When you travel to and/or live in non-English speaking foreign countries, do you:
– translate your name into the whatever the equivalent would be for that country? (William would call himself Guillermo in Mexico)
– leave the spelling of your name alone, but pronounce it according to the way the people in that country would pronounce it? (Julie would call herself Yulie in Germany)
– pronounce it the way you would in the United States? (Elizabeth would call herself Elizabeth in France, and the French would probably pronounce it “Elisabet”)
What about if you are in a country, where the names, alphabets, and sounds are very different than they are in English?
What about if you are a non-English speaker who has traveled in or come to live in an English speaking country? What did you do?
I lived in Spain for a little less than two years, as my husband was stationed there when he was in the Air Force. I used my “American” name, and I pronounced it in American fashion. HOWEVER, I was sort of living between nations, in a way. My husband and I lived off base, but we mostly socialized with other Americans, so most people that we talked to would have pronounced my name in the American fashion anyway.
Seems like if our entire media empire is going to spend months working out the best pronunciation (and spelling) of Moammar El-Gadhafi, then I feel no need to belittle the culture that named me by clumsily squeezing it into other languages. When travelling I also use the title ‘Mister’ when introducing myself (although I respond to signor/monsieur/herr as appropriate)
I think it’s polite to the person from the country you are visiting to pronounce your name as best as they can. If it’s something that is just too difficult to for someone to pronounce, then you might want to come up with an alternative that’s easier to say. I found that to be the case in Japan.
[Spirit of Emily Post] I make it a point to try very hard to pronounce a visitor’s name in the way he/she prefers it at home, if that person tells me. It’s polite, and who knows, I may eventually get it right.
When traveling abroad it is, in my opinion, quite important that you pronounce your own name as you normally would. Let them figure it out. You are, after all, an informal ambassador. Once a degree of familiarity has been established you can agree on a more acceptable nickname or abbreviation. For shit’s sake, though, research your own name in the country’s vernacular. You don’t want to be trying to talk up the ladies with a name like “Chilito” or the guys with a name like “Gordita.” [/Spirit of Emily Post]
Well, when I lived in Russia everyone called me “Jeff”. It would be pretty hard to translate that into Russian because there wasn’t an equivalent and a literal translation sounded hopelessly medieval.
It was, however, good for a laugh among the drug crowd, since ‘Jeff’ is slang for ephedrine over there, or was in the mid-90s at least.
All I wanna do is to thank you, even though I don’t know who you are…
In my opinion, it is more polite to pronounce your name as a local would, if you know how. E.g. if your name is Smith, use Sumisu in Japan. This is assuming you are speaking the local language, by the way. If you are talking in English, I see no reason to change the pronunciation.
I didn’t change my name when I was in Israel, although I knew a couple people who did. My friend Lisa always goes by her Hebrew name, Gila, when she’s in a “Jewish” situation, for instance. Right now she’s studying in a yeshiva in Jerusalem, and when I called and asked for Lisa, no one knew who I was talking about. Occasionally, when people expressed extreme confusion over my name, I would just tell them to use my Hebrew name, Ilana. I’ve never done it, but I wouldn’t have any problems calling myself Elena in Mexico if people had trouble with Kyla. (Elena is the Spanish version of my middle name, Helen.)
I live in China. When I moved here one of the first things I needed was a Chinese name, for various official forms, (eg bank account application). I guess maybe some forms or computer programs have only room for 3 characters in the name space.
So my first name, “Eric” was transliterated to characters pronounced “Ai li ke”. The funny thing is that for the same bank account
they can only print roman characters on the ATM card, so it in fact says “AI LI KE” on the card. It seems mose Chinese fine Ai Li Ke to be fantastically easier to pronounce so I roll with it, though to me it doesn’t sound much like “Eric”.
