Name pronounciation

[Jo Zebedee]

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...

Oooh, what about those who mis-spell it in their thread titles? Does that count? Welcome to the Chrons!

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Therasa/Teresa Ter-ray-zah vs Ter-ee-sa used to be a big deal in Liverpool. It denoted religious belief. I can never remember which way round it went but my Great Aunts would sniff and go "Catholic." with the wrong pronunciation.

 

[Montero]

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

(Mingis Chumley-Sinjon-Fanshaw)

I was tempted by some of that last night (though not quite as stylishly as you have done ) but I wimped out as I couldn't remember the Cholmondeley spelling off the top of my head.

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)

Just wondering whether Spanish speakers would do a different view of the 'j' in Rojan.

 

[Juliana]

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.).

I've had this happen, too. Tweak a name and the character's personality changes slightly.

As a reader, I find I need to decide at the beginning of the book how I'm going to pronounce names in my head. If I can't decide, it bothers me. I spent the entirety of Brent Week's Night Angel trilogy debating with myself on how to pronounce Kylar - most distracting!

Personally, I'd love it if we were just told straight out how to pronounce a name, although I suppose often the author doesn't realize there might be doubts (like the Kare debate).

 

[Montero]

It used to be quite usual to have long character lists in a book, sometimes with pronunciation guides. More in fantasy than science fiction, but I have sometimes seen a list of words/names with pronunciation in science fiction.

And mostly I by-pass them and go straight to the story.

 

[hopewrites]

GPS systems have a hell of a time with local names here and moreso on the West Coast. Puts the emphasis on the wrong sellable and suddenly I'm confused where to turn left at.

(Kare and Karr I'd pronounce like a Bostontonian saying "car"
Rojan would be "row-Han" as would Rohan
I'm trying to remember the name of my drow pristess, she had by far the best name I've ever come up with for being complicated.)

 

[Mr Orange]

i would only worry about complicated names and since i haven't really ever used any, i don't worry... yet...

also, don't forget that if your novel is read by someone with a different national or even regional dialect, then every single word you write is going to be read/pronounced differently than the way you have it in your head... (try reading a passage of your own in an irish/english/american/australian accent...)

as an aside i read Kare as the same as "Care" (in a New Zealand accent corrupted with 11 years of living in England - figure that one out!)

 

[Mouse]

It's CARE. Care. Care. Care. Care.

I write real-world stuff so no particularly peculiar names for me. But yes, if I can't pronounce a name, I don't bother reading it - I gloss over the word. I'm getting grumpier in my old age and have less patience. I now won't even pick up a book if it's got stupid, hard-to-pronounce names. Hell, I won't pick up a book if it's got stupid, easy-to-pronounce names.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Le Mouselet has spoken. Care it is.

 

[DragonKhan25]

No one should tell you how to pronounce the character name you made IMO. Personally speaking I would correct someone if they mispronounce a characters name but that is just my personality. Not helped by the fact that I daily has people adding a G into my surname that does not exist for this Cummins lol

 

[Aquilonian]

From the reader's POV, it's important to be able to keep track of characters, so names need to be easily remembered, and for that reason it must help if they're easily pronounceable, as to some extent many of us do pronounce the words in our heads even if we no longer read aloud. (Apparently in Medieval times almost everyone read aloud BTW). I don't think it matters so much whether every reader pronounces your names identically though, and if you sell outside of your own country I think that would be unachievable because each letter of the Roman alphabet has many different pronunciations depending on which language. Some European languages contain words that other Europeans find almost unpronounceable, for example Slavic languages may contain words consisting entirely of consonants.

I agree that names are very important though. I get quite angry with people who name their kids after historical persons whom they don't know anything about. I also think its extremely disrespectful to mis-pronounce someone's name.