AlvicBC

My name is Alison and is pronounced here by everyone as Elison and my little dog Mac is now Meck!!!

One of the girls in our local bank is called Candice and she says I am the only person here who pronounces her name properly...the locals call her "Candace" and she is a Canadian born and rared here, but yet she knows the difference in her name.

Though on the upside...I couldnt care less how they say my name I'm just so glad to hear it pronounced the Canadian way everyday cos then I'm not in the UK

Elaine B.

My boss in Canada had a son Craig (pronounced Creg of course) it took me awhile to figure out why he looked confused when I was telling him his son Craig had called the office.

Also you'd think Elaine was a pretty straight forward name but I used to get some very confused looks from Canadian who couldn't understand what I was saying. At first it irritated me a little but after awhile I just got used to pronouncing it with less of an NI accent.

Ginger3710

My OH's name is Mark and Americans always think he's saying "Mike", because we don't pronounce the "r" in his name. Then when we spell it, they say, "Oh, Marrrrrrrrrk"!

Londonuck

My mates used to hate being called Stooowert and Marrrt'n when they used to visit. Infact Martin was renamed after being called out as Martian Philis instead of Philips.

scrubbedexpat074

My wife is from Quebec, but she lived in England for 14 years with me and learned her English there. Nearly all Canadians seem to think she's English and her pronunciation is pretty good to the point she correct our kids with their 'canadian' errors... BUT, she still calls me friend Craig who she met in England and knew for age... 'Creg', maybe there's something particularly hard about it!

Biiiiink

I wouldn't like to be a Graham here either. Gram.

ray1968

even worse when you hear CO-LIN instead of COL-IN (especially when talking about the Ex US secretary of State -Colin Powell)

Laowai79

Seriously? This bothers you? Have you considered why people say your son's name the way they do? While I was living in Asia (I'm Canadian), I made friends from all over the world. Each of them pronounced my name (Sean) differently. My Aussie\Kiwi friends pronounced my name the same sort of the way Canadians say the word 'shown' or 'shorn' (not exactly, but similar). It would have been unnatural for them to try to say my name the way I do. My Korean friends would say my name sort of like 'shun'. Their language doesn't have the vowel sound to pronounce my name 'correctly'.

In Canada, the name 'Craig' has only one pronunciation (that I know of). So, unless you tell people how you want it to be pronounced, they will say 'Creg'. Maybe you want them to pronounce it like 'crag'? But that would be kind of unnatural for us.

I once had a 'discussion' with a woman from London who informed me that Canadians, Americans, Aussies, etc..do not speak English. We speak 'American' or 'Canadian'.

Anyway, I think it's reasonable for people to ask others to pronounce their name the way they wish it to be spoken. For example, my Scottish friend asked us to pronounce his name 'Fraser' with an emphasis on the 'z' sound. We had been saying it like 'Frasier Crane'. That was easy enough to do. However, when it's linguistically awkward for people, due to variations in vowel sounds, I don't think you should get bent out of shape.

jempee

Yes it does bother me. The way canadians pronounce it sounds awful! I hate it.

rwin

So how are you suppose to say Craig?

To me Craig and Creg are two different spellings for exactly the same thing.

Iain Mc

He's not alone. And there at least two of us posting on Expats!

I don't think the gaelic spelling ever made it over here, certainly few North Americans of non-European descent have ever seen it spelt this way.

I get Iaian, Lain, but by far the most popular seems to be Iian.

Still, it doesn't bug me, it's nice to be unique

lousid

Sorry, people, I just have to chuckle at the range of responses here! I'm just glad it's not only me that finds the different pronunciations of names a little weird (and, yes, annoying) from time to time. I'm not getting 'bent out of shape' over this, I'm actually chortling as I type ...

... could be the fact that my little girl 'Saffron' - not 'Sarrf-Ron' - was born last night making me a very proud daddy.

Thanks to all for the fits of giggles. Good to know I'm not alone.

Cheers
Lousid

Steve_P

A gentle reminder...you are the one who came here so don't expect them to change, get used to it.

Piff Poff

I named my daughter Lottie - the short version of Charlotte, she didn't get named Charlotte as I didn't want her called Charlie.

How was I supposed to know way back when, that I was going to move to Canada and how was I supposed to know way back then that she would no longer be called Lottie but Loddy (Think I would have prefferred Charlie)

Really worrying thing, she has had Birthday cards spelt Loddy.

Lychee

Just be grateful that you were never named Eoin.

In my own recollection, I have never heard "Craig" pronounced as if it was "Greg with a C" unless specifically requested. Craig has always rhymed with "egg". Nor have I heard Canadians automatically pronounce "Ian" as "Eye-in", unless, again, it was a specific request. However, that's just me.

As for Sean, Shawn, etc - they're all homonyms in Canada. The name "Sian" does not exist in Canada, either.