Can I give my son a welsh name if I’m not Welsh

[naivesquirrel]

I’ve seen this question around a little bit but not sure if there are many recent ones so wonder if the sentiment has changed.

I love the name Rhydian, however I am not welsh. Would it be considered inappropriate to name him that? I grew up around Bristol however, so these names are rather familiar to me. I wonder the same about some of the traditional irish names, I have irish ancestry but would never claim to be irish - would names like Siobhan or Eoin be considered inappropriate

thanks!!

Can't get more Welsh than me and I give you permission!

Joking aside, as long as you can pronounce it I think it's fine - cultural appreciation is absolutely a thing. And when I say pronounce it, if you live in England then saying it the English way is absolutely fine. I wouldn't expect non-Welsh speakers to pronounce 'Rh' the Welsh way for example.

Lots of Welsh people give their children English names.

I think it can be contentious among certain groups, particularly if the pronunciation isn’t great/deemed correct (and with Welsh names this can differ depending on the regional accents, but people are more forgiving if its a Welsh accent rather than ‘incorrect’ in English.)

The other thing is how will they get on growing up in England, where others may mispronounce their name and have a hard time from that perspective.

No one needs permission, just be prepared for the questions his whole life. “Oh, are you Welsh?”. He might not thank you for it…..

Can you pronounce it?
Think if you can then it's probably fine.

We gave our daughter a Scottish name and we are English. No-one has ever said anything other than how nice it is.

Fab name! (I might be biased 😉). I'm Welsh, DH is English, and his family have no problems pronouncing it. I don't lose sleep over the 'Rh' because they tend not to emphasise it as much as a Welsh-speaker would. My only proviso would be that he was called 'Rhidiot' by some of the less imaginative kids at school.

Welsh name here, and have only ever lived in England and Scotland.
No one can ever pronounce it, and it’s a pain if I’m honest. Sorry!

You can use it @naivesquirrel. It can be spelt Rhidian too.
Be prepared for misspellings and mispronunciations, 'Are you Welsh?' questions, and some anti-Welsh attitudes.

The name is pronounced RHID-yann, and the RH is a single letter that sounds like R and H said at the same time.

It isn't a currently popular name for young boys.

Honestly I think it will set him up for a lifetime of people assuming he is and can speak Welsh. Even in Wales, it seems a bit daft having a very Welsh name if you can't speak the language or even pronounce it properly.

I don’t see the problem, OP, but do me a favour and don’t be like a colleague of mine who named her son ‘Rhys’ and pronounced it ‘rice’.

I'm Welsh and say do what you like but I personally find it a bit cringe. I was at university with a girl whose surname was 'Llewellyn' and she couldn't pronounce it properly.

@Cathod , Llewellyn is an anglicised name and if she said it as Lew-el-in, she wouldn't be wrong,

One of my close friends is English but has a very Welsh name. She has all the usual challenges around people not knowing how to pronounce it or spell it, plus people then often comment that she doesn’t sound Welsh, or ask when she moved here etc, she gets some anti-Welsh jokes as well. She’s now in her forties and says the whole topic has become so boring/annoying that she’s planning to start using her middle name instead. So it’s not something I’d do.

I think it can be contentious among certain groups, particularly if the pronunciation isn’t great/deemed correct (and with Welsh names this can differ depending on the regional accents, but people are more forgiving if its a Welsh accent rather than ‘incorrect’ in English.)

Not many names are pronounced differently in different accents, but they may sound different. As a comparable, someone saying 'quiet' in Swansea might say the word differently to someone in Wrexham but the pronunciation isn't different.
Some words sound quite different when said by someone who has learnt Welsh say it.
By learnt, I mean were taught it as opposed to it being the language at home.

If it's your own name you can pronounce it how you want to. It's not like we have any control over our own surname, is it. You sound horrible.

I find it horrible that you would have this view. She didn't get to choose her surname. Your attitude is why people think we are pricks.

Plenty of people in Wales cannot speak Welsh due to historical grossness. So if you can't speak Welsh (I do fluently) you aren't allowed a Welsh name even if you are Welsh? Rwtsh llwy. I hope you are NOT Welsh with this reductive attitude.

Nonsense. A name is a name with an actual pronunciation. Not some kind of ‘Say it how you feel it’ thing. Otherwise we’re with ‘Guy’ pronounced ‘Gooey’ and the like.

Siobhán has a síne fada over the ‘a’, OP. Otherwise it would be pronounced entirely differently. Fadas change meanings in Irish — ‘féar’ is grass, ‘fear’ is man, ‘briste’ is broken, ‘bríste’ is trousers. They’re not just decorative extras.

Hello - this is a thread about Welsh pronunciations - not Irish - you're Goidelic and we're Brittonnic. Not remotely comparable and rather foolish.

If someone is called Rhiannon, there are three pronunciations as a Welsh speaker that are fine by me - because they are people's names - I don't own the language. And two of them are anglicised versions.

@ClaudiaWankleman , I've replied to that post already but although you can call yourself a name from a different language and culture and say it how you want to say it, it won't be seen favourably by those from that culture.

Say I wanted to call my baby Tadhg but spelt it Tadgh, some Irish people might cringe, just as they might if I named my baby Tadhg and said it as Tadge.

If I called my child Chelsea and insisted she was 'Kelsaya', wouldn't you find it a bit strange?

Read the OP. She also specifically asks about Irish names. I’m responding to that.

You do have control of your surname. If my surname was Llewellyn it would have been changed at the earliest opportunity.

And I’m really not in need of a lecture on Goidelic versus Brythonic.

If someone said 'my name is pronounced 'Kelsaya' I would probably find it mild surprising, because that isn't the most unusual pronunciation, but I'm not such a horrible person that I would think 'you are strange' or have any negative thoughts towards them. It's a name - something that almost all of us have absolutely no say over before it has already become part of our identity.

You seem to be making a cultural appropriation type argument and no, I don't share that view. Your statement 'it won't be seen favourably' is demonstrably false - there are a number of posters on this thread who don't see it disfavourably.