No Stupid Questions

As a classroom teacher for students who are >80% immigrants from non-anglophone countries, I can actually speak with some authority on the subject. I have many students who have traditional names in other languages, as well as students whose parents 100% just made up something they thought sounded nice. I am one of the few teachers who emphasises correctly pronouncing students' names. If they put stress on the second syllable, I put stress on the second syllable. If they have a non-english phoneme, you bet I'm learning how to do the clicks in Xhosa, or the "ng" in Vietnamese or Maori. I work very hard to make sure I'm pronouncing their names exactly how they do.

I have had three students in the last month alone remark on how I am the only teacher they've ever had who pronounced their name "right". I have a student named Djibril who had extremely poor relationships with most of the teachers in the building, but who always does my work, and he straight up told me last year that it was because I am the only person in the entire school who actually pronounces his name correctly. Everyone else just calls him "juh-BRILL", when he says it should be pronounced closer to "JEE-breel" (with a lilted r).

Making sure you pronounce someone's name how they pronounce their name can be extremely important to social relationships, and having an anglicised name attached to them against their will is often mentioned among memoirs of immigrants as one of the first and most alienating things to happen to them when they enter an anglophone country. It's not about expecting others to cater to your weird name. It's about people having a basic modicum of respect for the humanity of non-dominant cultures. In america, at least, this respect has never been a thing. From Ellis island literally changing people's names because they thought they would be hard for "real" Americans to pronounce, to interning anyone with a japanese name regardless of how long their family was in the US, to the new fascist roundups of anyone with a name that sounds plausibly nonwhite.

So, even with different "accents", I'd say that pronouncing it exactly how they say it can be important. If someone in Germany went to the trouble of pronouncing the 'w' in my name with an american "w", I'd appreciate it, at the least, but it would probably also make me remember them fondly every time someone else pronounced it incorrectly accented.

I mean I'll.try but I am not confident in myself here

My neighbor introduced himself and his wife to me, and he says "Maritza," very flat, and I say, oh maRITza" with a little flourish and tongue roll and he's like "no, Maritza."

They're both Mexican and her name is pronounced the full way with their extended families, so I think the point was, don't accent up the word I just told you. And I haven't since.

I think the risk of that approach is that if you attempt to copy their accent too literally it can sound like mockery, especially if you are clumsy in your imitation. Like you're breaking out of your own accent on purpose because you think their name spoken in their accent sounds silly, and by repeating it in an exaggerated way you're demonstrating how silly it sounds to you, and that kind of response can be interpreted as mocking or sarcastic.

I think it's safer if you try to strike at most a middle-ground between your own accent and their pronunciation, use it as guidance for the sounds but still keep it clearly in your own voice. When somebody has an accent I expect my name to be spoken at least to some degree in that same accent, so it's not going to need to be an exact facsimile of the sounds I made.

That's my thoughts anyway, as a native English speaker.

depends on name, but probably not, don't mock people's voices

I'm one of these types of people, if I am around an accent enough, I pick it up very quickly, I cannot help it.

I'd likely pronounce a name the same as the person speaks it to me. Really depends on the accent/language and my correlating familiarity with it though.

This question reminds me of a dog I ended up with. He knew his name, but only in the same accent as his previous owner. So I'd be at the dog park in New England calling for my dog in the most exaggerated southern accent I could muster.

You might have a fair point but who the fuck in the US pronounces it “Bahb”.

Lmao I don’t know why I find it funny.

Just said “hi bahb” to my grandfather bob and he told me he was going to disinherit me. But I digress I don’t know the phonetic symbols either.

Accent is not pronunciation, I try to get as close as possible as the originally intended pronunciation the person cast of their name, not mimic the stereotypical changes in the common sounds the person makes on the transcribed text of their name... I believe there is a difference

I will attempt to say a person's name how they say it. If they say "call me [simple anglicized name]" then I will do that.

Most people seem to appreciate the effort. I'm sure my American vocals butcher some pronouciations, but I don't make a big deal out of it and my work gives me a lot of chances to practice. I will always make a good faith attempt at last names.

