Another Australian here! I agree [name_m]Ah[/name_m]-stray-yah is just the bogan version and only used as a joke mostly. I speak in more of an English accent, as I am from South Australia, however, there are some sounds that can trigger Australianisms or prompt reminders of how others speak. Ocker Australian is mainly a cockney or a chav accent. For the most part it has died out; but there are still areas (like my neighbourhood) where it exists, mainly because I live in what’s believe to be a poor area. Usually though the further out of the major cities you go the more the accent changes, my family still speaks so much slang, the average person would have no idea what their saying.
A major one is [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f], a nearby suburb, that gets called “[name_f]Liz[/name_f]-beff” and it’s not shopping centre it’s “going up the sen-uh.”
A and -een ending often sound severe as we slur the sound a lot. Older names like [name_f]Irene[/name_f] and [name_f]Coleen[/name_f] have a really long sound, rather “[name_f]Irene[/name_f]” it sounds like "Eye-reeen. Names like [name_u]Taylor[/name_u] become “[name_u]Tay[/name_u]-luh.” I also hear the usually lovely [name_f]Esme[/name_f] in a really ocker accent in my mind. I find [name_f]Lily[/name_f] difficult to say because of the double “ll” and names like [name_f]Katherine[/name_f] are virtually impossible to pronounce the traditional way as they sound choppy. I can’t say Kath-uh-[name_f]Rin[/name_f], it had to be “Kath-rin.”
It’s funny, for the most part when I talk I pronounce things like Dawnce (dance) and sin-uh-marh (cinema.) But a few weeks ago instead of saying chateau properly I sounded like I said “shadow.”
I found this video interesting when discussing the Australian accent: - YouTube
I have to say that being from [name_f]England[/name_f], close to [name_u]London[/name_u], I know a handful of [name_f]Tia[/name_f]'s and it’s always pronounced Tee-uh.
For me, it’s anything with an -r at the end or in the middle of the name. My family is mostly from [name_m]Boston[/name_m]/RI, so I have to factor in their accents and my own lingering one. For example, I’ve been crushing on [name_u]Marlowe[/name_u] lately, but when I told my mother she said, “Oh, I love Mah-lowe” and it immediately irked me, haha. Same with names that end in -a, because my family will pronounce it wit an -er sound. So, [name_f]Amanda[/name_f] becomes Amander. Luckily, my fiance and his family is from the south, so they pronounce their -rs and I’ve been working on at least sounding mine out, because several names with like have a key -r sound in them that I don’t want butchered.
I live in an area that has a very nasal accent (Great Lakes, anyone?). I missed out on the accent (hooray!) but question whether I can use names with a short A or short O if I have kids when I live here. I love [name_f]Ann[/name_f] and [name_f]Anna[/name_f] but can I deal with them sounding almost like [name_m]Ian[/name_m] and [name_f]Ianna[/name_f]? My name [name_f]Molly[/name_f] is often pronounced Maaahlly. [name_m]Will[/name_m] I cringe whenever I hear [name_f]Catherine[/name_f] pronounced Cyatherine?
This thread should be read by all my fellow Frenchies who give their kids english or american names… without being able to actually pronounce them right.
a colleague of mine has 3 kids, called [name_m]Brandon[/name_m], [name_f]Heather[/name_f], [name_u]Dylan[/name_u] and [name_f]Shana[/name_f]. While it’s not a total catastrophy for [name_m]Brandon[/name_m], [name_u]Dylan[/name_u] and [name_f]Shana[/name_f], she pronounces [name_f]Heather[/name_f] “Ayzeur”.
All the kids called [name_m]Ethan[/name_m] (very popular at the moment) are pronounced “ayttan”; “matthew” becomes “massiou”, [name_m]Sean[/name_m] is said “sheun”, and so on…
I myself like english/american names, by exemple [name_m]Jeremiah[/name_m], but it would be butchered in [name_f]France[/name_f].
