Name pronounciation

[Jo Zebedee]

Over on another thread of mine a funny little sideline has developed over how to pronounce one of my character's name. Since it's one syllable, one vowel, four letters and no ' you'd think there wouldn't be much room for confusion but apparently there is! (Not helped by the writer's weird regional accent to be fair.)

It doesn't bother me how it gets pronounced. the Judge has hated most of my names since I got here (let's not get started on Omendegon...), so I'm pretty thick skinned about it. What about the rest of you? Are the names part of your artistry or is it up to the reader? Does it matter?

 

[Abernovo]

Seeing as my real-life surname is mispronounced on a daily basis, I'm not too bothered. It's up to the reader. I'm not particularly precious about my work. I'm more concerned about the story.

On the subject of that name, I always thought it was pronounced as in the surname Kerr (like the word 'care').

 

[Brian G Turner]

IMO it's not so much whether the reader can pronounce the name the exact same as the author, as much as be able to remember and refer to the name simply and easily enough. It's a long standing complaint that too many apostrophes or non-English vowels can make some fantasy names impossible to even imagine a pronunciation for.

 

[tinkerdan]

I don't bother much with hoping for people to get the name's right. That's because of my own handicapped dysfunctional method of handling them in other peoples writing.
For instance:

Omendegon

would become Ome until my brain came up with a pronunciation of the real name that it felt comfortable with. I think that my biggest concern is creating a name thats not going to slow the reader down below the intended pace of the scene.(or leave them with a bloody nose.)

 

[thaddeus6th]

I'm not fussed how people pronounce the names in my stuff. Ostenwald pronounced with a V or W sound is fine by me either way.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A w here, I think.

I agree Tinkerdan. I did drop a couple of my particularly hard to pronounce ones, although some remained, if I was particularly wedded to them.

 

[Hex]

I'm with Brian and Tinkerdan. I'm afraid to admit that I read "Ome-dron" until I had to type it out. I've read whole books with people called things like Yrth and not realised it sounds like "Earth" -- I don't bother with names.

As a result, I try to go for straightforward names in my writing. Most of them are our-world and normalish. I can't think of a character who has a complicated name (though you probably thought that about Kayr...).

 

[Ursa major]

Looking at Omendegon, I read it as O-men-de-gon (where the e in de is a schwa). Is that correct?

(And Kare has also read as Kaa-ruh to me, with not a hint of the r being rolled.)


But apart from a name being difficult (as in it pulls one out of the story more than a name should), does it matter that the reader assigns different pronunciations to these names? (Setting aside their appearance, as it were, on stage, on the radio or TV, or in a film?)

 

[hopewrites]

Im terribly picky about names. They are the one thing that scared me off book clubs. After a particularly nasty fight with a (now x)friend over the pronunciation of Aslan I vowed in my heart never to speak to another soul about the books and characters I love.
I was young and overly emotional at the time and have since broken and let go of that vow. But i confess, i prefer to discuss books and characters I love on a written forum than face to face..

I place alot of importance on names. "My good name" "in the name of" Names hold power. More so than any other type of word. It encapsulates identity and designates ownership. Without names we are faceless members of the press, drops in an ocean of living beings unidentifiable from the ebb and flow of life and death around us.
We build upon our names, allow them to shape us. When we set them aside there is freedom to be someone else, but also the loss of everything we were.

I dont know as I would let it bother me if others pronounced the names of my characters wrong. Unless they talked to me constantly of them. Because I only bother correcting people who mispronounce my name if I feel they are trying to know me. So if someone wanted to know my characters well and throughly, I'd correct them. But otherwise I'd let it go, but never speak to them of those characters again.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I don't worry too much about it, either reading or writing, but if I know what was intended, I try to see it that way. I still waffle back and forth on Vorkosigan every time I read them -- I thought Vor-ko-see'-gun for years, my mother said it as Vor-ko-see-gee-un (hard g) which added a vowel that wasn't there (she did that sometimes), and then one of the books eventually discussed it and I think they settled on Vor-ko'-si-gun. I'm still trying to train myself to that, since obviously the author intended it that way.

I variously see Kare as care or car, but never as kerr -- and that's evidently confusing because some of you folks pronounce care as kerr instead of to rhyme with air. Well, gods know how you pronounce air, actually.

Omendegon I would say as oh-men-day'-gon, after debating with oh-men'-duh-gun.

