Mispronounced Names...

GermanGirl2007

I was just re-reading the post about whether everyone liked their own names, and I was SO surprised that some names that I view as easy-to-pronouce, or relatively familiar, get butchered.

 I am not talking about names like Alicia....it is a familiar name, but you could pronounce it many different ways. On the other hand, the name Leah - I guess it would never cross my mind to prounounce it any other way than LEE-ah.

Are there any names where the mis-pronunciations have shocked you? Is this a regional thing, where names are pronounced differently? Or am I just totally ignorant to the varied pronunciations of commonly spelled names?

HannahO28

I think it's a regional/cultural thing. When I was growing up my name got mispronounced at times to Hawn-uh rather than the common, traditional Han-uh. When I moved away from that location, I never again got my name mispronounced 

Spookster

mj.reilly:

I have to post and run, but:

Up until a few years ago I always pronounce Leah as Lay-uh (like Princess Leia). It was the name of priest's (or whatever he was) daughter at my parent's church. She pronounce Leah as Lay-uh.

Simple name, that gets mispronounced? my name: Ellen. It is weird. I don't understand it at all.

Come back soooooon MJ !

People call me CASEY all the time...it really infuriates me I guess the K in Kassie instead of C really confuses people. *Sigh*

 

anna7602

Lina. I've always thought Lee-na was the only way this should be pronounced. I've never even met or heard of anyone named Lie-na. Yet my cousin Lina has had her name mispronounced a few times.

strangebird

I can't really say this without sounding condescending, but I think there more people than you realize with a very, very poor grasp of phonetics. The most common mispronunciations I hear don't even involve names like Leah and Alicia, they involve names that have only one correct pronunciation and maybe a few variants (which probably started out as creative mispronunciations anyway). A lot of the time, mispronunciations do have to do with regional anomalies, but more often, I think they're just novelty--someone with a poor grasp of phonetics faced with a name they've never encountered before.

So, while I don't want to give my children names that will cause them endless grief, particularly after struggling for several years with the common (and highly irritating) mispronunciation of my own name, I have come to accept that any name, unless it is an SSA Top 5 name for several years running, can and will be mispronounced. I think mispronunciations are only going to get more and more common,too, owing to the vast number of "cre8ive" spellers out there naming their babies.

My solution is to simply speak clearly, enunciate, and automatically spell my name for everyone that might need to type or write it. I've found, initially with my difficult first name and simple last name and later with my apparently even more confusing married name, that I don't really face a lot of confusion anymore.

damabo80

Leigh

Is it pronounced Lee or Lay? I've heard both.

Phonetically, it should rhyme with sleigh (slay). I don't know why it's pronounced Lee.

JaysonandKristin

One of the women I babysit for cannot grasp DS' name is pronounced "Hay-nk."

 

She ALWAYS calls him HONK, and now her toddler is starting to call my son Honk as well.  It's funny because it reminds me of Father of the Bride, but at the same time, I don't want my son being called HONK!! 

Allie30

There's also a lot of regionality ("Hugh" as "Hew" vs "You") and people deciding your name is something other than what it is. My mother's name is Anna. Anna is much more common now, but I guess in her generation Anne was much more common. She got called Anne all the time.

laurynfaerie

I think the 'y' in my name throws people off. Lauryn has been pronounced Lorne (but that just laziness coupled with my family's accent), Lor-EN, Loreen, and Lorraine. Lor-IN is how it is pronounced.

SnoopyLuv

I agree that most of it is a poor foundation of phonetics. At my freaking college graduation they called me Mitchell. It's Michelle. How do you screw that up?

It is tough with the Adrienne/ Adrian or Andrea vs "Ohn-drea" spelled the same but that's kind of par for the course. I just don't get how these people with yuneek spellings don't get that they are changing pronounciation with random letters or truncations (ie Jaclin vs Jacqueline).

I am going to blame the educational system for most of it.

And Leigh should be pronounced "Lay" (neighbor, weigh) but it is strange that it's not.

LadyXaverian

SnoopyLuv:

I am going to blame the educational system for most of it.

Wow.

I think that a lot of the examples listed in here could have more than one 'correct' pronunciation, and I think that for a lot of the others, there may just be names that some people haven't been exposed to before.

Sure, there are some that deserve a side-eye (like someone pronouncing Michelle as Mitchell), but many are understandable mistakes. 

zaramarie81

Corey - This name seems simple, but I've heard it pronounced "Gordon" a lot (usually when a Corey is being verbally introduced).

