Why? Oh, why?

[spring78]

I just had to share this and I know there are some ladies on this board who will be as horrified as I was...

A new little girl has started at my kids daycare. I saw her name posted on the wall above her crib: Saoirse. I thought, great! Another kid with a good, strong Gaelic name (DS is Ciaran). Then I heard them pronounce it this morning. They called her "SAY-or-see." I thought my ears were going to bleed!

I know it is not a common or well known name in the US. And I know it is not pronounced like it is spelled. Not knowing how to pronounce it if you happened to come across it is perfectly understandable. However... Why would you choose a name for your child that you do not know how to pronounce? And not bother to look it up?? Can we say Cultural Insensitivity? Poor kid.

[billyhorrible]

That's so weird to me. I'm not a huge fan of Saoirse pronounced the right way, but at least that doesn't sound as weird as their pronunciation.

I mean, who sees the name, pronounces it the way they do, and thinks "YAAAAHHHSSS!That's the name!" And then doesn't even look it up? Because the pronunciation would show up if you looked up the meaning.

[cabbagecabbage]

spring78 is "they" the school or the parents? Because I can see a teacher not knowing.

But, then again, I've seen/heard Aisling pronounced AYES-ling by parents.

[spring78]

It was a daycare worker. I considered that, but it is a very small daycare and she made a point of learning my son's name from day 1 and has always been very conscious of pronouncing his unusual-in-the-US Gaelic name correctly. I find it hard to believe she would pronounce this child's name so terribly different from the parents. But I suppose that could be the case... Here's hoping!

[joy]

I m going with cute nickname based on the spelling.

I have to.

[Oliver's Bear]

I guess I'm a bit more forgiving than the rest of the board. Because in Gaelic, even though the letters look the same, they don't make the same sounds as they do in English. It's not wrong to try and make the combination of letters make sense with the way you think the letters sound. I remember my first attempts to pronounce Irish place names was a horrendous failure -- how I was supposed to know that "bh" in Gaelic sounds like "v" in English? People may not realize the name is the Gaelic spelling, so how are they supposed to know the letters are making Gaelic sounds, not English ones? The problem is only compounded by all the crazy ways people spell even English names these days. Who's to know how to pronounce any unusual name?

[billyhorrible]

Sept 29, 2016 19:22:55 GMT -5 Oliver's Bear said:

I guess I'm a bit more forgiving than the rest of the board. Because in Gaelic, even though the letters look the same, they don't make the same sounds as they do in English. It's not wrong to try and make the combination of letters make sense with the way you think the letters sound. I remember my first attempts to pronounce Irish place names was a horrendous failure -- how I was supposed to know that "bh" in Gaelic sounds like "v" in English? People may not realize the name is the Gaelic spelling, so how are they supposed to know the letters are making Gaelic sounds, not English ones? The problem is only compounded by all the crazy ways people spell even English names these days. Who's to know how to pronounce any unusual name?

Ok, but isn't it incumbent on you as a parent to take that extra step before giving your child a name they will have forever? So you see the name Saoirse and think "that looks pretty, I wonder where is from/what it means?" It's not like we're playing boggle and just shaking random letters in a cup and then saying "aha! thus shall your name be."

I mean the first time I saw the name was in a book and I will readily admit I pronounced it wrong. But I asked an Irish person how to pronounce it, and that was just curiosity, not because I was looking for a name for a child. I would hope someone who was looking for a name would at least go as far as I did.

[lormor]

How is it supposed to be pronounced? I've never come across it IRL.

[dreadpiratebuttercup]

Oct 1, 2016 12:22:36 GMT -5 lormor said:

How is it supposed to be pronounced? I've never come across it IRL.

SEER-sha