Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our Germanic, ‘W’ initial name should be pronounced with a ‘v’ sound. That’s just silly in an English speaking country.

Is it silly when people pronounce Jorge as hor-hey instead of more like George? In English J isn’t pronounced like an H.

Okay. I have to speak up about this one. OP are you absolutely sure if this person’s ethnicity? I ask because if they’re if Portuguese origins, then Jorge is definitely pronounced like George. In Portuguese the name sounds like Georgie but a native Portuguese speaker would be very confused if you tried to convince them that J is supposed to make the H sound even though that’s not how any J-words are pronounced in Portuguese.

OP, could part of this be ignorance on your part? You’re so sure people are mispronouncing names. Maybe you’re not aware that there are different languages in the world and Portuguese and Spanish are different languages?

My maiden name is Italian, and my dad pronounces it incorrectly. I'm not 100% sure how his Italian-speaking 1st gen parents said it, but I think they also pronounced incorrectly. Most people who say it pronounce it closer to the correct pronunciation than my family does.

Anonymous wrote:OK we pronounce our surnames — sometimes even our forenames — the way we want to pronounce them. Sometimes the spelling is altered to make it easier for native English speakers (here in the JS).But some of us have lost any knowledge of how to pronounce those names properly. I think of this every time I see a thread about something like this: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/959483.page

I see this a lot by the second or third generation of American-born people from my ethnic background. Sometimes the people will know the proper pronunciation but choose not to use it. Some know it should be pronounced differently but don’t really remember or know anymore.

Can you properly pronounce your surname?

The proper pronunciation of my surname is the one my family agreed upon. We're not from the country it comes from. We don't speak that language. We're from a different, third country. My great grandparents left the country the name came from more than a hundred years ago and never maintained ties to it. Our family has no cultural connection to that country. So the proper pronunciation in English is the way we've chosen to say it, closer to our home language even if that's not the language the name is technically in.

It's our name, we get to choose the proper way.

My parents and I are from Russia. Our last name is pronounced slightly differently- same sounds (mostly) but the stress is on a different syllable.

I have a name that I only ever pronounce the Americanized way. Once in a rare while someone will ask me "do you prounce it this way or that way" that shows me they're familiar with it. I usually say "It used to be x, but my dad always pronounced it Y so that's what I use".

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.

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

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?

My last name is "Irish." That is, it was originally an uncommon Gaelic name that we're not sure how to pronounce (or frankly spell, as it seems to have been spelled different ways). It was carried to North America and early on was changed several times so that it ultimately was pronounced the same as a very common Irish surname but spelled slightly differently. (Think Duffey instead of Duffy.) I mean, strictly speaking it's an invented name that I could pronounce any way I wanted. But I pronounce it the way a native English speaker (whether from Ireland, Britain, or the US) would expect it to be. I can't remember anyone ever mispronouncing it.

DH has a common German surname that should be pronounced with a "v" but instead we pronounce with a "w." DH's father, whose first language was German, pronounced it with the "w" as well. I've never heard anyone outside of Germany pronounce it with the "v," except in a joking way. It is occasionally mispronounced by English speakers (not the w sound, but a different mispronunciation). No big deal to me, but it's not my name. But DH and our children don't seem to mind either.

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.

PP above: apparently Teddy Roosevelt and FDR pronounced their family surname differently; one was ROSA-velt and the other ROOSE-avelt....

My family’s German surname was changed to a rough English equivalent to be easier to pronounce circa 1780. Complicating matters, only one branch of the family changed while another “stayed German.”

And has anyone alerted Bret Favre that he’s mispronouncing his surname? Joe Theismann?

Former Florida Governor Charlie Christ (rhymes w kissed) original family surname is Christadoulous - sp?

Yes. I know exactly how and pronounce it the way it is in the language of origin.

There is no way to spell my last name with English characters that will result in English speakers pronouncing it correctly. We just pronounce it one way when speaking English and the “correct” way when speaking the other language.

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.