Name pronounciation

[psychotick]

Hi,

Just as an aside I just watched the detective series Zen set in Rome. All the main actors speak with English accents, which is surprising, all the minor actors have Italian accents, and yet it works for me. Then again he's got to be the worst detective on the planet, he never solves a crime, they solve themselves in front of him, and yet I rate it as a good detective series. So what do I know?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[hopewrites]

ah Say lawn. She kept going on about this awe-Say-lon guy and I thought "who is that? I dont remember anyone like that." I can be friends with someone who calls him Az-lan or As-len or anything close to that. But ah-Say-lawn really? (I didnt end my friendship with her over pronunciation, really.) She also said nah-Ren-yah.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

To me Kare - is and always will be even if the TV show says otherwise Kerr.

Mine tend to be named Angus, Ian and Gus so I tend not to have the issue. The only one is Socrates & Soc which to me are Sock-rat-ees and Sock. However I have heard So-crates and Soak. And my text speech program says it is Ess-OK.

 

[Glitch]

For Kare I say care.

Alastair Reynolds has the character Svetlana I his book Pushing Ice. I pronounced it svet-lana, where svet is similar in sound to sweat but the v sound replacing the w.

 

[Boneman]

I don't kare, really. I want to see simple names, memorable names that tick the boxes, so I don't have to struggle over their pronunciation (pronounciation?), easily rememberable (Paul Muad'dib...) and I do find horribly artificial contructs distracting.

Funnily enough, in 'Malice' which I've given up reading for other reasons the MC is called Corban, which is spot on... but everyone shortens it to 'Ban' (rather than Corb, for instance), which really grated. No other person has the end of their name as a shortened form in the 33 chapters I did read...

And once you've got a big cast, if you're not Kareful, some names are too close to each other.

 

[ratsy]

I couldn't tell you how many books I have read that I don't ever bother trying to pronounce the name in my head. I see the name, I recognize the name, I move on. There is a whole thread on Robert Jordan's crazy names on this forum too.

In Kare's case, I would 100% pronounce it Care

 

[Montero]

Unless a name needs to rhyme with something as part of the story, as long as I can pronounce it in some way, it is fine by me.

I'm in the Azlan camp too btw

And just to be perverse, seeing Omendegon on this thread, my head has it as Armageddon and I am having trouble pronouncing it any other way - but I wouldn't be bothered as a reader.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

To be honest the association of the two in a reader's mind wouldn't worry me too much. And it looks like Kare is going grand. (Hee, Boneman, I giggled.)

Az-lan for me, too. And Paul Muab'dib - how many ways could that be pronounced

Actually, placenames can be awkward, too. I just read a book with a lot of Welsh in it and I kind of glazed over them all. Over here we have a town called Magherafelt and I can nearly guarantee no one would get the sound right.

(like it was spelt Maharahfelt with a bit of a catch in the ara).

 

[monsterchic]

I have often realized on the last page of a book that I missed a few important letters in the name, then I get confused and wonder, "Did the author just spring another character on me?" But with names, especially long ones, I tend to look at a few letters and ignore the rest. For example, basically any name over four or five letters I paraphrase (para-letter?) Seeing this little bit of text is enough for me to recognize and form a character for.

That said, in my writing, I use very long, usually hard to pronounce names. But I know EXACTLY how they're supposed to sound, and this I do not understand. Oh, and the names are Care and Azlan, IMO

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Now place names I suspect people mispronounce. I've used ones local to where i live so for example Covesea would in my head be cow-see, Sandend would be sanine etc

 

[monsterchic]

Yes, I would pronounce those differently. Covesea would be cuv (pronounced like dove) see. Sandend would be that...sand-end. But the same would go for me. People who don't live where I do can't pronounce Chequamegon, or Rhinelander, or Ogema. And those for me are super easy.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

When I'm writing, it's not so much a matter of giving an important character as finding out what it is. The name just belongs to the person, and if I changed it because readers found it hard to pronounce, the character's whole personality would change, and what a mess it would make of my story! (I know this, because the personality thing has happened when I changed the names of minor characters, where it didn't matter.) So I stick with the names, whether people like them or not. As we see, even names that look short and easy to the author can be hard for readers to figure out. So I'm not going to sweat the long, complicated ones. And, frankly, I don't care how they pronounce a name, as long as the "right" name for that character appears in the book.

