While we're on the subject of accents, here's a thing. When you name your children, you don't usually stop to think what their names will sound like in the accent of another country (unless you're living there already, as Jenny Rudd's comment on my previous post shows). I did think about North/South pronunciation, since we have family in both, but it didn't occur to me to think about the American pronunciation.
Your darling Scott, or John, over here will become Scaahtt, or Jaahn. Any name you chose with a T in the middle of it, risks the fate of the word dentist. So Peter will be Peder, Katie will be Kadie. A name ending -er will suffer the fate of being sucked back into the mouth and chewed around with those extra -rrrs. Esther becomes Esthrrr, Alexander becomes Alexandrrr, and Peter becomes Pedrrr (boy, am I glad we didn't choose Peter as a name). You need to watch out for extra R sounds sneaking into names such as Mark, Clare, Eleanor, Gertie, Dirk, Percy (haven't come across any of those last three, as it happens...)
Then there's the unfortunate vowel sound in Anna, or Ann. She becomes Eena, or Een. Or on a bad day, Ee-un. The same problem with Jane, which sounds like Jean.
If you agonised between Laura and Lara for your baby girl, then you'll discover what a waste of time that was when you get here. They sound the same. Joseph is pronounced with a hard S sound, as in seaside, not as we say it in England, as if with a z. Paula sounds like parlour.
Then there's the whole boy's name girl's name conundrum. I've come across two male Gails. Jamie can be male or female, and is spelt as many different ways as you can think of. It still surprises me when I hear of a boy called Erin. It's Aaron, actually, but they pronounce it Erin round here. The boy's name Sean sounds like the girl's name Sian. A girl introduced to you as Don, is in fact Dawn.
It's probably just as well I didn't know we'd be living in America. It was hard enough choosing names for our babies as it was...
The whole name thing over here blows my mind and not just the pronunciation. In our school we have a girl named Sayler, two Preston's, Kinley, Rayden, Jarek, Stetson...I could go on and on. Just some of the wierdest names!
ReplyDeleteWithout naming her, my daughter's name has ir as the second and third letters, Americans almost always say it ri instead. Why????? It's as if her name was Mirtle (it isn't) and they are saying Mritle.
ReplyDeleteOops, the Teenager and I wouldn't fair very well over there then! We have two sets of American friends coming over to visit us this summer, so I'll prepare my girls for possible pronunciations.
ReplyDeleteYou may not remember this but in the Tv show Thirtysomething there was a character called Geary, well I thought that's what he was called until I realised they were saying Gary.
Working in the States I could never take it seriously when I had to answer the phone to a "Hi, I'm Randy!"
ReplyDeleteAre you really? Gosh.
Whereas in Oz they abbreviate names. So - for example - Matthew is Matt, Cecilia is Cec (pron. Ses, just in case you were American), Victoria is Vic or Tor, and Helen is Hel.
ReplyDeleteUnless you already have a short one syllable name, in which case they elongate it, eg Jane becomes Janey, Dean is Deano, John is Johnno and so on.
Must be the sun.
LCM x
I still can't get used to the number of girls here with what I would call boys' names: eg Carter. In fact, I had a real problem last night when Littleboy 1 was going to a birthday party and I was unsure as to the sex of the child, so didn't know what to buy as a present (LB1 was incredibly unhelpful and just mumbled that he didn't really know who this person in his preschool class was...).
ReplyDeleteMore than anything you've written, I can't help but feel like this one comes across as "Not different, just plain wrong!"
ReplyDeleteInteresting counterpart about how the BBC types willfully mispronounce the name of the American President:
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2010/02/barack-obama.html
My son gets really cross with his name over here. Rhys just confuses people - he's been Rice and Rizz so far. And I'm thinking of changing my name to Lauren. What with Lorna not being a very common name and then me pronouncing it with an English accent, it causes a great deal of problems.
ReplyDeleteNFAH - but you would feel the same in reverse, surely? A name is so much more than a word.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Mud, anyone called Randy can clearly never come visiting the UK. Also, Willy is one which the UK might read another thing into. I remember being in a British cinema for an advert for the film 'Free Willy' and the British audience were in unsuitable hysterics.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is called Thymian, both unpronounceable and unspellable by most people. So she will curse us her entire life. (It pronounced Tim-y-an)
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing
martine
We were very careful when slecting baby names when I was pregnant. We wanted something that wouldn't give our child odd looks in either the US or the UK. I'm glad we settled on Nicholas and also glad he's the only one in his class with that name.
ReplyDeleteVery entertaining post!
ReplyDeleteI never once considered accents or living abroad when I was selecting names for my babies, so lucky that so far we've stayed put. Though I'm sure they will travel, so they'll have that "not wrong just different" pronunciation to look forward to !.
