Are there any names you’ve heard horribly mispronounced? For example my us history teacher once pronounced [name]Imogen[/name] em-uh-o-gen
People mispronounce my daughter’s name all the time, which I didn’t think would be a problem. Her and her twin brother were just born in [name]September[/name] but I have already run across problems. Her names is Anevay and people seem to think for some reason it’s pronounced AWN uh vay or [name]ANNE[/name] uh vay. [name]One[/name] person even said [name]AH[/name] neev vay. I’m like what? It’s AHN uh vay!
When my husband and I were going to university together, we had an indian professor who pronounced his name ([name]Daniel[/name]) like [name]Danielle[/name]. He hated it! It was funny though. I don’t think she could pronounce the yull sound very well with her accent.
When I was showing names to my husband, he used to have a hard time with pronunciation as well. [name]One[/name] time he pronounced [name]Chloe[/name] “Shh-low”! I was rolling on the floor laughing. Shlow. It was hilarious.
My husband and I were really hoping to use the name [name]Moira[/name] for a future daughter… but my mother CANNOT say the name.
“Muy…Muyla…[name]Maya[/name]…[name]Myra[/name]…What is it again?”
[name]Every[/name] time.
Not pronunciation really, but I had a boss at a coffee shop once who could not get a handle on spelling of names. He would type a customer’s name in the computer and I would have to decipher it. I’d be holding the slip thinking “Kateland? What the heck is Kateland?” Meanwhile poor [name]Caitlin[/name] is waiting for her mocha.
I don’t have this pronunciation problem generally [name]IRL[/name], but I did have several people tell me “[name]Angel[/name], do you mean [name]Angela[/name]?”
I do have this issue on here all the time, generally with Greek names. It’s either people on here who don’t know how to say it (and don’t care when I try to correct them despite the fact that I’m Greek and know what I’m talking about :P), or Nameberry has a wrong pronunciation and so people always say “but Nameberry says…”
I have this issue with [name]Thalia[/name] (thay-lee-uh), [name]Xanthe[/name] (zan-thee which Nameberry lists as zan-theh and x-zan-theh), [name]Ione[/name] (ee-oh-nee), [name]Ianthe[/name] (ee-an-thee), [name]Elysia[/name] (eh-lee-seeuh)… and a lot of others 
I knew a “Miss Hermy” from my grandmother’s church, and her full named was pronounced “HER-me-un.” It was spelled [name]Hermione[/name]. I didn’t know how the name was supposed to be pronounced until taking a graduate [name]Shakespeare[/name] course and we read [name]Winter[/name]'s Tale! The professor referenced [name]Harry[/name] [name]Potter[/name] as well, and I was floored. Suddenly a name I cringed at became beautiful!
(The same thing happened with [name]Persephone[/name]. For a long time I thought it was “Purse-a-phone.” Sigh…the problems that come with reading and not hearing words!)
Most of it probably depends on where you live and your background in languages, but 98% of people in [name]North[/name] [name]America[/name] seem to think [name]Iker[/name] is pronounced “EYE-kurr”
cringe
@shellezbellez, your last line reminded me of the episode of [name]How[/name] I Met Your Mother where [name]Ted[/name] pronounces “chameleon” as “cham-uh-lee-on” 
last summer I learned that ‘carafe’ is pronounced “kuh-[name]RAFF[/name]” and not “ka-[name]RA[/name]-fay”. I think everyone has a word/name like that, lol.
I have an old friend whose name is [name]Sy[/name] (Sigh). When we were in college people and teachers would look at her name and say “C” and it frustrated her so much.
[name]Caroline[/name] is pronounced “line” for English speakers and “leen” for French speakers. I don’t know why some people pronounce the end like “lyn”? Isn’t that why we have [name]Carolyn[/name] as an option?
Oh bless you! 
My fifth grade teacher called me caro-[name]LYNN[/name] for the entire year and insisted she was right. Nightmare.
I once heard [name]Heather[/name] said HEETH-er, like [name]Heathcliff[/name], which I guess makes sense in the strictest just looking at it terms, but really? I also remember when my cousin was first reading [name]Harry[/name] [name]Potter[/name] and saying [name]Hermione[/name] in a way that made it sound like “macaroni”–pretty bad, but almost an adorable attempt. [name]Milena[/name] also gets fairly mangled, although I’m never sure how much of that is people not knowing how to say it vs regional accents making it sound unrecognizable.
I get [name]Emily[/name] and [name]Emma[/name]. I my class an [name]Ines[/name] gets I-ness, I [name]Kiah[/name] (said [name]Kaia[/name]) gets pronounced [name]Kia[/name] and a [name]Bo[/name] (like [name]Beau[/name]) has got Boo.
My name is [name]Briallen[/name] which is absolutely fine to pronounce in [name]Wales[/name] where I live because well everyone knows how it is pronounced but If I go to [name]England[/name] or some other place on a business trip then I get all sorts of wonderful and weird pronounciations! My daughter is [name]Eliska[/name] and I guess I should have seen this coming but they pronounce it like Eliss-ka. Its actually pronounced [name]Elish[/name]-ka. Like [name]Elisha[/name] with a K. But apart from that most of my family have their names pronounced properly. Although I have a very strange accent. Im very mixed heritage so most people misunderstand what I say!