On the same note, most westerners find Chinese names difficult to pronounce, so many younger Chinese who have studied English have generously given themselves an English name to make it easier for us even in their OWN country. Some are traditional English names “Michael”, “Annie”, some translations of their Chinese name e.g. “Jade”. And some choose names borrowing from the Chinese tradition of many names being words. Hence the unusual and sometimes amusing English names e.g. “Door”, “Tank”, “Puzzle”, “Cock”, “Clock”, and “Pasty”. That said, their names are no more odd than many of the nicknames borne by guys in my fraternity back in college.
I’d guess a good rule of thumb is if your name is slightly familiar and and can be spelled in the local language then keep it. Alberto doesn’t have to change to Albert when he comes to the US, but if your name is a real pronunciation hazzard or impossible to represent in the local alphabet then make it easy on everyone and change it.
I don’t really worry about my name. When my (francophone) roommate was still my boyfriend, he was fanatic about making other francophones pronounce my name “Matthew” instead of “Mathieu” but I don’t really care. I usually call myself Matt anyway. And I pronounce his name - Eric - Englishly, unless I’m speaking in French.
The only time I intentionally change my name is that I call myself Mateo (or Machjo, the pet form) when I’m speaking Esperanto. Never mind.
I don’t translate my name but if I am speaking the language of the other country, I do pronounce it with the accent of that language. Otherwise I’d be speaking French, for instance, and suddenly break into two words with an American accent. It sounds weird and besides, they usually can’t understand it. If I pronounce the name with a French accent, most people know exactly what I mean.
When I was in Mexico on business, my boss (who is Mexican, but living here in Michigan) always refered to me as “Joe” and not “José”. I felt perfectly fine with that and so did the people we were training for that weekend.
-Dragwyr
“If God had meant for man to eat waffles,
he would have given him lips like snowshoes”
-Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
Unless, of course, your (English) name is Judy & you don’t pick up on the fact that you are calling yourself Thursday (which a friend of mine did).
It’s easier to try & translate your name if you know the local language. If you’re just a tourist, I think it’s best to stick with your natural pronounciation, but don’t get uptight if the natives pronounce it differently.
It’s a beautiful day in my neighborhood. How’s yours?
Björn - Bj normal, ö like e in jerk, r is difficult and n is normal.
first i pronounce my name in my own language, then in an international version “bj0rn”.
my name means in english: bear. like in brown, black, grizzly, polar or panda bear.
which can be very amusing in iceland, because for example polar bear is “ísbjörn” in icelandic (ice bear). and raccoon is “þvottabjörn” (washing bear…or something like that). so people say things like; “do you want ice…bear!” and then laught like crazy. really funny stuff you know!
bj0rn - to be laughed at!
(You know, I find it helps to copy it to WordPad and then fix all the punctuation errors, etc., so they’re not so distracting. Then I usually light some incense, sacrifice a chicken to the spirit of Kate Turabian, and get really drunk. Then it actually starts to make sense.) - notthemama
Yes, it pronouncing your name in the country’s language’s accent only works if you are speaking that language and understand any possible homynyms between your name and what it sounds like in the other language. If you are speaking English, I think it would be better to stick with the English pronounciation.
I would use my name as given in any language that uses the Latin alphabet, and a transliteration of it in any language that uses a non-Latin phonetic alphabet (or syllabary, like Japanese katakana). But then there’s Chinese. I don’t even want to contemplate how my name would be butchered by trying to cram it into hanzi, and besides, the “transliteration” in one Chinese dialect might not even be close in another. So I’ve adopted a separate Chinese name, chosen partly for sound and partly for meaning.
Kyla, I think the difference in your situation is that jews (often? always?) have a “regular” name and a “jewish” name. What’s the origin of that custom, by the way?
My name is Jacques, the english version is James (not Jack! Jack is short for John, which is Jean), the spanish version is Diego, the german version is Jakob, etc… I doubt I could learn to recognize them, if someone called out Jimmy I would never associate that with my name. So I personally still go by my original name and try to teach people to pronounce it correctly if they ask. I think it’s a good thing to stick with your original name, it’s more interesting for other people and broadens their horizons.
It’s a beautiful day in my neighborhood. How’s yours?