Put an end to people mispronouncing your name
namez.com
namez.com
Many people classically mispronounced my name - it's not a big deal, I move on. If we're not going to be having many conversations where you say my last name, I'm not even going to correct you.
That said, this does not seem like an ideal solution to me, because it sorta has some of the same problems that just telling people how your name is pronounced has - makes it seem like a bigger deal than it actually is, possibly won't work anyway, etc. Name pronunciation is probably just a bad situation in general.
It has taught me, though, that when someone tells you "you can just call me X", you should not keep asking them how to really pronounce their name. If you're an American, you are not going to be able to fluently pronounce some non-Indo-European names. It's downright rude to quiz people for minutes on end as to how their name is "really" pronounced. If you don't get it on the second try, just go with what they're comfortable with.
Are Persian or Polish names easier than Hawaiian or Japanese?
I recorded this one several years ago: http://wardje.eu/dll/ward.wav
Let's not even get started on my last name...
I did something similar on YouTube, specifying the way I prefer Americans to pronounce my name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfTkEaZSMXo
To avoid the appearance of that, it would be nice if instead of "you can just call me X"---which sounds like it's your less-preferred alternative, your second choice, so obviously someone's going to try for the other one---you said "please call me X" or "I prefer if you call me X". Then everybody wins! :)
This is primarily an issue with new contacts / acquaintances which I'm sure looks poorly on both of us, especially when this gets sent to other people on job searches etc.
It's nice when people care enough about how their name is pronounced that they give you the tools to do it correctly.
My name is Nat, which is about as simple a name as you could ask for. But quite often, I will introduce myself, "Hi, I'm Nat", and the response will be "Nice to meet you, Nate". My wife experiences it too (even from her mother!), so I don't think my pronunciation is the problem here.
Is this kind of vowel sloppiness more common in the US? Or should I just take the hint and change my name?
Five minutes later, more often than not, they call out "Aubrey." That's reading their own handwriting.
You can't explain that.
:P
I've actually taken to giving them my full legal first name as opposed to the nickname I usually go by, because the nickname is phonetically ambiguous and the full name isn't.
I originally come from Serbia, but I spent the last 14 years in Chile, where most people seemed to choke on my name: Vojislav. When pronounced correctly, it's "voice love", but nobody outside the territory of ex-Yugoslavia knows how to read it correctly.
When it came to buying coffee and stuff like that, I had the choice of explaining my name ad nauseum or adopting an easier one. I decided to call myself "Boris", thanks to telemarketers who would recover from my name by changing it to something they could deal with ;-)
Anyway, that worked quite fine for years and years, until it started failing, ironically at the Starbucks inside a mall with the highest concentration of tourists and immigrants. I would say "Boris" and two times out of five they would write down "Maurice".
The cherry on top inevitable came five minutes later, when a different barista would call out "Mauricio".
Fortunately, I moved before I gave in to temptation to do what a friend of mine did on a regular basis: give "Spongebob" as his name :P
If it isn't true, it certainly should be. If I opened a coffee shop tomorrow, I would instruct all my baristas to misspell the customer names for this reason.
I recently talked to an Asian man who couldn't hear any difference between "R" and "L", let alone pronounce them. That's what happens when you only speak and hear a single language for decades. Your brain gets wired to ignore any variation that isn't significant in your own language. My "L" really sounds like "R" to him, and your name really sounds like "Nate" to a lot of Americans.
Hopefully, the increasing influx of Spanish and Chinese speakers into the U.S. will force Americans to hear other languages more often in their daily lives.
All of the USA-side pronounce it Krr-egg. Even after I've explained the difference to a group of them, it still goes back to Krr-egg after a week.
I'm Sean, which American's don't have a problem with at all, but I if I had a bitcoin for every-time I was called 'seen' in the UK...
The world gets globalized, so please -- when come in contact with the folks living outside your courtyard, be prepared to accept at least some small self-change as consequence.
I agree. When I present myself, I pronounce my name. Most of the time people people just follow and it feels like a courtesy at best, but there are cases when there's this attitude of entitlement to rename you, and that you are the one that should follow.
the person may have a mental factuality defect and mean no malice.
