They only thing I care about is trying to avoid having initials spell out something awful like A.S.S. or F.A.T.
As someone with a "foreign" first name and last name Abby can fuck right off with this nonsense. I constantly tell students that if I say their name wrong to correct me every time. I try really hard with names and spelling, and I never call a kid by a nickname unless they tell me to.
My cousins have the unfortunate initials of E.G.G. and F.A.G. Their mom named them in alphabetical order starting with A and never considered what their initials would be.
Dear Abby, I teach in a school that has a very high first and second generation immigrant population. So we have names that fall under Nepali pronunciation, Indian pronunciations, Somali, etc. the very first day of school, I tell my kids to tell me if I mispronounce their name. End of story.
It’s not hard to respect another person’s name and culture. Signed, A white person who still gets called the wrong name sometimes
Dear Abby is an unapologetic racist. Her answers have shown that over the years but she still gets her platform to be awful. I wouldn’t ask her the time.
Dear Abby, I teach in a school that has a very high first and second generation immigrant population. So we have names that fall under Nepali pronunciation, Indian pronunciations, Somali, etc. the very first day of school, I tell my kids to tell me if I mispronounce their name. End of story.
It’s not hard to respect another person’s name and culture. Signed, A white person who still gets called the wrong name sometimes
It really isn't that hard. Abby is so wrong here.
I have two kids named Alanna (I teach a special so I get all the kids in the school). One is "elena" one is "a-lawn-a". So I just write it phonetically in my seating chart and tell them to correct me if I say it wrong. I also have had Mia (mee-ah) and Mia (my-ah). I do lots of name games (honestly, with 600 kids that i will have for 7 years total, learning their names is 100% necessary) My kid named Dev pronounces it "day-o". He is not shy about correcting people, I love him.
This reminds me of my brother’s childhood friend. His parents gave him an Indian name, 4 letters long. During the baby’s first year, his dad grew incredibly frustrated at the constant butchering of the pronunciation by non-Indian people. He decided to go through the process to legally change his son’s name. The new name was 6 letters and could only be pronounced one way, still an Indian name. This kid is now 31 years old and has no issues with his name.
I view this a bit like some people of my grandparent's generation and their reluctance to teach their children their native language. H's mother and father can not speak Polish, or Italian respectiviely despite their parents being fluent. They wanted to their kids to "fit in."
As much as we hope that the world has become more open, tolerant, and respectful than 65 years ago, there are a lot of places that it hasn't. I imagine the person posting this question is trying to minimize the ways their child could potentially be made fun of. Maybe not hide their heritage, but make a small part of living in the land of Jacobs and Emmas a bit easier? That's why my kids have Arabic middle names and not first names. But my brother's kids have Arabic first names that they have to correct all the time and it hasn't been an issue so I fully admit the hesitation in naming my kids my favorite names is own issue colored by my own childhood experience. I speak to the boys in Arabic and everyone knows I'm Middle Eastern so its not about trying to be more American for me.
I grew up in a culturally diverse college town. My brother had a very Arabic name and got teased all the time. But so did his classmate Doug. My brother could have gone by Ed ( a part of his name) but he doesn't.
My dad has the most Muslim name out there and told off a colleague that wanted to shorten it to make it easier and call him Mo.
I didn't want my kids to deal with what I have for the last 39 years because I find it incredibly annoying when people get my name wrong. I even changed it to the English spelling and people still mess it up. I have a lot of friends who have chosen names that work in both cultures on purpose because of their experiences growing up. I don't fault them for doing so.
People who mispronounce names on purpose or are dicks about names? F them.
This reminds me of my brother’s childhood friend. His parents gave him an Indian name, 4 letters long. During the baby’s first year, his dad grew incredibly frustrated at the constant butchering of the pronunciation by non-Indian people. He decided to go through the process to legally change his son’s name. The new name was 6 letters and could only be pronounced one way, still an Indian name. This kid is now 31 years old and has no issues with his name.
I used to work with a guy named Atin, and was appalled by our coworkers inability to pronounce it. It is 4 letters. There wasn't even a single way that they all mispronounced it-- there were like 3 different ways, all wrong. I asked him about it once, and he was like "Yes! What is wrong with these people!" but he had given up on correcting them.
I actually had a great name in mind if I ever had a son. I like the sound and spelling of it, it has a lot of meaning in my religion and the letters are an anagram of DD‘s name. I liked that “connection“ the two siblings names would have.
The name is Aryan.
I had this name in mind years ago and knew that realistically, I could never knowingly name my son this name in America. Given everything that has happened post November 2016, potential associations with this really great name would be even worse. The name is still out there. My husband‘s cousin has some relatives on her in-laws side that are immigrants and named their two-year-old this name. It will be interesting to see how he navigates life with the name although if he never leaves NYC, it may not be a problem for him.
I have 180 students I work with in a semester. It is important to me that I learn all of their names. Thankfully our college collects pronunciations from the students. I print that out and practice the hard ones often. We have a wide variety of cultures represented.
I am very self conscious of my pronunciation skills. It is like I see the person, internally freak out and wonder if the name I am going to say is the wrong way.
I also have an unusual name and have never minded people asking me if they said it right. So I have told myself there is no shame in doing the same. It seems like a better solution than avoiding the name. It is sad when students, and these are adults, get excited because I say it right.
