The Quick Poll Thread! (Part 4)

I actually think it’s the opposite, that if a variation exists that works within the language rules of the country you’re using it in, that variation should be picked over one that would be “mispronounced”. As Celine is a legit variation and the é does not exist in the English language, to me, it’s more respectful to choose Celine than to mispronounce Céline.

Not quite, no, haha. But say you were French and lived in the US, the accents are important in French because they change the pronunciation of the letter E, so to me, in this case it would make sense to choose Céline, because when she’s in France, the accent would matter while it would be overlooked in the US because it doesn’t exist in English.
Or if you, a German citizen, were to choose Käthe for your daughter who will be raised in the UK. You’d want to keep the ä because it significantly changes the spelling in Germany but it really doesn’t matter at all in the UK.

However, if a random British person were to choose Käthe for their child and pronounced it “Cathy”, that would seem odd to me because that’s really not the name and they don’t need the ä because their child doesn’t have a German passport nor is spoked to in German.

Selene is different to me because it does not include any letters that don’t work in the English language. For languages where this would be a problem, I’m sure a variation exists.

I talked about this in more length here in case you want to see where I come from with this opinion: Séraphine or Seraphine - #2 by OpheliaFlora

7 Likes