I haven't suggested to be necessarily malice from the mispronouncers. It may be lack of... many things that become desirable in a globalized society.
This site is ridiculous and so is your justification. Being stern about your name is such an egotistical attitude
The site may be ridiculous, but the problem it tries to address feels real to me. You may not perceive it to be a problem because either you haven't a name that can be easily contorted, or because you have different values in your life. I care about my name and I only ask the same care from others, the same way I try my best to reciprocate that kind of respect when I'm being asked.
It's for my convenience too. People have been getting my first name wrong for my entire life. It's easier just to let it go, or when the situation allows just use a fake name. I have to pick my battles, this one is often a fruitless waste of energy. The number of people I care get it right is a small circle.
There are more important things in this short life. A name is just a bunch of random sounds so when someone talks, you know they mean you.
There's a reason you know William Gates and William Clinton as Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. Richard Cheney knows short name is so important, he'd rather be called "Dick" rather than his full name, "Richard".
Short always wins. Mark isn't bad, by the way.
Marius "Mark" Capone.
Yup. Great.
The point of a name is so people don't refer to you as "hey you, the tall guy with the blue shirt". That's really it.
By the way, I have shortened my name. Saves a lot of trouble.
People get attached to cars, books, CDs, photos, musical instruments, and all manner of things. A name is honestly one of the least-weird things to form an attachment to. The point is, that's not the only point to a name.
A tendency to apply high value to symbols, instead of substance is a property I've noticed in less sophisticated people. They can't tell (or weren't taught to tell) apart symbol and substance, but symbols are way simpler, so they focus on the symbols.
Works for them to a degree. But it's stupid. Symbols exist only point to something else. Maybe being named after your grandfather means a lot to you as a symbol, but no one else feels that way. To them it's just your name.
And one is not honoring their grandfather by being particularly stubborn about their weird name, they're just being silly, and harming themselves.
You honor those you respect through your actions, not by wearing hollow badges (like using a specific name). By the way, I was named after my grandfather.
This is a wonderful sentence. I recently got married, and I wouldn't trade my wedding ring for ten times the gold value in cash, because I cherish it as a symbol of my commitment to my wife, and a symbol of our love for each other. Does that make me "less sophisticated" than somebody who looks at their wedding ring and says "Gold prices are up from when we got married; let's cash this sucker in and make some profit"?
Am I stupid for not doing that? Is it silly that I cherish my wedding ring more than somebody on the street, because to me it's a symbol of my marriage and to them it's just my ring?
It's fine if you want to adopt an utterly robotic and value-driven outlook on life, but it's silly to expect everybody else to do the same, and it's ridiculous to say that people who refuse to be similarly robotic are somehow "less sophisticated" than your utterly logical and enlightened self.
edit: you keep on pointing out how you do X, like how you've shortened your name, or you were named for your grandfather, and I guess I don't understand why because it doesn't matter. What you choose to do doesn't have that much of a bearing on what other people choose to do, and just because you're willing to change your name doesn't mean other people should have to.
They wouldn't buy a ring in the first place.
Is it more reasonable to say that nobody should attach emotional value to any inanimate object, or to say that people have the right to decide by which name they'd like to be referred to, and that as a matter of basic respect you should put some effort in to learning how people want their names to be pronounced?
Now, if my grandgrandfather crafted a piece of jewelry, that makes it more interesting than throwing money on something someone else made. It's because of pure informational value. It makes it an object that can be studied, that can inform us how people thought and what their approach about something was. That makes it more valuable than the trivial "they had the money and they lacked the imagination to start a business or buy something useful, or do something else sensible, so they bought this crap here".
But actually most family trinkets don't have a history worth retelling. Usually it's some variation of poor people collecting money and buying/ordering this "symbol" and imagining they "made it", because they now have this thing here, a symbol of success and sophistication. Actually, I think this clip from Pulp Fiction about sums up my feelings about "family jewelry" well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kngBtoylIVM
It's a sign of thinking primitively (of course, not that I blame the poor people clinging to bullshit, but it's nothing to tell the world about). De Beers and co. have made billions out of idiots buying tiny useless crystals as status symbols.