I actually thought long and hard about this before all three of my children came. The Little Guy's middle name is Paul (family name) but we couldn't have it as the first name because no one would understand what I was saying, and Americans would call him Pol (or something).
ReplyDeleteThe queenager's middle name is Eleanor, and similarly, we couldn't use it as her first name because everyone thinks I'm saying Elena. Mind you, I spelled her first name a British way and no one over here EVER spells it the right way.
And yes, the names you hear over here seem weird but they're often family names.
Maybe you can explain this one for me ... why does "Eleanor" always sound like "Elena"? I had a British friend in San Diego whose daugter's name was Eleanor and for years I thought it was Elena.
ReplyDeleteI have always loved the name Ernest. When its said with a British acient it sounds almost regal. But say ERRRnest with an American accent and it sounds like a country bumpkin.
ReplyDeleteI am Scottish living in Massivechewsets and the one name that I cannot understand, as in, spoken to me so it must be my Scottish ears, is Jen. Strictly speaking that's not true; what I mean is, I was introduced to someone at a party and she told me her name was Jen. However, I didn't know whether she was called Jan, Jen or Jane. Try saying all of those with an American accent and they all sound the same. They are all radically different in a Scottish accent! I tried the spelling approach but I know from experience that the way I say 'a' sound to Americans like 'e'. So if you tell me you are called any of the foregoing I have to use your name sparingly because I don't actually know what it is or revert to an American non-specific drawl!
ReplyDeleteI have also heard that good scottish name 'Ewan' pronounced 'Eeewahn'.
Belgian names can be tricky if you're married to a Scotsman as well. I have a friend called Freek, and used to know someone called Bice (Italian, pronounced bitch-ay).
ReplyDeleteIota--yes, of course. I think the Americans should make more effort to pronounce foreign names correctly just like I expect the local Brits to say my name at least somehow close to how I do (and definitely not like they were speaking en Francais...) but if they're reading it off a page or have not heard you say it by introducing yourself, it's hard to criticize in either direction. But what does bug me is the idea that somehow British English is correct and American English is lazy. They're just different!
ReplyDeleteMy little girl has a first name beginning with R, and her Mexican/American peers and caregivers give it a beautiful rolling sound, much prettier than when I say it.
ReplyDeleteThen her Chinese teachers (who speak great though accented English) pronounce it with an "L"!
I'm sure I pronounce my Chinese co workers names equally appallingly.
I'm always impressed though with how well our preschool teachers do with all the unusual names the kids have, they really make an effort to pronounce names exactly how the parents do, and we have kids of many different cultural origins.
Ee-un? Eew! Btw, my name is De-bo-rah. Just guess how often I hear all three syllables pronounced in their full beauty.
ReplyDeleteNFAH - I don't think American English is lazy. Of course not. It's "just different". So when I say Jon, but notice that his classmates say Jahn, I'm not passing a value judgement on their way of speaking. But I can't help feeling a little - what's the word? - wistful, perhaps, that the name I chose for him isn't quite the name he is now known by.
ReplyDeleteI certainly don't expect them to pronounce it with an English accent. I think that would be a bit bizarre, given that it's a perfectly good name in both American English and British English.
My mother graced me with Mariellen, so that the Mary and Ellen of my Irish paternal grandmother's name would not be broken up. It has always amazed me that many Brits who have not seen or heard it before, try all variants including, "Muh-ree-LEN?" where as Americans, without exception, say "Mary Ellen" without skipping a beat. Even my British colleagues alternate between Marry Ellen and Merry Ellen, which I don't even hear the difference of, any more. French people go straight to Marie-Helene and have done with. It is strange...
ReplyDeleteNames are important and although I know my American friends murder my name they are not nearly as bad as those in the UK! I really really am not proud of my parents for giving me that one....
ReplyDeleteOh gosh. My daughter is not really called IJ as I call her in my posts, that's just a silly nickname I made up. But I can say, without disclosing her real name, that if we lived in the States we'd be in trouble!!
ReplyDeleteLove it! We thought of Harry with all three boys, but decided against it on account of the fact that he would actually be Hairy!! Great post!
ReplyDeleteIf you agonised between Laura and Lara for your baby girl, then you'll discover what a waste of time that was when you get here. They sound the same.
ReplyDeleteOnly in the midwest, where they have the Don-Dawn merger.
However, I didn't know whether she was called Jan, Jen or Jane. Try saying all of those with an American accent and they all sound the same. They are all radically different in a Scottish accent!
They all sound different to me in NYC. But of course, it's a big country. American accents might not be as varied as overseas, but we don't all talk the same regardless :)
I think Brits have a hard time distinguishing between different American accents, just as many Americans have a hard time distinguishing between UK accents. Morag
ReplyDelete