I live in Texas and will pronounce food names of Mexican origin with a Mexican accent. Burrito, taco, chalupa.

For some names/languages, it does kinda help me pronounce them correctly. Japanese and French names are some examples I can think of where it could be useful.

If the name depends on an accent, I'd say yes, but only to an extent.

A good example is the name Jesus. We tend to think of Christ, the Christian figure, when we read the name and think "Gee-zuhs." But it's a common Hispanic name and it's pronounced "Heh-zoos." Die Hard 3 made a joke about this. Samuel L. Jackson's character is called Zeus. One of his people says "Hey, Zeus" and Bruce Willis' character calls him "Jesus" but pronounces it the same. "Do I look Puerto Rican to you?!" Jackson cries out to him. "He said Jesus," Willis says. "As in hey Zeus, shove a lightning bolt up your ass ZEUS!" Been ages since I watched it but I still remember that part.

Asking people how to pronounce their names and asking them back, attempting to do so, if it's fine, and not only listening to what they say, but reading their body language, is the way to go.

I once knew a guy, can't remember if he was Cambodian or Vietnamese, he didn't give people his name because nobody could pronounce it correctly. I asked him to let me try. Took me a few tries, but I got it. Oddly I still remember it. Can't fucking type it to save my life though. He did ask I still call him by the same name others do, so as not to create confusion, but he was happy I learned to say his name. And if it was just us, I could use it.

My name is unpronounceable for most non-native French speakers. I tell them to not even try, as there are sounds in French that don't exist in English. Instead, I introduce myself by butchering my own name, or by using the English equivalent to my name.

So, no, I don't think people should use an accent of the origin language of a name. You can try, and I'll even rate you on a scale of 10, but I don't expect you to not butcher my name anyway.

It's a good question. I always wonder the same thing about the US vs UK versions of Craig and Graham.

US - "kregg", "gram"

UK - "krayg", "gray-um"

No. Even if it's foreign, I don't put on an accent. I Anglicise the name.

I have also a sinicised version of my name for the Chinese. I even introduce myself with it. I don't expect any foreigner to use my English name.

if the name is from a language you both speak (like the bob example) and the difference is only how you enunciate then dont worry about it. People dont care if its just a regional thing. Otherwise you should copy the pronunciation not the accent. idk if that's what you mean but for example don't do an italian accent in your english voice to "sound more italian" you'd get weird looks. Enunciate (the name only) the way they do.

Personally, I would attempt to pronounce their name to the best of my ability. On the other hand, my own name is particularly difficult for native English speakers to a point where I readily accepted 'hey you' as a mode of address.

I don't do the accent with names. It reminds me of when people say croissant with a French accent or "Mehico" instead of Mexico - I get those are the pronunciations if you're speaking French or Spanish, but IMO the rest of the sentence is English so just use the English accent / pronunciation.

From experience speaking with Americans, Bahb would get really confused because he probably can't hear the difference between his name and Bob.

I thought this post would be about calling a French guy Pierre vs. pee-Air, even when speaking English, lol

My birthname is anglicized French. The English form is well-known. I hate it. But even the quebecois kinda butcher it. So I cope. No one's gonna get it right, so why stress?

Well i know two Ralph, one american and one south African. I call them differently, South African Ralph doesn't mind I call him Rolf, he thinks I got it bang on.

There's way too many languages and dialects with way too many sounds out there for this to be practically doable. For foreign names some basic degree of approximation is desirable, but nothing more than that. In principle you shouldn't expect or demand people to produce sounds not found in their native dialect (unless they're actually learning the foreign language, but even then they will usually stick to the same language within the same sentence).

Besides, it's not even odd for people not to be able to pronounce stuff according to the standard norm of their own native language, due to the dialectal variety within the same language.

As for names from within the same language, it could sound artificial and even condescending if you tried to go for a pronunciation not native to you. Bob is just Bob, no need to stress that he's "American/British Bob".