Sure, you can always put some family jewelry in a cupboard and leave it there to make an interesting conversation breaker (hey, my father kept this watch in his ass for 5 years!), because those usually are worth little to nothing on the market anyway.
Suggesting that if I don't respect the sentimental value of trinkets, so I can focus all my attention on "market value" and selling them is just some straw man you think you're oh so clever to pull off on me. But no, the market doesn't care about your ass watch. Nobody cares. You shouldn't either.
But to see someone who really puts great importance on such stuff, even to the point partially basing their self-worth on what their ancestors did (or didn't, as a matter of fact) is a big honking warning sign. Because if you keep looking back, you'll create much less to look forward to.
Focusing on the past too much is the reason why even generations do all the work, and odd generations spend their life "being proud of their families".
It doesn't matter if you're Einstein's grandgrandgranddaughter or Hitler's grandgrandgrandson. All you have left is some family property (if that), and a silly name. You have to make your "name" on your own. Your worth as a human being is not hereditary.
There are two kinds of people, those telling stories, and those making stories. Those telling stories are a commodity. I like this one: "1% of people make things happen, 9% of people notice what happens, and 90% are unaware of what happens."
By the way, I'm done explaining the basics of life to you, I have better shit to do. See ya.
P.S.: You should've read this post in Christopher Walken's voice.
a) A hypothetical story about a hypothetical great-grandfather apparently invalidates the value of family heirlooms
b) crafted items are valuable because of the information they hold, which inform us how people thought and what their approach to something was. Their purchasing patterns, however, tell us absolutely nothing about how they thought, what their approach was, or what types of things they valued.
c) Having family heirlooms which were foolishly bought back in the day is primitive thinking (and a sign of being poor). If your will isn't one hundred percent cash you are wasting everybody's time.
d) Sentimental value is bullshit, and market value is a straw man; heirlooms apparently have literally no value at all.
e) You have to make your "name" on your own, but if your name is hard for people to pronounce then you should just deal with it when they give you a different one.
Thanks for clearing all that up.
My husband and I also recently got married (congrats to you and your partner from us!) and we designed our rings from scratch - mine with a diamond alternative stone - as seen here: http://cl.ly/image/3A3R24042w0C. PeterGriffin would probably proceed to tell us that our rings are still just garbage sentimental trinkets distracting us from the "substance" of our relationship despite us "making stories" with them.
Nothing about spending the money to get our rings says that we can't also honor what the rings stand for by doing other things. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. That doesn't even come into the equation.
The same could be said about names - you can choose to keep a name due to an attachment while also honoring the origin of the name. This is why I'm just adding more onto my name instead of removing any bit of the name that my parents gave me. (My nickname is longer than my real name, even. My real name is a little too short.)
Ultimately it's a personal decision, and ultimately, like you point out, it's a matter of basic respect to respect someone's choice of name and name pronunciation. Nothing about a choice to be attached to something means that you're stuck "telling stories" and that you're forever doomed to be attracted to the symbol and not the substance.
I am actually quite saddened by the idea of someone living such a life. "Robotic" is kind of an understatement.
Maybe my reaction is... beyond understanding... (cue in spooky music).
Also don't confuse "robotic" with my lack of focus on stupid things. I laugh, cry, hate and love a lot too. I can't understand why I need to be a stupid son of a bitch getting hung up on how people pronounce my name or getting overly attached to small shiny commercial objects, in order to do those things.
I also don't believe in witches and black magic. Oh, how robotic.
The robotic part, I suppose, is a combination of your personal feelings on the matter while refusing to see why it may be a problem for others. Not having an attachment to your name by itself is a personal choice I can respect.
BTW if it's of any interest, my first name is Jane. My nickname is Janey. My longer than my full name nickname is "janeylicious". Funny how nobody fucks up the last one (except maybe the spelling) but I have so much trouble with my plain first name to the point that I occasionally just make up a different name or rely only on the nicknames. The plain name stuff can backfire ;)
I'm not calling you robot because you don't like to focus on things you think are stupid; I'm calling you robotic because you absolutely insist that anybody and everybody who DOES focus on things you think are stupid are stupid.
if you do this in real life unsolicited, you're going to have real problems.