Elise - I knew a couple who had to teach almost everyone they knew how to say their little girl's name. It was as if the entire community had never seen this classic name before??? (AY... ay... LEES?? eeeeeLEES? a-LACE?).

Laura - I hear this pronounced "Lara" or "Lauren" (different name!).

Jeremiah - I am so tired of hearing a dear little boy I know called "Jeremy." That's not his name!

Nina (NEE-nah) - a family member of mine used to struggle a lot with people calling her NINE-ah (but since Spanish has gotten more popular in the US, she says it's less of an issue).

Stephen - Not sure why, but people like to make the first "e" short here.

 

 

GermanGirl2007

JaysonandKristin:

One of the women I babysit for cannot grasp DS' name is pronounced "Hay-nk."

 

She ALWAYS calls him HONK, and now her toddler is starting to call my son Honk as well.  It's funny because it reminds me of Father of the Bride, but at the same time, I don't want my son being called HONK!! 

This made me lol. Seriously??

ohfour

I've never had anyone mispronounce my name (Lindsay) although a lot of people spell it weird (i'm not even talking about spelling it with an E instead of an A).

At the health dept. the nurse always calls my DD PEN-uh-lope, um have you never heard of the name Penelope??? We correct her and she still does it. Annoying. I always think people in the waiting room probably think I'm a nut for naming her PEN-uh-lope, but their kid is probably named McNevaehleigh or something so I try to shrug it off.

zaramarie81

Oh, I am sure it has to do with the name Stefan, but I still find it strange that people don't know how to pronounce Stephen, which is far more common here than Stefan.

Edited: Sorry, forgot to hit "Quote" - in response to mj ("Maybe this is due to the name Stefan (STE-fahn)?")

SnoopyLuv

SarahL77:

SnoopyLuv:

I am going to blame the educational system for most of it.

Wow.

I think that a lot of the examples listed in here could have more than one 'correct' pronunciation, and I think that for a lot of the others, there may just be names that some people haven't been exposed to before.

Sure, there are some that deserve a side-eye (like someone pronouncing Michelle as Mitchell), but many are understandable mistakes. 

I was being facetious. Didn't mean to offend any teachers or anything.

keyourtnee

I work with a girl named Danica, pronounced Da-NEE-ka.

MamaCat21

Spookster:

mj.reilly:

I have to post and run, but:

Up until a few years ago I always pronounce Leah as Lay-uh (like Princess Leia). It was the name of priest's (or whatever he was) daughter at my parent's church. She pronounce Leah as Lay-uh.

Simple name, that gets mispronounced? my name: Ellen. It is weird. I don't understand it at all.

Come back soooooon MJ !

People call me CASEY all the time...it really infuriates me I guess the K in Kassie instead of C really confuses people. *Sigh*

 

Mine's the opposite. People call me Cassie.

anna7602

I am laughing at the claims above that English-speakers don't have a grasp of phonetics. We're talking about a language in which laughter and daughter don't rhyme and neither do donkey and monkey. Why should it be any easier to figure out the correct pronunciation of names? Don't blame the education system, blame the language itself.

Ragdoll_Mom

People just can't get my DH's name right... and it's Doug.  Freakin' Doug.  Really?  When we are eating out the host/hostess will either write "Duck" or "Dough".  LOL  We constantly have to listen for the three different words, "Doug", "Duck", and "Dough".

PinupMomma08

There is a talking head on Fox News and her name is Megyn Kelly. 

I always say the end like gynecological.  I know what its supposed to be, but i cant wrap my head around saying May-gun. 

stahlop

mj.reilly:

I have to post and run, but:

Up until a few years ago I always pronounce Leah as Lay-uh (like Princess Leia). It was the name of priest's (or whatever he was) daughter at my parent's church. She pronounce Leah as Lay-uh.

Simple name, that gets mispronounced? my name: Ellen. It is weird. I don't understand it at all.

My Hebrew name is Leah, pronounced Lay-uh, so this is how I automatically pronounced it.  It's how it is pronounced in the Old Testament, so I'm not sure where the Lee-ah pronunciation came from. To me, you would spell that Lia.  Of course, I also think Leigh should be pronounced like lay, since that is how it is pronounced in words like weigh, sleigh, neigh, etc.