Personal names between languages

[richard1631978]

For me, the main thing is my dislike of switching phonologies mid-sentence. It feels like my mouth is held in a different position, ready to make different sounds and it takes time to switch mouth-configurations. Germans always laugh at me when I pronounce English loan words with a uvular /r/, so I try to do it with my regular English /r/ and find that my English mouth-configuration bleeds over into the surrounding German words and suddenly I'm pronouncing warum as [vəˈɹʊm].

All that being said, the short form of my name is pronounced identically in German and English, so it's not an issue for me until I have to give my full name.

Who do you think you are to spit your parents in the face by changing the name they gave you (10).

I dunno, your own person? Who are you to pass judgement on someone's relationship with their parents?

This.

Because your name is what your parents called you, and changing that is preposterous.

No it's not. A lot of things went on between my parents and between them and me (and my brothers) that are far worse than a "preposterous" name change and also worse than metaphorically (or even literally, for that matter) spitting in anyone's face. Parents and their decisions do not automatically deserve respect just because they are your parents. I am currently estranged from my parents - I have a right to be and I get incredibly angry any time I see or hear any insinuation that people in my position are "ungrateful". If I really wanted to change my name, the fact that they gave it to me would be more likely to spur me towards changing it than keeping it.

My father's first name is my middle name. This means that my full name literally contains his first and last name together and I have always resented that. I have had a lot of idle thoughts about legally adding an umlaut to "John" with my middle finger well raised, change it to "Jöhn" just to break that connection. I know Jöhn is not actually an established name and is also potentially "preposterous" and "pretentious", but seeing as no one ever actually uses my middle name, I would not be asking anyone to do anything differently. If I move back to Australia, the umlaut will not be recognised and my name will still look identical but it would just give me a bit of quiet satisfaction to know that "It's actually Jöhn now." Petty as fuck, yes, but my decision. The only thing really holding me back from it at the moment is the worry that it will make paperwork more complicated in future.

And just to stick my neck out for a moment, not specifically to defend Sirdanilot but just because I think the argument is silly: it's a bit silly to criticise him for classifying common Turkish names which happen to have their origin in Arabic or Persian as Turkish names. Let's say there's a Turkish guy called Hüseyin. He is from Turkey and where we live, there is a huge comminity of Turkish people and almost everyone who saw his name would immediately know he is Turkish. Yes, it's originally from Arabic, but it's just as much a Turkish name as Andrew is an English name. Perhaps some of the Hüseyins around here will not be Turkish, and perhaps there may be some Andrews who are not native English speakers, but in the context of being discriminated against based on your name, the etymology of the name is irrelevant. Names that are common among Turkish people can reasonably be called Turkish names when saying that people may be discriminated against for having Turkish names. I'm sure Sirdanilot was not intending to imply that employers will discriminate only against originally Turkic names but not against Turkish loan-names, as if they'd look it up and go "Hmm, Yiğit has a real Turkish name. Let's give the job to Cahit because his name is not originally Turkish and we're discriminating against Turkish people here."

Outside of work I usually just tell them to call me Fin, and most of the time people call me Fin-chan, because, you know, Japanese. At work I very much have the attitude that my students should suck it up and learn my proper name.

Yes, if they're learning English, there's no reason why they can't learn pronounce it as you do or at least aim for that.

To get things back OT one problem I have with my surname Davies is often it's hard for even English speakers to spell it right (too often it ends up as Davis) or prenounced Dayvees, which someone insisted on.

Wait ... so your name is spelt "Davies" but pronounced "Davis"?

Dayvis is probably more accurate, without using IPA (which I don't know well enough!)

There is a Finlay Fox in Timmy Time, if were are going by fictional names becoming popular.

I've heard Kevin becoming more popular in mainland Europe due to footballer Kevin Keegan, & Home Alone bring a bit international hit.

[marconatrix]

I've heard Kevin becoming more popular in mainland Europe due to footballer Kevin Keegan, & Home Alone bring a bit international hit.

Spare a thought for Caoimhín. At some stage a Caoimhín gave up the struggle and settled for 'Kevin'. However all Kevin's are by convention expected to revert to Caoimhín when speaking Irish. The name means something like 'little gentle one', which may or may not be embarrassing.

[jmcd]

Generic name at birth - official name later - name change after birth of first child?

So fathering or giving birth to a child is compulsory in Madagascar?

Of course it's not compulsory but it's something pretty much everyone wants do and most of the rare people who don't have kids are infertile (I just confirmed this with my teacher as well). Celibate clergy is not a traditional concept in Madagascar either.

[Salmoneus]

I've heard Kevin becoming more popular in mainland Europe due to footballer Kevin Keegan, & Home Alone bring a bit international hit.

Spare a thought for Caoimhín. At some stage a Caoimhín gave up the struggle and settled for 'Kevin'. However all Kevin's are by convention expected to revert to Caoimhín when speaking Irish. The name means something like 'little gentle one', which may or may not be embarrassing.

At school, I knew an Irish kid called /k@"v{n/ or /kI"van/, or something to that effect. Don't know how it was spelled, though.

[linguoboy]

Generic name at birth - official name later - name change after birth of first child?

So fathering or giving birth to a child is compulsory in Madagascar?

Of course it's not compulsory but it's something pretty much everyone wants do and most of the rare people who don't have kids are infertile (I just confirmed this with my teacher as well). Celibate clergy is not a traditional concept in Madagascar either.

Clerical celibacy isn't the only kind of celibacy that exists. Furthermore, infertility is not that rare. Researchers estimate somewhere between 3% and 7% of all couples have "unresolved problems of fertility". Add in the high rates of infant mortality in "traditional" society (and the high rates of premature death overall, which further impacts how many couples will ever have children) and you're talking a non-negligible proportion of the adult population.

[jmcd]

Of course but there are no other such specific roles for infertile people either.

From wikipedia: "Infertility rates have increased by 4% since the 1980s, mostly from problems with fecundity due to an increase in age" so we can only guess the extent to which infertility rates have risen before then. And the differences between countries.

[mèþru]

I know someone whose name is /ˈa.lon/, but most people call him /äˈlɛ̽n/. I've also heard /ˈeɪ.lɔn/. This used to bother him, but now he seems used to it. I accept most mispronunciations of my name.