Baby Names Pronunciation: A lesson in geography
For many parents (especially Nameberry regulars), the process of choosing a child’s name is exciting, scary, intricate, thoughtful, and time-consuming. With all the resources available here, it’s easy for novice and seasoned parents alike to place an emphasis on a name’s spelling, history, etymology, meaning, and popularity ranking.
Just take a glance at the forums and you can find many namers seeking the perfect appellation for their newborn-to-be. Certainly some prospective parents have to grapple with the question of proper (or preferred) pronunciation. But what happens when regional dialects throw a wrench into the entire process?
Here, I will focus on my personal experiences with variations in dialect as someone who has lived in the Southern and Midwestern United States. Nameberry has a number of international visitors and contributors, which helps to make it the great community it is. This status brings with it the fact that many various dialects and pronunciations exist for any individual name.
While I’m sure my thoughts will ring true with some readers, surely others will disagree with my opinions on various pronunciations. Rather than contradicting my argument, however, this phonetic disparity only further supports my point. I therefore implore you: read my musings and please feel free to disagree wholeheartedly!
The Long “I”: This one hits home for me, as my wife and I chose the name Silas for our son. Most people would agree that the first syllable of this name is pronounced with a long “I” sound. What we discovered after naming our son is that different regional dialects approach this vowel sound in unique ways. We prefer the “rounded” or “falling” vowel sound, which is akin to the word “eye.” In linguistics, this type of sound is called a diphthong. Many of our family and friends from the Southern United States employ what is known as a monophthong, making the long “I” sound more like “ah.” The effect is that many people close to us pronounce our son’s name as SAH-lus. It isn’t a big issue, but it’s something we notice especially during our trips down south.
“Aw” and “Au”: During my travels, I have noticed that these two vowel sounds differ greatly depending on the region. Take the name Dawn for example. In some parts of the country, many English speakers would pronounce Dawn in a manner that makes it essentially a homophone with the name Don. In other areas, and once again I point to the South, Dawn can sound much closer to “Doan,” as in Joan with a D. Another name I would point out here is Lauren. It seems to me that many people in the Northern and Midwestern United States pronounce this name the same as Loren. But in the South, speakers use a softer vowel sound, making the name sound more like LAH-ren.
“En” and “In”: As someone who was born in the South, this is one I still have difficulty with. Essentially, for many southerners, these two sounds are exactly the same. Thus, the name Jenny ends up sounding like Jinny and the name Wendy sounds like Windy. I have lived in the Midwest for the past five years, but I still have to make a conscious effort when asking for a pen to ensure that someone doesn’t try to hand me a pin instead. I’m not a professional linguist, but I always say that these distinct sounds don’t register to the southern ear. In fact, my wife encounters the consequences of this vowel conflation quite frequently. Her name is Kendra, and more often than not when she is required to say her name to a stranger (think the barista at Starbucks) she discovers her name has been written as Kindra. She has resorted to spelling her name in these situations as a result. Perhaps some readers can corroborate our experience.
These are just a few issues with dialects that I have noticed, but I’m sure there are many more. But if my post has a conclusion, it must be this: there’s ultimately no such thing as a mispronunciation-proof name, especially if your child’s life could potentially cross regional or international borders. But should this be a factor in choosing a child’s name? The knowledge of Southern dialect certainly impacted the names we considered for our second child. What do you think?