Names spelled with diacritics

[Anonymousmember667]

Apologies if this has been discussed or answered before but I have a question if anyone knows the answer, or who to ask or has any experience please?

So some names have diacritics, usually the name originates from another language other than english. Maybe the most common ones being Seán, Siobhán, Chloé, Zoë, René, Beyoncé etc etc.

Say for example, the name Chloé, Are there any issues registering this name with the diacritic on the “e” in England; on the Birth Certificate, with the NHS, in the school system, with banks, on her passport, driving licence etc etc.

Most people wouldnt know but Its simple to press the alt gr button + the letter to get most of these diacritics on a keyboard or hold the button on an apple keyboard, but do government systems and organisations systems generally support diacritic names?

Is there a right or expectation for organisations to spell your name correctly in England? Doesn't GDPR say this?

Is she destined for a lifetime of her name being spelt wrong or is she allowed to be a Chloé with an “é” !?

Thanks for any advise or experience anyone has 🙏

That wasn’t my point… but ok. My point is that name can be spelt how you prefer. I’m not claiming to speak Gaelic. I’m pretty sure I know Irish people they call it Gaelic, but maybe ive misunderstood.

Ooh I'll not be getting into any Ulster/Munster/Connacht debates!

Suffice to say I find language, dialects, regional accents fascinating.
I'm in Belfast and the accent can change not just between N/S/E/W but from one end of a road to another.

Anyway, sorry for the derail, OP!

Gaeilge is the standard spelling now but native Ulster Irish speakers probably say Gaelic.

Also, I’d sometimes use the term Irish Gaelic when speaking to people outside Ireland. It can be more easily understood than ‘Irish’, which people often don’t realise refers to the language as well as the people/culture. Gaelic on it’s own - unless it’s absolutely clear from context - mostly refers to Scottish Gaelic. Irish is what the language is called in Ireland when speaking in English, where I am anyway.

Old English is not our language any more and hasn't been for centuries. But others have made valid points about Welsh etc. so my post should be ignored.

That's a fair point. I was very English centric and it's that's not a valid approach in the UK.

Chloë is much more common.

But diacritics are not used for Chloe in English. Why is it important to you to have them?

It’s also important to remember that when talking about Scots Gaelic the word is pronounced “Ga -lick”, kind of like garlic without the r (cos don’t forget that Scots roll the r in garlic 😀), not Gay-lick.

NB that is the pronunciation in English, I could not be 100% sure it sounds the same in Gaelic (Gàidhlig)

I don’t know anyone called Chloë or Zoë but that’s how I would expect to write their names.

Jesus wept.

You genuinely can’t understand that people with Welsh names that include diacritics might reasonably expect the UK Government to accommodate that?

This is relevant to OP’s question because it makes the question a reasonable one.

The question would be less reasonable if English, which has no diacritics, was the only official language of the UK.

Because then you would be arguing that the UK had a duty to accommodate foreign languages.

Omitting the fada is anglicising the spelling. You might as well use a completely anglicised "Shawn' or 'Shaun' if you're going to mangle it like that.

As I noted upthread, 'Sean' is pronounced 'shan'.

Agree.

I was really asking about this post, of people putting a Y on the end.
I've heard it pronounced "Zo" without an accent.
With a Y and accent does it make it "Zo-ee"/ "Zoey"?
I did YouTube pronunciations with the umlaut, and everyone said Zoey, except for an Australian news reader that pronounced it "Zo-Way".

I have a short, semi different spelling for my name, so glad I don't have to deal with accents on top People normally lengthen my name because it sounds shortened already, so seems over familiar when we first meet 😂

Well, no. Any more than all the speakers of other languages that use diacritics don’t care about how the names are recorded.

If Jesus wept, he didn’t weep about fadas.

I think you’re pushing something that’s got nothing to do with alphabets and the form of names in records. As is mathanxiety, it seems.

But that’s a company, not a name.

Are you being serious or joking? Not sure at this stage 😅

How can you think nobody cares whether their names are spelt as they should be?

Accents aren’t arbitrary squiggles. Leaving them out is like spelling a name with the wrong letter. It changes the pronunciation and can change the meaning at least in the original language. If your name was Bob you’d probably prefer it to be recorded as such in records, rather than as Bib or Bab or Boob.
If systems aren’t set up to do that people can be more or less bothered, but it’s not exactly ideal by any standard.

Not having symbols on letters in some records of names is nothing like Bob/Bib/Bab/Boob. As you well know.

I have Siân as a middle name. It's on my birth certificate, but any documentation issued since then has never had the circumflex above the 'a'. Passport, driving licence etc. The admin offices for these documents have told me that their systems can't register any diacritics in name spellings.

To someone who speaks the language it is pretty much exactly the same. That’s what you don’t seem to understand.

For example in Irish an á is not the same as an a.
As has been explained already by pp, Seán is not the same as sean in either pronunciation or meaning in Irish.

Well it’s only simple and easy if you don’t have a name that includes a diacritic. People don’t seem to appreciate that spelling Siân as Sian is like spelling Steve as Shteve or something. It changes the pronunciation and it’s really quite ignorant to just drop them because English doesn’t use them so then they don’t matter.

Seriously? You’re trying to tell me that an official document or company record in the UK that records Sean rather than Seán is as wrong and likely to present problems as if it said Sien or Seen or Saen or Zean?

In any case much of the previous discussion was about whether Sean was a ‘proper’ anglicisation or not. That’s got nothing to do with (apparent) irritation about the absence of diacritics on forms and documents.

Yes. It is. It absolutely is.

I’m sorry, but it isn’t.

And anyway, even if I’m wrong, that’s how things stand and nothing bad seems to come of it.

You’re only right from a very limited perspective. The opposing view is valid from a broader one.

I think you have misunderstood the post that you are quoting. I was replying to a suggestion that people should be forced to transliterate their names in a particular way if a system does not cater for diacritics. I was not commenting on whether it was right or wrong that the system should not allow them in the first place.

I am not pushing anything. I am trying (banging my head against a brick wall) to explain to you why the existence of an official language with diacritic marks in the UK is relevant to the OP’s question. I have expressed no opinion as to what I think the UK government should or should not do. The only thing I object to is your facile “not relevant” and “so what?” comments.