I actually had a great name in mind if I ever had a son. I like the sound and spelling of it, it has a lot of meaning in my religion and the letters are an anagram of DD‘s name. I liked that “connection“ the two siblings names would have.
The name is Aryan.
I had this name in mind years ago and knew that realistically, I could never knowingly name my son this name in America. Given everything that has happened post November 2016, potential associations with this really great name would be even worse. The name is still out there. My husband‘s cousin has some relatives on her in-laws side that are immigrants and named their two-year-old this name. It will be interesting to see how he navigates life with the name although if he never leaves NYC, it may not be a problem for him.
My son has a friend with this name, and I admit I side-eyed the name until I realized he is Indian.
People will get names wrong regardless. My mother chose a male spelling for my name so I never expect anyone to get that part right. My name is an easy four letter adjective that everyone pronounces correctly, spelled the same way if you read it first. When I was younger I was often called my last name which is a pretty common girls name as well. It always made me angry. I also would get angry if it was altered in any way. My name is two syllables and I want to hear both of them when you talk to me. Each and every letter has been changed in my name through my life and I stopped bothering to correct people more than once. People also pick up random other names to call me, one of them being my maiden name, which is weird since I do not use it and have not for fifteen years. I do take note of who gets my name wrong and am less likely to go out of my way to help those people. It is disrespectful to get a name wrong.
I had a friend in middle school with an Indian name. She had heard it butchered so many times that she would not share her whole name with me. She went by the first syllable and that is all she would say. I do not think anyone should have to feel that way. A name may be more complicated, but it is still part of who you are. Everyone deserves the basic respect to have their name said correctly.
Post by mrs.jacinthe on Oct 19, 2018 18:36:32 GMT -5
As a white woman with an unusual name, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've wished my parents had given me a more traditionally pronounced/spelled name. I wanted to be Victoria or Elizabeth or even Sally *so* badly when I was a kid. No one can pronounce it. No one can spell it. I've given up on telling it to people at Starbucks or other places where they ask for names. That said, children have no trouble pronouncing it. It's grown-ass (and ALWAYS white) adults that can't be freaking bothered to listen while I say my own name who - repeatedly - can't get it right.
As a white woman with an unusual name, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've wished my parents had given me a more traditionally pronounced/spelled name. I wanted to be Victoria or Elizabeth or even Sally *so* badly when I was a kid. No one can pronounce it. No one can spell it. I've given up on telling it to people at Starbucks or other places where they ask for names. That said, children have no trouble pronouncing it. It's grown-ass (and ALWAYS white) adults that can't be freaking bothered to listen while I say my own name who - repeatedly - can't get it right.
My last name, which is my H’s last name, is Swedish and the pronunciation isn’t easy to guess from how it’s spelled. And the accent isn’t on the syllable that most American names would have. I worked with over 200 college kids over the last few years and every single one got it right almost immediately. My boss, a grown woman who I worked for for almost two years, never once got it right.
I share this to point out that we as humans have an amazing capacity for learning how to pronounce names that don’t come from English roots, and also because it must be about 1000 times harder for people who don’t have the privilege that I have as a white woman to have their names butchered or changed or dropped because white people cant be bothered.
I clicked away before posting previously, still not sure I have anything to add. I think what Abby views as "too ethnic" is something that will shift over time, so why not just name your child what you want to name them?
She would've been on the side of my grandma's teachers who decided learning to pronounce Loredana was too difficult, so instead called her Lorna Doone. She ended up changing her name to Lorna because of it. She didn't raise her kids speaking Italian, but Italian phrases have been used off and on my whole life in my family, so it wasn't completely off limits.
My super British last name gives people more trouble than my grandmother's Italian maiden name or her Slovak married last name would give. Which is part of why all of this is bullshit. People can learn to pronounce anything (or, hopefully, learn not to pronounce a letter that's just there for show). I still get excited when people pronounce my last name correctly on the first try.
My best friend must have dealt with a good amount of this because in college, she tried to go by a nickname for a while. I think she has a beautiful Indian name that really isn't hard to pronounce if you just listen to how she says it. Just like many names. Funnily enough, one of the names my parents considered for me (Venita, meaning little Venus) is similar to her name. So the whole idea of some names being "too ethnic" while others, attached to blindingly white people, are okay is just utter horseshit.
*I keep using "too ethnic" in quotes because I think that's a bullshit concept. Also because I found out in the past year that there are people who still think Italian food is ethnic and scary and adventurous, which blows my mind. There will always be people who need to get out of their bubbles. Learning to say someone's name correctly is a step in that direction.
My dad has the most Muslim name out there and told off a colleague that wanted to shorten it to make it easier and call him Mo.
So when my brother told my mom and I that he now goes by Mo, he also said a lot of people would say to him "Mo, is that short for Mohammad?" My very Hindu mother suddenly went through a wide range of emotions. My brother and I calmed her down and said stop panicking.
I have a Spanish name and people always mispronounce it. Even after I correct them a million times. It’s not that hard. Little kids however will say my name just fine after a couple of tries.
Something that happened recently at the kids’ diversity meeting was a white mom who has a daughter she adopted from Sudan. So a teacher was asking the mom how to properly say her daughter’s name because she had heard a few different pronunciations and the mom said that it didn’t matter and to call her whatever she wanted. I just looked at her like WTF??