Do you know how to properly pronounce your surname?

[Anonymous]

DH's family comes from a slavic country that uses cyrillic. Why the F wasn't the name written as it's pronounced in English? They use a different alphabet so they should have gone by the usual English phonetics when writing it out. I wonder this about other names as well that come from countries that use different alphabets- like Chinese names. DH's family pronounces their last name wrong, so I do too.

I completely understand why a French last name wouldn't change the spelling when they immigrate to the US. But if your last name doesn't have a spelling in English/latin alphabet, why not choose an easy one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't roll an "r" so I can't do some Spanish names correctly. Although I called the Jorge I worked with Jorge, while he was George to most of our coworkers.

We had a neighbor when I was growing up who was French Moroccan. His first name was Jean but he was Johnny to everyone who knew him.

A lot of people with saint's names pronounce them like the country they are in. My name changed when I lived in Germany to the German version. It was nbd.

[Anonymous]

My family does mispronounce our last name vs its original pronunciation. I've thought of that before but I never thought about other families doing it, as well.

There is a sound in my last name, which actually isn't rare in the US, that isn't made in English. So, we go with an approximation.

[Anonymous]

Our surname is Irish. I do know the old Irish spelling, and the dozen or so Anglicized surnames that have come from it; wide ranging and very different names and spellings. Most of my Irish cousins cannot pronounce the original, but those in the Gaeltacht do, but they rarely use the main branch name, as the Anglicized version is what has been passed down to them on their branch of the family.

[Anonymous]

My family respelled our surname and I’m glad they did.

Our surname was Basayev (Basayeva) and they respelled it to Bassa. It sounds ethnically ambiguous and easy to pronounce.
We did not know that 20 years later there would be an infamous terrorist with the name Basayev, so I’m glad we changed it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The correct way to pronounce a name is the way the person with the name chooses to pronounce it. I have anglicized first and last names, those are my names.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH's family comes from a slavic country that uses cyrillic. Why the F wasn't the name written as it's pronounced in English? They use a different alphabet so they should have gone by the usual English phonetics when writing it out. I wonder this about other names as well that come from countries that use different alphabets- like Chinese names. DH's family pronounces their last name wrong, so I do too.

I completely understand why a French last name wouldn't change the spelling when they immigrate to the US. But if your last name doesn't have a spelling in English/latin alphabet, why not choose an easy one?

+1 - or choose the phonetic one. Greek is terribly phonetic, but somebody decided to replace kappas with "c's" Why? Kappa makes a K sound! So instead of pronouncing Kyklops and being closer to the actual greek word, we pronounce it "sigh-clops". SMH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My surname is Americanized. It pronounces fine.

The original was Wyszyński. We had to change it because Starbucks never put the accent mark over the n, and I couldn't tell if the order was mine.

I love you! Keep posting please.
I also have a Slavic last name. The butchering of it.... ilitch? to Ukuch?

Me too. That was a very dry zinger!

[Anonymous]

My family’s name is Gentile. It is Italian and it is sometimes spelled Gentili.

In Italian it means “nice” or “genteel”

In English, it means “not Jewish” or “non believer”, like in the Bible.

People who know the English meaning never want to say it out loud, for fear of sounding oddly racist or bigoted.

I gladly took my husband‘s last name when I got married. 😅

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My family’s name is Gentile. It is Italian and it is sometimes spelled Gentili.

In Italian it means “nice” or “genteel”

In English, it means “not Jewish” or “non believer”, like in the Bible.

People who know the English meaning never want to say it out loud, for fear of sounding oddly racist or bigoted.

I gladly took my husband‘s last name when I got married. 😅

PP and thanks for this explanation about the derivation and meaning of your name.

[Anonymous]

Gentile poster here. My family says Gen TILE, like tile floor, but again, people are afraid to say that one out loud sometimes.

I think we should have stuck with “Gen TIL ee” pronunciation and the Gentili/more Italian spelling. But this was back when everybody was changing their name to sound more English, so we got stuck with the “American” version, which to me sounds worse.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is much easier to make them US-friendly in pronunciation here. My currently last name is Arabic. I don't pronounce it correctly and I don't expect any member of the general public to either.

My mother and grandparents all have Spanish names. Each went by an anglicized nickname - e.g., Francisco - Frank.

[Anonymous]

Our last name has a sound that is very difficult for English speakers. As the second generation whose grasp on the native language is iffy, I don't think even my husband and his siblings can say it correctly - and even in the native country there are differences in how it's pronounced based on dialect/accent.

We go with the most common anglicized pronunciation, which is very close but not *quite* the same as in the native language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think each person determines the correct pronunciation of their name.

OP here — I agree with you! BUT things get tricky these days because if you only see a someone’s name written and mispronounce it when you are getting to know them, some people consider that a microagression. My last name full of consonants gets slaughtered all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH's family comes from a slavic country that uses cyrillic. Why the F wasn't the name written as it's pronounced in English? They use a different alphabet so they should have gone by the usual English phonetics when writing it out. I wonder this about other names as well that come from countries that use different alphabets- like Chinese names. DH's family pronounces their last name wrong, so I do too.

I completely understand why a French last name wouldn't change the spelling when they immigrate to the US. But if your last name doesn't have a spelling in English/latin alphabet, why not choose an easy one?

OP again — I understand. Some Slavic ancestors’ names appeared officially in Cyrillic when their language was outlawed. Also plenty of people were illiterate or as anal about name spelling/pronunciation as they are now.