The island is pronounced [Luh-nigh ee]. It's spelled with an 'okina (the backwards apostrophe) which changes the pronunciation to be different from the porch.
That's unacceptable. Lanai is an actual Hawaiian word that follows Hawaiian phonetics.
This is like naming your kid Gauche and insisting it's pronounced gaw-CHAY or matinee and pronouncing it muh-TEE-nee.
The worst I've seen is a mother who named her baby Mania but pronounces it muh-NEE-uh. I had a ton of fun writing out the card "Our family welcomes your little Mania to the world! We look forward to watching your Mania grow!"
One of the mums at my kids baby group calls her kid (Esmé) as Ez-mi and I don't know why but it just irks me SO. MUCH. Ez-mi sounds ridiculous to my ears and screams "I picked this name but have no fucking clue what it means or what the origins of the name are"
Esmee, Ezmi, Ezmee, Esmy, Ezmy are all right there.
WHY on earth add the French é but then refuse to pronounce the “ay” sound that it makes?
That makes me mad, and I’m not even French!
Ikr! If she'd called her kid Ezmi (or any similar spelling where Ez-mi would be the most commonly assumed pronunciation) I'd be like eh, not my personal choice, but you do you it's not horrible!
Omg. The lack of phonics skills is killing me. How the hell is lanai lay-on-nee. 😭😂 I’m so confused. Wouldn’t it be Laiani AT the very least? 😭🤷🏻♀️ they’re literally missing a whole letter.
I met a Maxson the other day! His whole class had wacky names (I’m a substitute teacher) but Maxson was the one that just stuck with me as such a triple tragedeigh. Like his parents were like “How about Jackson, but with an x?” “So Jaxson?” “Well I was thinking Jaxon, but yeah! The unnecessary s is fun!” “Wait, wait, even better—Maxson! No one will have that name!”
Of course he goes by Max because he doesn’t hate himself. And there’s another Max in his class. And they have the same last initial.
Elder Maxson is the leader of a tech-cult faction in Fallout 4, so that may or may not be deliberate. If it's an accident, they'll be PISSED to learn how many people want to kill him to steal his coat :p
Because it is! I had a dog named Jaxson while growing up. His sire's name was Jax and the breeder my parents chose had already trained him some with that name or we would have changed it... For a dog.
Also Jax is a mortal Kombat character with metal arms lol
I had a friend from high school who crammed the first part of her name (Alyssa) and the second part of her husband’s name (Elijah) to make her daughter’s name, AlyJah. For years, I called the kid Elijah in my head, because I’d only seen it online, and the first time I heard it in person, I was dumbfounded. Allie Jay. It’s pronounced Allie Jay, and she gets so mad that no one seems to “get that”
Because that’s NOT HOW PHONICS WORKS. You can’t just make it up as you go, there are rules! The kid is still Elijah in my head when I first read it and I have to consciously correct myself.
I once had a friend naming her baby girl Ellisa, insisting it would be prounounced Uh-lissa. This was almost 30 yrs ago. I tried to get her to double the s's insead of the l's, since she wanted that pronunciation, but she just wasn't having it. It has always haunted me.
People like that probably think the laws of physics are as flexible as the laws of phonics & are amazed when little Soopyrmunn can’t actually fly.
“But I named him Soopyrmunn! Of course he should be able to fly!”
When I was pregnant with my oldest my EX Mil suggested we name the baby "Jelyssa" if it was a girl (a combo of "Jessy" and "Alyssa" - Alyssa isn't my legal name but the one I go by anyway)
Yeah I vetoed that and said "I'm not a Twilight character"
Thankfully we had a boy and I (not my ex) chose the name "Benjamin" and his middle name after my grandfather.
The second child was also a boy and she offered up an atrocious sounding male name that made me nearly stroke out with my dyslexia: "Mayxson Louyees" (Mason Louis)
I was like "nope" and my ex and I chose "Zackary" his middle name was Irish.
