Is there such a thing as Creative Pronunciation, and isn't it a bit...

[Mahauld]

...mad?

I mean where people use pronunciations they have decided on which are obviously wrong.
Is it really bad manners to correct them and isn't is just 'creative' pronunciation.
Or is it acceptable to make-up your own pronunciation as some make-up names?

Ina is definitely a Scots thing, I've even met an Angusina.

There are, I think, two different discussions here. Some names have more than one accepted pronunciation - such as Catriona and Lucia. Why not just ask the person how they like it pronounced and use that version? They're not doing it to annoy you, it's probably the way their name has been pronounced in their family for generations!

On the other hand, there are some names with creative spelling, like Jme, Xtoffer, and who knows what else. Avoid seeing it written down and it won't annoy you any more!

Personally, I'm a traditional kind of gal, but I think some of you just need to let it go - it's their name, not yours!

There's also the Irish or other foreign names part, where people apply the English pronunciation of certain letters, 'Ais' for instance, to a name that is in a completely different language, where letters make different sounds (the S in Aislinn is a slender S, preceded by the slender vowel i, and is pronounced SH -- if the S was preceded by a, o, or u, which are the broad vowels, it would be a broad S, pronounced S).

The Mar-ie pronunciation of Marie was also common in Ireland -- knew a few even in college.

Marie is Ma-REE, Marry, or sometimes MAHree.

Love Wivoney and Jme though- do you think they want him to be a rapper? J to the me

There's MAHR-ie, and the more French way, Mar-EE.

I've probably been beaten to it but I think the above posters are meaning 'marry' as opposed to 'maree'

I don't really think any of these catriona/caitriona pronunciations are 'creative' per se - just regional variants of the same name. It's known as a sociolinguistic variable

Oooo sasamaxx I like that!
sociolinguistic variable it feels rather nice as it trips of the tongue

[stores away for use at a later date to make herself sound very clever]

D'oh!
off I won't sound clever like that will I?!

Vivia
I have a Catriona and we pronounce it Cat-ri-o-na.

I met a woman at a wedding from one of the Islands (I have forgotten which one) and she told me that her mother uses the same pronounciation.

I missed the Catriona thread, must go and look for it.

Dh's cousin's father is a moron. Thanks to him, her birth cert says 'Treesa'.

Ah, read the rest of the thread now.

Great, thanks Buda. I now have the perfect answer for the auld Grannies who complain that we are pronouncing DD's name wrong.

Aside from the fact that we preferred the pronunciation, we live abroad. It would have been extremely difficult for our friends and DH's family to get their heads around pronouncing Catriona Katrina. MIL had enough bother learning the name as it was.

HA! Found the Catriona thread, and have discovered that it was my DD that started the controversy.

VIVIA
I can damn well pronounce my DD's name however I please, and it does not make me sound thick.

Sorry, going right back to the beginning of the thread: By PuppyMonkey Wed 02-Dec-09 16:07:53
"I once met a woman at swimming with a dd she kept calling Mad-a-leen. I was a bit as I have a Madeleine myself and pronounce it, Mad-a-lin. Have heard Mad-a-line and even Mad-elaine before. But never leen. I asked how she spelled and it was the same as my dd, Madeleine.

Weirdo."

Not weird at all IME. DD is Madeleine. I say Mad-a-len, like the French sponge cakes. Most people including DD say Mad-a-lin. Fans of the US TV show say Mad-a-line. FIL and our Irish rellies say Mad-a-leen. I guess at some stage she will become Maddie and be done with it

Glasvegas - it does doesn't it?
Trips off a Glasgow tongue particularly well ......(being a glaswegian myself lol)

Florence DD middle name is also sh middle name. It is spelt & pronounced they way it is in his country. Unfortunatley, I will be forever explaining that.....grrr

I've known a scottish Catri-oh-na too.

Also, does it really matter? People can choose to pronounce names any way they like.

Do personally hate creative spelling (Mykynzie, e.g.), but each to their own.

I pronounce Catriona with a short 'o' as in pot.Cat ri o na not oh.That is how my Scottish friend pronounces her dd's name.

agree with rachiesparrow, creative spelling is far more annoying than creative pronunciation.

my mum used to be a nursery teacher and had a little girl there called KT (pronounced Katie). That was how it was spelt on her birth certificate as well. poor kid!

Do you know, I've really gone off the name Catriona now.

My name is Naomi. I would have thought it is quite simple to pronounce. Nay-OH-mie or (what is actually correct) NAY-oh-mie.

The amount of time I get called NEE-oh-mie or NIGH-oh-mie

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread
My name is Helena (pronounced Hel-ee-na) and the vast majority of people call me Helen-uh upoon first seeing it written down. It does become slightly irritating but it's something you just get used to, and doesn't really bother me. The annoying thing is people correcting it, which people do! The school librarian once insisted that it was Helen-uh and refused to call me Hel-ee-na, and my friend Clara, who pronounced her name Clair-a, was told by a teacher "I know you say it Clair-a but i will call you Clarr-a because it sounds classier"

It's 'Mairi's Wedding' not Marie!

Scottish song, Scottish not French spelling.

Gutted re Caitlin, it was on my shortlist and I'm sure you're all right that it's Americanised to say Kate-Lynn but living dahn saaf I don't want to saddle my child with a Gaelic name no-one can pronounce

Pronounciation issues put me off the name Finlay. To me (and all fellow Scots) we pronounce it Fin-lay but people keep pronouncing it as Fin-leee which sounds so wrong to me.

We've decided to go for just the shortened version Finn for now.

Re Catriona - definitely pronounced Cat-ree-na. I know many!

Oh god, the bloody Catriona thing again.

I'm Scottish. I have known people who pronounce it Katreena and others whose name is pronounced KatreeOHna.

Can't we just leave it at that? It's like the Lucia thing - different pronunciations. That's all.

Sigh.

But stroid that's my point.

Just because you know people called Cat-ree-na doesn't make it the only and definitive pronunciation.