The Name Thing
My name is Annette. In French and English it’s pronounced Ah-Nett.
That’s not my name.
My name is An-neddeh, or for English speakers, Annetta. Close enough. But it is such a relief to be with other Danish speakers, either in Denmark or abroad and not have to explain how my name is pronounced. Even my difficult last name (anglecized because of a Danish vowel-we have 3 more than English) is a non-issue to other Danes. I go to great pains to pronounce other people’s names correctly (i.e., as they themselves wish it pronounced), and I bet this is a very common TCK issue. Not much comes closer to the core of identity than the name we were given or the one we choose to be known by.
As a child, I allowed others to call me Ah-Nett, but as an adult I have insisted that people get as close to my real name as possible. Does this strike a chord with anyone?
Annette Floystrup
Denmark/USA/Denmark/USA arf@bharf.comRelated Posts
16 Comments to “The Name Thing”
June 18th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Yes, for me too! My name is Laura, though most English speakers say it as “low-ra,” which I’ve gotten used to. but my parents (and most Europeans) say “La oo ra” with a rolled R. If I hear “La oo ra” I immediately perk up and turn around. Whereas growing up in the US there were always a lot of Lauras so I usually wouldn’t answer unless they called me by my first and last name or by a nickname.
Though my friend (note: male and rahter good looking in my opinion) from South Africa (and Afrikaans is similar to Dutch, do you say it this way?) says “Loora” and he rolls the R a bit. *shiver* It makes me melt every time!
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June 18th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I gave up having to hear people struggle with my Chinese name so I picked an English one. But even Cynthia has proven to be difficult…
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June 18th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Cyn, ni jiao shenme?
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June 18th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Haha, I have a friend named Laura and I always switch between calling her “la oo ra” and “low-ra” depending mostly on the language i’m speaking with her.
…I know most ppl have more difficult names to translate than mine but ugh i hate how ppl the in US proncounce my name…. mostly because i hate the name mary (americanised)…. IS THERE A “Y” AT THE END OF MY NAME? NO, THEN CALL ME MA-RIE….i ended up just using an abbreviation of my middle name in the US because it got on my nerves….but i don’t like that either
Oh and don’t get me started on my last name.
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June 19th, 2008 at 3:17 am
To be honest, my name is pretty ok…hehe. However, the funniest one is that some people in my passport country have a hard time pronouncing André!!! =P
I accept the English pronunciation of my name, since, well, it is how they say it. I do prefer the French pronunciation (which is, quite frankly, the proper one…).
My last name, however, sounds kinda “wrong” in French: “Confiado” (it sounds iffy if you omit the other syllables from my name except for the first one…hehehe, because of a certain word in French. For those of you who have seen “The Dinner Game” - think of the original French name)
Marie, c’est quoi ton nom de famille?? =) Just curious.
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June 19th, 2008 at 3:58 am
I don’t care how people pronounce my name so long as I can still recognize it. I do however get annoyed when people decide to call me: Yoko. Because that’s not my name.
As I’ve mentioned before I’m even OK when the Chinese call me Lin-Tzu. I can live with it…totally :p
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June 19th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
My parents had the foresight of picking names that are easily prounoucable in many languages, because my mother’s Finnish name has given her grief almost all her life. I’m rather grateful.
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June 20th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
my name Miyon is pronounced like the pronoun “me” yon but many Caucasians (in New Zealand and some in the U.S.) pronounced it in possessive form “my” yon. At first, this got on my nerve but now I am okay with that. Maybe because now i go by “Michelle” most of the time.
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June 20th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I’m always hearing about people with non-English names picking an English name that people can pronounce or so they’re more accepted… But I wonder if there’s other English-speaking English-named TCKs like me who began to identify so much with the culture(s) they were thrust into that they chose non-English names? As one example, when I was younger, I chose a Hawaiian name and was very close to legally changing my name to it before finally abandoning it. Any time I’d tell people my ‘new’ name, they couldn’t pronounce it, they couldn’t understand why I’d want to change my name to something non-English, and they thought I was being childish, quaint, or weird. Which discouraged me and eventually made me abandon the name.
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June 21st, 2008 at 1:00 am
My friend is Indian and she is called Smrithe (sm-rith-ee) but because everyone in the uk had trouble pronouncing it she changed it to Smiley. I think it sounds kinda silly but its quite sweet!
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August 3rd, 2008 at 5:35 am
My first name is easy to pronounce in most languages. I can live with whatever way people pronounce “Patricia” I just don’t like it when they give me nicknames derived from that name. -__-; I don’t know, it just sounds weird to me. Anywho, it’s my last name that have people confused! Americans say: No-set-ee, No-se-tea, or the cringe worthy No-sed-dee.xD
It bugs me to no end cause it just sounds horrid to me so I instinctively smile when a Spanish person pronounces correctly. Haha, but then again I had a hard time pronouncing my last name as a kid so I can’t say I blame them.^_^
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August 4th, 2008 at 12:54 am
I was named Anayawa after my grandma from my father’s side. Now my mother is of another tribe and her side of the family found it hard to pronounce my name so they all call me Ana.
My name is a rare name. Most people find it hard to say, so I let them cut it short and there are so many variants I’ve been called depending on who I’m with - Ana, Anya, Anicka, Anita, Ann… But I don’t like Annie.
My last name is equally difficult for some people.
I don’t take it personal if people mispronounce my name.
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August 4th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Lol, yea I can relate.
My nickame is Selam. My whole first name is Selamawit.
…and there are sooo many mispronunciations of both of them, so I won’t get into that. The correct pronunciation though is “seh-lam” and “seh-lam-a-weet”
Selam means “peace”, it is also used as a greeting to say hello in my language (trigrinya). As well as in other languages, there are many variations of it.
Example: Salamalekum (Urdu)
Selamawit means peaceful. I was named peaceful because the year I was born (1990) was when the in war my country (Eritrea) agaisnt Ethiopia was coming to end.
Independence was gaines a year after in 1991.
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August 5th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
i think tat’s why we chinese kids all give ourselves enlish names even if we haven’t had one before.
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August 5th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
mmmmm: yup, that’s the reason why I am Cynthia. I’ve had varied versions of my Chinese names and sometimes it’s just so hard to respond to all of them lol
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August 6th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Not many people know my chinese name, I just use my english name. It’s harder to have to explain why you’re [insert english name here] instead of [insert chinese name here]. It’s odd though, one time during my subject selection, the deputy head of my school called me up and asked me why I hadn’t handed my form in yet, when really, I was one of the first ones who’d handed it in! I should’ve realised something was up though, when he kept calling me by my chinese name instead of my english name. I had to go through the entire pile of forms, only to find it right at the back and I had to tell him that no one really knew my chinese name, everyone called me MICHELLE.
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