When Pronouncing Somebody's Name Becomes a problem

When I was in class five in elementary school, a new student whose name was Vaughan came to join us. Well, he'd made the introduction and told us that his was Vaughan, but we wouldn't just stop spelling his name as "Vogan" especially when reading through other list of student names.

I wondered why the spelling of his name would be different from it's pronunciation and our English teacher couldn't give us any plausible explanation on the reason why. She would only say that that was how the name is spelt in English and we have no choice than to respect that.

There was another lady whose name was "Joyce". Joyce was very easy to pronounce but the problem would definitely be from the spelling. Some kids might read it as "joysee".

Also had a guy whose name was Michael but he would always frown at anybody who calls him "Mike". Well, even if this was a cool version of his original name he didn't like it and we respected that. Infact according to him, people who called him Mike instead of Michael are lazy people who prefer shortcuts. Lol.

Not only English names though, even our native African names could be pronounced the wrong way, especially the surname. There was also this lady whose name was Motunrayo. Ofcourse this name wouldn't be difficult to pronounce even for a white man. But unfortunately, some mischievous students would want to hurt her my calling her "motuary". How cruel!

Sometimes, some African names or surnames might even be difficult for another person in thesame country but from a different tribe to pronounce . Infact some children ( gen. Z's) can't even pronounce their own surname properly. There's no need to mention that such children speak English more fluently than their own tribe. Often times, they might be scolded by an elder from thesame tribe or from a different tribe for their inability to learn their mother tongue.

I have heard of alot of young Nigerians that have migrated to the UK and US and had to later modify their native names for easier pronounciation by their hosts. Ademola is modified to Adie. Fashanu becomes modify to fash, Mayorkun is modified to Mayo, Omolola/ Omolara becomes Lola/Lara ........

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Well, I don't think that omitting a syllabus, vowel, consonant from your name would make anyone like you the more. Afterall, I know some English and other foreign names that could be tongue twisters too, although o wouldn't mention them 😆😆

Ofcourse, u understand that it could be very frustrating repeating the correct pronunciation of your name dozens of time in a day to someone from a different culture. I even heard that the "Nelson" was not the original first name of Mandela. It was given to him by the colonizers who apparently got tired of trying to get his native name right 🤣

Your name is your name and it plays the biggest part of your identity. You should make sure that is is pronounced properly else you could become stuck with a new identity irrespective of wether you like it or not.

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Thanks for reading