My husband and I are expecting our second daughter in July. We both love the name [name_f]Anastazja[/name_f] (pronounced Ah-na-star-zia) but I am worried that, living in Australia, she will constantly be called “Ah-na-staz-ja”. However, if we change the spelling to [name_f]Anastasia[/name_f], most Australians would pronounce it “Ah-na-stay-sha”.
What would you do? Do you think people would understand the correct pronunciation if we spelled it “[name_f]Anastazja[/name_f]” even if they’ve never learnt any Polish? I feel like she’s constantly going to be correcting people no matter what.
I appreciate any responses (and I apologise if I am grammatically incorrect, English is not my first language).
[name_f]Anastazja[/name_f] is a stunning name, but I do think there’d be a lot of issues with pronunciation. I have to admit, I did pronounce it ‘ah-na-staz-ja’ at first, but as soon as I saw the correct pronunciation, I had no problem sticking to it.
On the other hand, I think 98% of the Australian population would pronounce [name_f]Anastasia[/name_f] as ‘ah-na-stay-sha’.
It’s a tricky situation. I’d love to hear if you had any othe back-up names.
Yes she will have to correct people, but I’d use the name you love with its traditional spelling. Once her family, friends, teachers and colleagues know how it’s pronounced, it wont be an issue.
I’m wondering if [name_f]Anastazia[/name_f] spelling is a sensible option? It might not be, but just to test the idea: much more like to get the “zia” and possibly the “star” sounds than with [name_f]Anastasia[/name_f] (which would get [name_f]Ana[/name_f]-stay-jsah).
Otherwise, I would go with [name_f]Anastazja[/name_f] but yes it will mean explaining it to every non-Poilsh person, hopefully only once.