If someone asks me, then I'll tell them how it's pronounced. But when they are reading the book, if they want to garble the name or shorten it, that's OK by me if it makes their experience of the book more enjoyable. And if they come up to me and ask me a question about that character, I'm not going to get offended or snooty about how they pronounce the name, although I know that some writers do. It's rude and unnecessary.

Sometimes I'll put in a guide to pronunciation (which my publishers may or may not keep). Some readers really want them, and complain if there isn't one. Some readers complain if there is one, which I don't understand, because they are always free to ignore it.

 

[Kylara]

Well my surname is constantly mispronounced (I mean it has a great big K slap bang in the middle but it might as well be invisible to some people) and we have had some marvelous letters addressed with our surname spelled some crazy way.

The same for where I live (the road is named after the tiny village) people just can't pronounce it properly, so much so that a neighbour with scottish relatives has made her email address spell the way they think it is pronounced so that she doesnt have to labour about it when giving her email out hah...

Kare - probably Kah - ray, but only because of the hard sound of the K combined with the e on the end...Omendagon - pretty much how it is spelt but with a schwa for the a...

I tend to steal Latin words for my names so hope people can pronounce them or at least see where derivations may come from and be thus able to pronounce the words correctly. (If not Latin, then I love sticking vowels in all over the place such as with Askatasuna (it is the Basque word for freedom) which is by far my most favourite name of any of my characters or Deya which is my second most favourite name)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well my surname is constantly mispronounced

So is mine. (And it's not just whether that consonant in the middle is hard or soft. They'll say "Eddington" or something equally far off.) Or they spell it wrong. Or both.

That doesn't bother me that much, but some of the things they do to Teresa ... it's a common name for goodness sake!

And also, though it doesn't bother me so much, I'm always bemused by the fact that people will put in an "h" when my name is right there in the post they're responding to.

 

[Kylara]

And also, though it doesn't bother me so much, I'm always bemused by the fact that people will put in an "h" when my name is right there in the post they're responding to.

I think that is probably the British people because over here most people with your name have it spelled with a h - so Theresa as opposed to Teresa - at least I assume that is where the H is added!

With my surname it is two easy peasy well known four letter words that happen to be an eight letter word all of their own...but it is obviously impossible for people to read properly.

(actually, funny story - my dad had a big row with a guy on the phone who was convinced that my dad's name was the first four letter word of our surname (which is a man's name) and refused to accept that my dad's name was Peter when he had it written down as a different name because whoever wrote the names down had separated the eight letter word into its two four letter constituents. This went on for ages until my dad just slammed the phone down in disgust)

 

[Montero]

In terms of place name pronunciation, try these

Biscester
Towcester
Tintagel

(Bister, Toaster, Tin-ta-jel, not BI-sester, Tow-sester and Tintergel)

Marylebon is another good one - Marley-bone. Corruption of Mary-le-Bon but nothing like a bit of a change....


I've once tipped a cabbie - said I was cutting it fine for a train and he really shifted.

Incidentally, you see trainee cab drivers in London on mopeds with a map, learning all the streets and how to navigate one way systems. The licenced cab drivers do a serious exam on it, known as 'the knowledge'.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think that is probably the British people because over here most people with your name have it spelled with a h - so Theresa as opposed to Teresa - at least I assume that is where the H is added!

Then that makes a little more sense. But they do it in the US, where both names are equally common.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I always have to check for the h, Teresa -it's nearly always spelt that way over here.

 

[Kissmequick]

Worcestershire trips a lot of people up (Think Wooster as in Jeeves and Wooster)

And ofc not everyone knows how to pronounce Menzies Cholmondeley-St John-Featherstonhaugh

(Mingis Chumley-Sinjon-Fanshaw)

I try to keep the names simple, but even so some people still struggle. A lot of people have asked how Rojan is pronounced (Er, Ro-Jan?). But then there's people like my hubby who is very dyslexic so he just pops in a similar name he can get to grips with. Which does kinda make it difficult discussing books sometimes, because I don't always know what character he's referring to! (At least Caramon/Cameron was easy enough. But bless, he had a hell of a time with all the elven names in LOTR)

 

[Lat297]

I don't think how people pronounce names is important. Incidentally, one of my favourite things is people who mispronounce 'pronunciation'. It's an oddity of the English language, but one that I'm fond of because of the irony...