Names are tough in our wonderful melting pot, but it's a small price to pay for having every kind of ethnic food available in all our major cities (and in many of our minor ones).
Her: "What's your name?
Me: "Brian"
Her: "Brett! Nice to meet you, Brett. What's your last name, Brett?"
Me: "(my last name)"
Her: "Well, it is SO nice to meet you, Brett Psycho."
I was too flabbergasted to respond properly. Even worse, we had the exact same conversation each week for the next six weeks. She couldn't even be bothered to remember my discombobulated name.
As far as I understand it, the problem isn't so much that people haven't heard you pronounce your own name, it's more to do with the fact(?) that -- unless they've been raised in a similar "sound-environment" -- they literally cannot hear the subtleties of the pronunciation (e.g. tongue/lip positioning, etc.). I've had this experience (in reverse) when trying to pronounce Chinese and Arabic which have subleties which are very foreign to my native language.
That said, I do wish my German ancestors had changed either the spelling or the pronunciation when they came to the U.S. in the 19th century. I didn't do it myself when I was younger for fear of family disapproval, and by now my professional "brand" is under the existing spelling. Interestingly, my son, who's just starting his career, brushes off my suggestion that he change the spelling.
Some suggest that this feels pretentious to suggest the correct pronunciation, however I always research the correct pronunciation for all persons I'm presented. From my side I like it, is a courtesy, is about good manners.
Not getting mad about someone mispronounce your name is courteous as research the correct pronunciation for others name
Still, I'm not sure if I'd ever use this tool. Seems somewhat pretentious, even if useful.
If you're Polish and you see a Polish name, you instantly know how to pronounce it. In the US It's more more hit-or-miss due to ethnical diversity and the English language itself.
Come to think of it, I'd like other people to use this site, but still wouldn't use it myself. Maybe it's because so far I can't see a way to mispronounce my last name and I've essentially given up on my first name.
However, one of the problems it doesn't help with, is that different languages and language families have sounds that are not used in other languages. This means people will still get your name wrong, because they don't necessarily know how to make those sounds, nor do they even know how to hear the subtle distinctions - e.g. the classic r/l confusion, or my own inability to get tones right when trying to learn mandarin words/phrases.
I guess what I'm saying is I don't think anyone should expect this to suddenly make everyone pronounce their name perfectly all of a sudden.
I just provide the IPA for my name on my website, based on the unrealistic assumption that people who need to will read it.
Happy it worked out that way...
It would be nice to be able to highlight a name, search for it in this database, and play an audio file from a browser extension, for example. Or from an email client, or a linkedin profile, or wherever. Having to visit this site to look up a name is enough of a barrier that once the novelty wears off, I can't see it being too well used.
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73900/when-does-t...
Article also links to couple of previous services doing similar things (back then). Let's hope this one is more successful.
Now I try to pronounce it the American way just so my name isn't the center of the conversation. I get surprised when I make a mistake and tell someone the correct way of pronouncing it and they get right the first time.
But what's more important: it really doesn't matter to me how you pronounce it. Do people care about it that much?
> "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux!"
Does he still pronounce it this way?
[0] http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux...
My last name is almost impossible. Even people who know me tend to just abbreviate it. Whenever I meet someone new who stumbles over my name. I just smile and say 'Don't worry about it, I said it wrong the first time too.' Then give the correct pronunciation. It's a good way to break the ice.
Conversely sending someone a link on how to correctly pronounce your name just screams 'I'm impossible to get along with'.
(She's a doctor so she'd has to introduce herself with it on a constant basis to patients - "Hello I'm Dr. Xxxx" - Now she has a surname that is easy to pronounce and a forename people often get wrong.)
I certainly gave up long ago.
Now I have two first names.
EDIT: Also happens a lot on voicemails, seconds after they've clearly heard my first name pronounced (the last name I don't mind much as it is unusual).