I’m getting attached to the name [name]Graham[/name], but started thinking about how my preschooler still can’t say his Rs properly, and whether I will end up with a child named [name]Graham[/name] who cannot pronounce his own name until first grade. Who has experience with names (especially with Rs or Ls I bet) that their DD or DS cannot pronounce?
I don’t know a ton of kids, but the ones I do (especially with "R"s and "L"s in their names) are able to say them just fine. Besides, I think hearing a little boy say “My name is Gwam” would be so cute! (I admit, that’s half of [name]Aurora[/name]'s appeal to me… I wouldn’t want to torture my poor daughter, but just imagining her saying [name]Isabelle[/name] [name]Aurora[/name] [name]Grace[/name] just makes me swoon, haha.)
Ok this one I can actually help with. My name is [name]Lindsay[/name] and my four front baby teeth came in very crooked and not in a straight line. They were to hard to deal with so they had to be removed when I was 4. I could no longer say my own name properly until around 1st o 2nd grade when my permanent teeth came in. I did not really mind and I would NEVER change my name. I was little and no one cared that I could not say it right. It was obvious I did not have any front teeth and that it caused me to say lots of things wrong. This year I am working with speech impaired children and the majority of them cannot say their own name right either, even if their name is an “easier” name to say. They really don’t seem to notice that they are mispronouncing their own, so they could really care less. I don’t think it should be a problem if you really love the name. Eventually he will be able to say it right.
Children not being able to say their name yet = sweetness. My sister called me “Aledanda” for years, and it still sticks! [name]Don[/name]'t let that get in the way of your choosing.
my husband’s name is graham. he and i love it so good choice! as he says, “kids don’t often say their own name and when they do, generally people get the jist.” i also agree with ash on the “gwam” thing, toooooo sweet!
My youngest brother had a lot of trouble with Rs (and a number of other sounds) when he was young, and the 2nd letter of his first name is R (and our surname had an R and two Ws in it, so that wasn’t pronounced very well either). He went to a speech therapist starting at the age of three and went until he was maybe 6 or 7. Now he’s 18 and there’s been no trace of pronunciation problems in the past 10 years 
I work in speech therapy and agree when this comes up it’s usually not a big problem. With these mild difficulties, in the home it’s often sweet and cute and when kids start school there are often so many additional cues for the other kids to get the name right, like the teacher saying it, and as kids begin to read that’s there too. This might be an advantage to relatively common names - [name]Isabelle[/name] who has a hard time with S’s and L’s may have a quicker transition to people getting it than [name]Sable[/name] who has trouble with her S’s and L’s. [name]Just[/name] speculating really though. It’s obviously potentially different for each individual kid.
I say mild difficulties meaning there are 8 sounds or so (in US English) that are considered quite common to come in late. Different experts give different age cut-offs, but anywhere between four-and-a-half and 7-and-a-half depending on the child’s overall development profile, and also the need! If a child can’t pronounce a sound that happens to be in their name and it is causing distress or difficulties, some SLPs will choose to treat even if they would otherwise adopt a waiting approach. These sounds are R and L as the pp’s have said, and also S, SH, CH, TH (like thumb and bath), TH (like they and bathe), and “ZH” (like the sound s says in measure…in a name like [name]Asia[/name] for example).
Keep in mind too some children have more significant sound development problems and so even a name with lots of “early-developing” sounds (I don’t know, say, [name]Babette[/name]), may pose difficulties, there’s no guarantee, just likelihoods. In those cases most SLP’s would recommend to intervene as long as the child was at an age where those sounds would be expected.
My own one mild reservation is about names containing an element of “[name]Ash[/name]”, because a very common error is to pronounce SH as S : D.
My little borther’s name is [name]Caleb[/name], and he used to say it “[name]CAY[/name]-eb” until he was around 4. It was never a big deal though, we all thought it was cute. Equally, there are two Rs in my name and he came up with a completely different nickname for me because he couldn’t say his Rs. He’s almost 7 now and still uses that nickname for me, actually!
What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think it would be something that would really bother you if it happened. [name]Just[/name] a cute quirk.
I think all kids have trouble with pronunciation when they are developing their language skills. My daughter’s name is [name]Claire[/name] and she (2.5 yrs old) says her name is Cwaire. Everyone thinks it is cute and I have no doubt she will get the L sound eventually.
My brother couldn’t pronounce his Rs until about the 2nd or 3rd grade and his name is [name]Ryan[/name] (last name also starts with R). I don’t think it was ever a problem for him. He eventually got it. It was cute to hear him say Wyan while it lasted.
i had a speech problem and my name came out Nestiny but it’s [name]Michon[/name] [name]Inez[/name] but i thought it was cute. i was called this 2 weeks into Kindergarten The teacher asked my mom how she got the name Nestiny my mom was like her name is [name]Michon[/name]. I even had a name tag saying Nestiny.
My little cousin used to call me Slezlie until she was maybe six. Unfortunately, I’m 54 and my uncle (her father) still calls me Slezlie! We worried about this when my sister announced she was going to name her first child [name]Rurik[/name] (Russian/Slavic for [name]Roderic[/name]) – Woowik? – but she named him [name]Peter[/name]. We knew many Grahams when we lived in Vancouver and didn’t notice any issues for anyone.
I have a sweet, 4 year-old Woe-nan ([name]Ronan[/name]). He’ll get it one day, and I help clarify if people have a hard time understanding it. I find most people can translate preschool accents pretty well!
I don’t think you can or need to choose a name based on possible speech problems. Little kids alwasy says things differently and it not a big deal. The only time it would be a big deal I think is if they can’t say most things correctly, and then its not a problem with the name, but with their speech development. I would choose a name I like, and the child will eventually learn to say it correctly. There might be few nicknames in the mean time. I remember having a doll when I was little that came with the name Ethel Mona, but I called her Ona Mona. I actually ended up having speech therapy when I was 4 year old, due to speech development problems from frequent ear infections. As a teenager and adult, I have been complimented numerous times on my pronuciation. So its not a big deal at all that I went though that. In fact, I loved my speech therapist because she was helping me and people could finally understand me.
Kids will be kids; for the first few years of their lives there will be numerous things they cannot pronounce, which in some cases would include their name. That’s not a problem at all though; it’s natural. It’s cute too, most of the time, and I don;t think they really mind either. And if they can’t pronounce something, they’ll find a way to call it by something else. My best friend called chocolate milk [name]Dot[/name]-[name]Dot[/name] for quite a few years, cute right? [name]Even[/name] now there are some words that some people can’t pronounce properly. Like my friend can’t pronounce dorm, she says ‘dwarm’. The only problem with name pronunciation is if no one can pronounce the name, but [name]Graham[/name] is an easy one and any kid will get it someday.
If it’s any help, our son is named [name]Graham[/name]. He did pronounce it incorrectly (Gam) for a little while, but it didn’t take long to get it right. He’s a big 6 year old now and I miss his little voice.
As others have said, choose what you like and don’t worry.
My sons cannot pronounce my DD’s name as it starts with a hard C and both replace hard C sounds with T.
My middle son also has a mild speech problem and has trouble with most words, so yes sometimes he gets his own name wrong. And very few people can understand him when he does say it, but I’m not worried. He’ll grow out of it. [name]Both[/name] boys will.
I don’t think it matters at all.