So I don’t really think the difference between a british or an american pronounciation is that bad!
This thread seems dominated by brits and aussies! Not trying to be rude at all, but is it really that bad of a problem? I’m from a southern U.S. state and while we’re perceived to be hicks and rednecks, we sound like average (not Yankee) Americans.
For me, it’s really just a mispronunciation of Irish names. Initially I pronounced [name_f]Niamh[/name_f] as “nee-um”, [name_f]Saoirse[/name_f] as “say-orse”, [name_f]Siobhan[/name_f] as “see-oh-ban”, [name_f]Caoimhe[/name_f] as “[name_f]Cay[/name_f]-oh-ee-meh”, [name_f]Sinead[/name_f] as “sin-ee-ed” and so on. I really don’t have a problem with any other names
[name_f]Aurora[/name_f] or any name with repeating “r” sounds. I’m from the south and just jumble it all together and it gets stuck in my throat. All names have to pass a “southern accent” test since my husbands family is very southern so I have to make sure I can stand the name. I also can’t do any names like [name_f]Kiersten[/name_f] ([name_m]Keer[/name_m]-sten). It’s my cousins wifes name and my mom always called her “Curr-sten” and it drives me absolutely insane and I correct her every time.
This isn’t because of my accent, but from a stroke I had as an infant, but I can’t say “R” words very well. My R’s end up coming out as sound like a W or with an -ah sound. Ordering a caramel drink at Starbucks is a nightmare for me because I sound like I’m saying CAHmel. lol. (I say CAR-mul, not [name_f]Cara[/name_f]-mel) Also names like [name_m]Robert[/name_m] and [name_m]Rupert[/name_m] sound more like Wobert and Wupert. haha. I really have to be careful and talk slowly when I say words and names beginning with the R sound.
I’m from Oklahoma, so I do have a slight southern twang, but it doesn’t really cause me to dislike how a name sounds. My grandparents, on the other hand, have a strong southern accent and they pronounce a lot of names and words differently than me.
I’m from a southern state too, and while I don’t notice my accent barely ever, my fiance sometimes laughs at certain words I say. [name_u]Baby[/name_u] comes out bigh-bee sometimes. Sigh. I can’t even describe how I say no. Most words with I’s in them come out weird unless
I think about it first. Like they aren’t long I’s. The word I comes out more like ah. Its hard to describe. What I want sometimes equals “whut ah won’t.” That being said most names come out fine, I do have a problem with [name_f]Aurora[/name_f] though. The double R’s trip me up. [name_f]Elsa[/name_f] my favorite name sounds like [name_f]Ailsa[/name_f] but I’m fine with that. [name_f]Ivy[/name_f] sometimes sounds like ah-vee. Its just a matter on if I’m thinking about what I’m saying or not, because if I am I can stress the syllables to make them sound clearer.
I’ve only heard Tahlia say as tar-lee-ah or once a Tah-lee-ah (I think her name had no h though)
I say Tia the same as tear but it’s still a pretty common name.
My sisters and mums names both get pretty badly pronounced my sister is Adele but it gets said Ad-eue (just with no l) while my mum her name is Elspeth but she gets elz-peth, elz-beth, elsa-beth, eue-speth when it is quite simply Els-peth
Sawyer is the only one I’ve had to (but from my boys list) since it sounds the same as soya bean.
Another Aussie weighing in
I agree with @emiliana that [name_u]Sawyer[/name_u] sounds exactly like soya in the Australian accent. I find [name_f]Cara[/name_f] quite ugly in the Australian accent too - it sounds a bit like the cawing sound a crow makes, which isn’t pretty.
Something I found very interesting when living in the USA (Seattle to be precise) was that how Australians pronounce [name_m]Barney[/name_m] (my brother’s name) is exactly how Americans (or Washingtonians, maybe) pronounce [name_f]Bonnie[/name_f]. We visited a family who had a little girl called [name_f]Bonnie[/name_f] and it got very confusing!
