too! Our son has a Scandinavian name, which we pronounce in a way that is likely not entirely as would be in Finnish. I wouldn't be offended if someone from Scandinavia pronounced it as they would typically, however I would take objection to being told I was saying my own child's name 'wrong' - we named him!
For what it's worth I have an English name that has at least three different common pronunciations and very few people use the one that my parents use. It doesn't bother me or them.

@Feelsodrained , the ahstreed was my approximation. I haven't heard Freya said as anything other than fray-uh in the UK.

The using the local version of a name of royals was standard until fairly recently here too, I think.
We say Catherine of Aragon, Catherine the Great etc

The king is Brenin Siarl, but the BBC uses Brenin Charles
I haven't heard anyone refer to Wills & Kate as Gwilym & Catrin but as they are the PoWs, it would make sense :-)

Their children would be (are?) Tywysog Siôr, Tywysoges Siarlot a Thywysog Lewis.

Guillaume is French, but at the time England was conquered by a Guillaume he and his army spoke Norman French where the letter 'g' was pronounced as we pronounce 'w'.

@AnonymousArmadillo

It's incredibly useful when you have a few people with the same given name.

@MagnusMagnussonNotHisRealName I have no idea who decides on the authentic pronunciation of Latin, or how they get there! We weren't too bothered about that stuff a quarter of a century ago when I was at university (unless you did the paper on Latin linguistics maybe? I didn't). It was the era of "serwoos" as you say, so no longer the really heinous traditional English pronunciation of Latin, and yet things have moved on since.

In September I'm starting a two year masters degree in Classics. In the first term I have to re-read Lucan's Pharsalia (groan...) whose hero is of course Magnus, i.e. Pompey. I'll be sure to have more info for you then, unless a more up-to-date classicist can help us out first!

Magnus is (literally) a great name btw.

Yes, although Prince William is always called Prince William in France, and Charles is called Charles but they pronounce it the French way. At first I had no idea who this Sharl Twa person was, who everyone kept asking me about!

I say Charles de Gaul not Charles de Gaulle. We also say Joan of Arc not Jeanne d'Arc.

We were discussing Borgen at work one day and my colleagues didn't even realise that the son of the prime minister was called Magnus.

That’s odd, as they were either a Danish speaker, or they must have been reading the subtitles?