I think if one has to stop too long to think about pronunciation, it does detract from the story, but most things, even complicated ones, I work through them and settle on something that seems right, and once I get the rhythm of it into my head, it goes without notice. It's only when I know there are conflicting pronunciations that I stop to think about it after that, like Vorkosigan. I have too many of them in my head, so it keeps rattling around.

Hope, what, dare I ask, was their pronunciation of Aslan? (I don't think I want to admit to mine, in case it's the wrong one.)

 

[HareBrain]

I pronounced Kare as Kah-re, maybe cos of Khare, Cityport of Traps. (Anyone else remember those books?)

Omendegon I kinda see as "Ommadawn", being of that age. Even getting the letters right, there's the question of stress. I think it sounds best with equal stress on all four syllables.

TDZ, I can think of two hideous Aslan possibilities: Ay-slan, and like aslant without the "t". And yes, your one is wrong.

 

[Ursa major]

And I was sure it was Az-lan.


As, indeed, it is.

 

[tinkerdan]

from the pen of Hopewrites

I place alot of importance on names. "My good name" "in the name of" Names hold power. More so than any other type of word. It encapsulates identity and designates ownership. Without names we are faceless members of the press, drops in an ocean of living beings unidentifiable from the ebb and flow of life and death around us.

That sounds like a good beginning to a story.
------------------------------------------------------
'My good name'; 'in the name of'; names hold power. More so than any other type of word. They encapsulate identity and designate ownership. Without names we are faceless members of the press, drops in an ocean of living beings unidentifiable from the ebb and flow of life and death around us. I place a lot of importance on names.

Apparently my parents do not.
--------------------------------------
Yeah something like that.

 

[Hex]

Lewis lifted 'Aslan' from Turkish (where it's more like "As-lan" though I've always read it "Az-lan"). It means 'lion'. Tash -- the bad guy god -- means 'stone'.

(a bit like 'horrorshow' from Clockwork Orange is lifted from the Russian, 'khorrosho', which means 'good' -- in case that adds anything to the discussion, which I suspect it doesn't...).

 

[thaddeus6th]

In Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire there's an early Turkish leader called Alp Arslan. I always pronounced it Az-lan, I think that's how it was said in the BBC series I watched as a child.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

As a result, I try to go for straightforward names in my writing. Most of them are our-world and normalish. I can't think of a character who has a complicated name (though you probably thought that about Kayr...).

I've had a quare shock about Kare... I didn't think it got much simpler...

Looking at Omendegon, I read it as O-men-de-gon (where the e in de is a schwa). Is that correct?

Spot on.

Anyway, should we really believe a space opera galaxy set in the future speaks anglo english? Without any new terms I find it hard to believe in, frankly.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Honestly when is pronunciation going to be an issue save in audio books? (Or if the book becomes a film?)

However, people pronounce things strangely all the time, and not just the Americans with their annoying zee's. I went to my doctor some time back because I was having vertigo problems. All the way through the consult she pronounced it as "vert-eye-go" which was very disconcerting. (Especially when you're spinning around a room!) And yet technically she was correct (I think) when you think of the pronunciation of impetigo etc.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Glisterspeck]

I have a character named Roger Ato in a WIP set in the mid thirteenth century. After I ran through a synapsis with a French friend after work one night, he told me the name would be pronounced more like Ho-jare than Roger, so when reading it myself, I read Ho-jay Ato. I suspect, if I am ever lucky enough to have readers for it, that they will pronounce it Rodger, and I'm good with that.

I do take a lot of care in naming characters. I had advice to change the naming scheme of my goblin race, but haven't been able to bring myself around to the idea yet.

 

[TitaniumTi]

I know I pronounce things strangely by New Zealand standards. I lived in New Zealand for a few years, and quite a few words are pronounced differently in NZ and Australia, so I don't fuss too much about pronunciation. Also as a result of my time in NZ ( and hearing / reading Maori place names), when I see 'wh' in an unfamiliar word or name I read it as 'f' or something approximating ''fth'.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

TDZ, I can think of two hideous Aslan possibilities: Ay-slan, and like aslant without the "t". And yes, your one is wrong.

Hey, hey, now -- I may be wrong, but I'm certain!

And I have always said az-lan -- or as-lan, since "as" to me is "az" anyway. So there.