Basically any French name for me that has an R in it. They’re supossed to be these deep French ones that I am not able to do. But it doesn’t prevent me from loving Mazarine that I an saying with a hard R.
I am pretty good with names like Esmee, Hélène, Ophélie and so on though.
It’s not that bad. OP just asked what names we don’t like because of our accent. For Brits and Aussies, the “ah” sound is quite troublesome. It can become problematic in my experience when people can’t understand you like anyone else. I suspect the “ah” and “an” sounds are the most linguistically different across the world when paired with accents.
I agree with [name_u]Jem[/name_u]. We say car-uh for [name_f]Cara[/name_f]
I am from the South and some words I say that contain the long “I” sound sound more like a short “O” sound. So when I say the name [name_f]Lila[/name_f], it sounds more like L(ah)la…but that wouldn’t keep me from using it. I like my accent and I think [name_f]Lila[/name_f] is a lovely name!
My half brothers name is [name_u]Kyle[/name_u]. Everyone in Australia says [name_u]Kyle[/name_u] to rhyme with tile. As in two syllables, it doesn’t sound like the name [name_u]Cal[/name_u] at all.
I like [name_f]Clara[/name_f], but I don’t live in the UK and that’s the only accent I like it pronounced in. Here, everyone would say [name_f]Claire[/name_f]-ah as opposed to the UK way of C-lar-ah.
I am from the Pacific Northwest United States and so have a very “clean” (and sometimes considered hard because there isn’t a lot of give) accent – we pronounce all our letters, sometimes to a fault. Overall this doesn’t interfere with saying names, which is great. I have noticed that we really struggle (as probably the entire United States does) on where to place emphases when it comes to less familiar names and what to make of any accent marks should they appear in a name. Then we botch it up.
My nephew has an old Spanish name and people often have a hard time placing the emphasis on the last of his two syllable name and saying the “i” as an “eee” sound. They say “Dih-muhs” instead of “Dee-MAHS” for Dimas. It’s actually a very simple name to say, but even after corrected some persist! People just get stuck on phonetics because it’s foreign when our own language (esp names) tends to be so un-phonetical in the first place!
I have lived on the East Coast as well as in the South and really got a kick out of all the dropped letters and the randomly inserted “r”! There is also an accent in the deep South that turns “th” into “d” and “oi” sounds more like “er”. One name that seemed particularly hard to say in one place I lived in the South was “Audrey”, which often came out “owd-ree” or “ow-woo-dree” or even “oh-oo-dree” and ow-der-y. The more they try to say it the worse it gets. AWFUL! I say it Aw-dree". I also noticed that in the South some accents tended to draw out/double up any initial vowel sounds, making my name Ayahmee for Amy.
I live in the US and love a bunch of Hebrew names with a guttural “ch” sound in them, like the “ch” in [name_m]Bach[/name_m] or loch. Most Jews are raised with enough Hebrew education or cultural experience with certain words (like challah or Chanukah) that it’s not a problem. But in pretty much every English speaking country people would assume that it was ch like in cheese or maybe if I’m lucky like [name_f]Charlotte[/name_f]. And even when told how a name is pronounced they still can’t make that sound, so at best you get an “h”;it just does not exist in the English language, or a lot of other languages for that matter.
So a lot of Jewish people i know hesitate to name their kids Chedva or Yechiel or Yochanan or [name_m]Chaim[/name_m], because not only will they be mispronounced initially, most people around them will never really be able to pronounce them correctly.
I’m [name_m]French[/name_m] and actually I will not give [name_m]French[/name_m] names because they are not all wearable in [name_u]America[/name_u] (because of the pronounciation sometimes)
But I don’t mind if I don’t pronounce a name exactly how it should be pronounced, I think. Maybe because I will never say it correctly in English anyways ^^
[name_f]Ivy[/name_f] sometimes sounds like ah-vee. Its just a matter on if I’m thinking about what I’m saying or not, because if I am I can stress the syllables to make them sound clearer.