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Help[Opinions] Re: Changing the pronunciation of names
in reply to a message by Malk
I feel like if you're in Finland you should say EE-nar-ee and if you're in the US you could say ih-NAR-ee just fine.
In Vienna a classmate of mine, from the USA, was named Stefan, pronounced steh-FAN. But a lot of professors called him SHTEH-fan because that's the traditional Deutsch pronunciation. I called him that too, because Stefan/Stephan is said pretty often in Vienna because the Stefansdom is the point of reference for everything, so that's just how it registered in my mind. He was so cool about it. He didn't care at all and he responded to it the same as ste-FAN and he didn't roll his eyes or make a big deal out of it. Neither did anyone else, even though they'd call him ste-FAN in the same conversation. So cool!
I like the idea that names have international lives, you know? And more than one acceptable pronunciation.
If you named your kid Taliesin and called him Tally-son or whatever, but other people called him Taliesen, I don't think you would have the right to get up in arms about insisting people use Your pronunciation.
English gets a lot of names that way, right? The English pronunciations of David, Michael, Isabel, etc., now considered totally "legitimate," all started off as "mispronunciations."
My ma had a student named Tenesyne prn Tennessee. ??
In Vienna a classmate of mine, from the USA, was named Stefan, pronounced steh-FAN. But a lot of professors called him SHTEH-fan because that's the traditional Deutsch pronunciation. I called him that too, because Stefan/Stephan is said pretty often in Vienna because the Stefansdom is the point of reference for everything, so that's just how it registered in my mind. He was so cool about it. He didn't care at all and he responded to it the same as ste-FAN and he didn't roll his eyes or make a big deal out of it. Neither did anyone else, even though they'd call him ste-FAN in the same conversation. So cool!
I like the idea that names have international lives, you know? And more than one acceptable pronunciation.
If you named your kid Taliesin and called him Tally-son or whatever, but other people called him Taliesen, I don't think you would have the right to get up in arms about insisting people use Your pronunciation.
English gets a lot of names that way, right? The English pronunciations of David, Michael, Isabel, etc., now considered totally "legitimate," all started off as "mispronunciations."
My ma had a student named Tenesyne prn Tennessee. ??
This message was edited 6/14/2011, 12:17 PM
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