I Know How to Pronounce My Name!

[Akasa]

My last name is the German equivilant of Jones, I grew up in Texas. I've only come across a hand full of people who could say the name w/o prompting and correction. I'm used to it, which is a good thing cause I'm moving to Hawaii and let me tell you... in their language you say EVERY VOWEL seperately. For instance the town I will be living in is Kaaawa. (Kah ah ah vah)

Oh yeah this is going to be fun.

[SongsOfDragons]

No-one can really get my name wrong...c'mon, how many other ways is there to pronounce Alice?

...I can't think of any.

[AnaKhouri]

Arisu?

A Japanese pronunciation I have occasionally heard in anime.

My maiden name was Shevlin. It's fairly common in parts of the Northern US but down South where I live my family was the only one. It's insane how many people mispronounce what I think is a relatively simple 7-letter surname. The most common was Shelvin- it happened so often I think there must be something about the English language that makes its speakers automatically want to put an L before a V.

Now my surname is still 7 letters and it still gets mispronounced sometimes but not as often. I spell it to people though because it has double Rs and double Ls.

Most people get the first name right: Patricia = Pa-trish-uh, although sometimes I will meet a non-native English speaker who says Pa-tree-si-uh. I think it's cute.

[Imogene]

My legal first name is shared with a character on Babylon 5. I hate it, and not only refuse to answer to it any longer, I go extremely angry when people I don't know use it to address me. That's the surest way to get on my shit list from the moment we first meet. Hell, I shortened it to the last three letters when I got into High School, and I don't even really like that any longer. I change my nickname by going by whatever the last person called me as a term of endearment. Currently? It's 'Princess'. Though I will usually respond to 'Rubi'.
I was recently made aware that my last name is very similar to one of the Laugh In cast member's last names, which might explain why my notices from the housing office here ocassionally show up addressed to Rubi _ _ _ _-n... "Um... I swear, my handwriting's not bad enough to have mistaken an 'e' for an 'n'..."

[Bike_Wrench]

I share the same name as the boss (who is gone sporadically for up to months at a time), though it's spelled differently by one letter.

Instead of going through the question game with callers to determine which of us they wish to speak with, I go by "Enrique" and don't answer by my given name, even going so far as to have it embroidered on my work shirts and mechanic's apron. This ensures that the telemarketers have no one to speak with, that only those familiar with the shop will get me directly, that phonecalls or orders are accurately associated with only me...and that I can have some fun at the expense of customers having difficulty pronouncing it.

I am unmistakeably caucasian, so the name throws people off enough I usually get a smile and it can be a real icebreaker with hispanic customers. If anyone gives me a hard time I demand they give an accurate Spanish pronunciation as if I were defending my own name.

[pyxee]

Shudder, I hate wearing name tags for this very reason. My name is spelled Tosya, but pronounced Tosha. Back in school when we had a sub I would always just say here when the teacher looked confused while taking attendance. I did have one teacher that insisted on calling me Too-say-a for the entire year no matter how many times I corrected her.

[Ironclad Alibi]

No-one can really get my name wrong...c'mon, how many other ways is there to pronounce Alice?

...I can't think of any.

A-lee-cee?

My last name is Rice. A very simple name. But one day the voice on the phone asked for Mr. Ree-cee.

When we got married, a German lady in my wife's office asked what her married name would be.

My wife replied "Rice."

The German lady said "R-E-I-S-E? A good German name."

My wife corrected her saying "No, it's R-I-C-E."

The German lady responded "What an unusual spelling."

[Chromatix]

In Finland, the pronounciation rules would say "Ah-li-ke" for Alice. The Finnish *spelling* for that name would be Älis, which would then be pronounced correctly.

Every letter has a sound, and every sound has a letter - doubled letters mean longer sounds. The first syllable always carries the accent, and the tone always falls through the word (even at the end of questions!) and through the length of a sentence. So you can easily understand why a Finn speaking English has such a distinctive accent. :-)

As it happens, the German pronounciation of Reise would be Ry-ze - two syllables, soft S. Not at all like Rice.

[Becks]

Ah, Rebecca. I've had rare instances of odd mispronunciations...

My last name, however...

It's German, maybe the teeniest bit Americanized...

The way my branch of the family pronounces it is with a long "a" instead of the long "o" that you would think.

Guess which way I had to deal with people saying it?

I'm still thinking of using Mommy's maiden name. Good Irish name, but with a French spelling.

[looney_librarian]

My first name has a "c" as the last letter, but I've seen my name spelled with "k", "ck", and "ch", and even a "kh" once. I have to constantly spell my first name so it comes out the way it should. My last name is Huffman. I've heard it pronounced Hoffman, Hoofman, and Huffmein. I used to have a manager back at media play who make fun of all the employees' last names. A friend of mine was Bob Walker "Texas Ranger". For me? Bob "I'll HUFF and I'll puff and blow your house down MAN." Yeah that manager was goofy.

[JLRodgers]

Back when I was a child, my last name was changed from what I thought was a simple "Stalbaum"... Some people pronounced it like "stalled boom" -- no one (literally, not even teachers, classmates, other parents....) ever pronounced it right or even close to being right. Despite it being pronounced, well, like it's spelled.

When my last name was changed, it was an even easier name -- some people were glad it changed because my old one was "too hard"... yet people still mess it up (and not just the spelling, but since there's two common spellings, that's not a big deal).

What surprises me is how many mess up my first name..... It's a book of the bible... it can be four letters or six (actually it's six the way I spell it, and I prefer being called by the long version).... But one day someone called for me and asked for a "jodgisha rodikages" (or something screwed up like that), I said there wasn't anyone here by that name, then they asked for a "Mrs. roadyers" (which, despite being single, confused me as they completely changed the pronunciation of my name once again -- albeit a lot closer).

Guess one can't expect too much when people can mispronounce "Smith" or "Green".

[Chromatix]

"The Bucket (Buck-eh) Residence, the Lady of the house speaking!" -- Keeping Up Appearances

[hinakiba777]

I was filling out forms for my first job and my boss asked for my last name. He couldn't seem to get a hold of what I was saying. He tried Dingle and Cringle and Smingle. Finally I said,
"You know those chips that come in the tube?"
Boss= Pringles?
Me= Yea, with out the s.
Boss= *stares at me* You want chips?!
Me= My name is Pringle! P-R-I-N-G-L-E! Like the chips!
Boss= Oh! *writes it down* That's an easy name.
me=

I hate name tags with my last name on it. You won't believe the jokes I hear.
"Once you pop the fun don't stop? Wow, that's hilarious. I'm NEVER heard that one before!"

[Jpurple]

People rarely pronounce either of my names wrong- I consider myself lucky. However, once in a while I get someone who thinks they're a comedian who asks me to sign something by 'putting my John Hancock here'. They get a bit confused when they look at my J. Hancock signature, and I've been asked to sign my 'real name' more than once. However, that IS my real name. My mother-in-law gets the same thing, since her first name also begins with a J.

[Dreamstalker]

My father changed the spelling of our last name to a more english spelling for documents, good thing too since I'm currently studying in the U.S.

My dad says I don't want to know the original spelling of my last name (it was Anglicized when his side of the family came over). Except for one letter, it's spelled the way it sounds but even that's too difficult for some. You would not believe some of the misspellings I've seen.