[name]Bree[/name]
Most English speakers don’t pronounce the Scandinavian names they think are so charming correctly. [name]Ingrid[/name] is not pronounced with a hard G sound, and the D is silent for exapmple. [name]Leif[/name] could not be made to sound like 'leaf at all, it sounds like ‘life’, anyhing else is wrong.
However, I don’t go around and correct people all the time. Maybe on [name]Leif[/name], but that one’s just wrong, and easy to pronounce the right way. [name]Ingrid[/name] not so much. I think you should allow some leniency when it comes to names from foreign languages. You can’t expect people to pronounce a name like the mentioned [name]Ione[/name] or [name]Eliska[/name] correctly on the first go, especially if they’ve only read the name. That said, [name]Ione[/name] has an English pronunciation that’s been in use for a long time that’s consistent with several other Greek names like [name]Iris[/name] or [name]Irene[/name] (although this one was originally [name]Eirene[/name]). It’s the typical English pronunciation of Greek names starting with I, I don’t think there’s any point in trying to correct it. Same with [name]Ingrid[/name] or [name]Astrid[/name] (silent D), [name]Signe[/name] (not pronounced like [name]Signy[/name]), [name]Jens[/name] and [name]Lars[/name] (which is basically correct it just sounds horribly wrong and guttural).
Some names translate easily, I have Alvarin and Disa in my signature as suggestions for those, but suggesting Torarin would be troublesome, it has many sounds that are really difficult for native English speakers to pronounce the same way as we do here, so expecting it to go smoothly is a joke. The O’s are always a little different, the R’s are never quite right, and let’s just not mention the vowels. It’s not going to get much better.
I’ve let go. I don’t go around correcting people (except with [name]Leif[/name]). I’m just happy they want to use the Nordic names, go right ahead and pronounce them in the best way you can and I’m delighted. I’m also happy to help you look for names that translate well if you need more suggestions. There are many gems ^^
I have a friend called Kiaya ([name]Kaia[/name]) that always gets called [name]Kay[/name]-a or Kee-a or in one case Kee-eye-a. -_-
Totally agree
[name]America[/name] is a country of immigrants. We have may different languages/dialects/accents mixing together and influencing each other so you can’t expect the original pronunciation every time. I cringe when I hear my name or others mispronounced but I don’t make a big deal about correcting people
I had this English professor in college (an NYer) that was correcting the class on how to pronounce local place names. There is a street named Macomb, we all pronounced is “mah-comb” but he said “may-come”. There’s also a town called [name]Havana[/name]. We pronounced it “HEY-vanna”, while he said “huh-vanna”. We all knew the “correct” pronunciation of these names but that’s the way are commonly pronounced here. We all pronounced [name]Havana[/name], [name]Cuba[/name] correctly so obviously we weren’t dumb. It was very rude of him as an outsider to come to the South and tell us how to pronounce our place names. He was laughing and belittling us like we were some country bumpkins that needed his help to speak correctly.
We also grew up with a lot of French, Portuguese & Spanish speakers. I pronounce their names however they tell me. [name]Thalia[/name] is “ta-lia”, [name]Bruce[/name] is “brew-say”, [name]Beatrice[/name] is “bee-at-trees”, Islande is “iz-lawnd”, [name]Christian[/name] is “chriz-tee-awn”
I had a friend who began reading the [name]Harry[/name] [name]Potter[/name] books and she read all the way through believing it was pronounced as “Hermy-one” and she said she remembered thinking “what a silly name.” It was only when she went to see the film and thought “oh, that’s how you say it.” LOL.
I used to pronounce [name]Persephone[/name] as Purs-ee-phone because that’s how it look, but now I adore the name pronounced correctly.
What bugs me more is when people use an unusual name and just expect people to know how to pronounce it. I mean you should realise that that is a negative to using an unusual name and correcting people is something you should just expect.
My sisters get their names mispronounced a lot.
[name]Ahnna[/name] is frequently [name]Anna[/name], or [name]Hannah[/name], or Ahana (it’s pronounced phonetically).
[name]Kierra[/name] is usually told her name is actually [name]Kiara[/name] or Kerrah. However, her friend [name]Kiernan[/name] has no problems with his name, and they begin with the same sound.
My sister [name]Leeah[/name] is sometimes [name]Leia[/name] (like star wars), or Leeane. She’s [name]Leah[/name], but with an extra letter.
I mostly just get told my name ([name]Britta[/name]) is short for [name]Bridget[/name] or [name]Britney[/name], which isn’t true. People often also pronounce it [name]Bree[/name]-tah, So I introduce myself as “[name]Britta[/name], Like the Water Filter”.
Once I got called [name]Heidi[/name], which was bizarre.
My sister’s name is [name]Mariah[/name] (like the singer, [name]Mariah[/name] [name]Carey[/name]) but she gets [name]Maria[/name] frequently. A little more of an “understandable” mispronunciation, my best friend in middle school’s name was [name]Chelsea[/name], but it was pronounced like Chel-SAH.
In college, I had friends who were married by a local official whom they had never met before. The ridiculous man referred to [name]Ian[/name] as EYE-ehn the ENTIRE ceremony. It was horrible and distracting.
The worst name mispronunciation that we unfortunately have to hear every day is House speaker [name]John[/name] Boehner… The F#$king MORON thinks that somehow BOEH can be pronounced [name]BAY[/name]. The REAL pronunciation of this MORON’s name is BONER… if he doesn’t like the way his name is pronmounced, he should CHANGE IT!!! Orherwise pronounce it correctly [name]John[/name] Boner!