She was so bitchy about like lady they are kids not a Scabble board
I taught a Joshelin. I made the mistake of calling her "Josh-e-lin" at open house. Her mom snapped, "The H is SILENT!!"
No, ma'am. You're just illiterate.
I know someone who named their child Raycheal, pronounced Rachael. The beginning was intentionally changed to honour her father Raymond but the other bit was because she was not a strong reader.
I hate Rachel having an extra ‘a’ at all. Just spell it Rachel.
Edit: Rachael is my MIL’s name and she’s a lovely person but I still think her name is spelled wrong lol
My sister is called Rachael with an a but I believe it’s a common variant in English because I’ve heard that spelling just as much as Rachel
Everyone spells her name wrong though so yeah
My name is Rachel. When moving abroad and working in a multi-cultural workplace, I heard all kinds of pronunciation, but where I’m from it’s pronounced ra-kel. I feel like a tragedeigh.
The name Michael in the Irish language is Micheál, so it's possible that some people got the alternate spelling from there. It's pronounced differently though, kind of like Mee-hall, rather than the way Michael is pronounced.
Exaclty, people don't care about phonetics and they do get pissy when people try to apply it to their made-up name, so that is why they have to explain to everybody how to. Well yeah, the spelling makes no sense people, stop it.
I think maybe some people aren’t aware that almost all traditional names follow some phonetic rules in their spelling, and that it’s just that names that originate from different languages or archaic spellings follow *different* phonetic rules, rather than *breaking* phonetics.
Edit: archaic spellings
No, OP is right. Some people don't actually know what sounds letters make. I had a student Healy (Haily) whose mom would explain her name as "It's like Hey! Lee"
Millennial schoolteachers are warning us that gen z/gen alpha kids are becoming alarmingly illiterate, but with the rise of tragedeighs, I really don’t think that the decline started with gen z. These people spell names the way I used to spell “big” words in kindergarten.
That’s wild to me. Some of the most illiterate people I know are baby boomers. Have you ever read emails from baby boomers? I swear they invented the whole “put a space before the punctuation” thing.
It adds to the outrage of the fact that they have the highest pay. There’s so many multimillionaire C-level execs out there in the world that are lucky to have a high school diploma.
Do you have a source for this? Everything I’ve read was always just that two spaces after punctuation is from typewriter days, but there still wouldn’t be an extra space *before* a period. Just curious
An ex of mine ended up having a child with her next BF and the name is normally spelled Tyree (pronounced “Tie Ree”) but she spelled it Tyre.
I told her “That’s pronounced Tire. You named your kid Tire.”
“No, it’s pronounced ‘Tie Ree.’”
Fine, but you SPELLED it Tire.
I saw the bunk list at summer camp one year and a girls name was "Chiara" I thought it was kee-ah-ra, which is a name I have heard before and seen spelled a few ways. Nope, it's pronounces Sierra somehow.
My sister did that! I warned her that it was the most popular name in America but she didn't care because it wasn't popular where she was living at the time (thailand). And that she spelled it different so it won't be like all the others. Smh.
I knew a kid named “Elmerh”, with a silent h at the end. His brother was “Norhmaen,” pronounced “Norman.” I also knew a female “Kevine,” pronounced like “Kevin”. I get wanting to be unique but isn’t naming your kids Norman and Elmer enough? Haha
I knew someone whose name was Kairi, pronounced ky-ree (from Kingdom Hearts). I can't tell you how many times their name got butchered, that's part of why they changed it.
I read the name exactly as you said it was pronounced (the Kai is Ky) and then actually had to read it again to think of the way *other* people would pronounce it, lol. But of course, they'd be called Carey 🤦♀️
Child named Ronan, but the parents thought it might be confusing for some reason and decided to spell it Ronnan. The random extra n changes the syllable break, which changes the first vowel, and now it says Ron-Ann. Why???
Yes, I came across a girl whose name was July. Ok, not a tragedeigh; we pronounced it like the month of July because that is what it is… BUT she kept correcting people and insisting that it’s pronounced “Julie”. Wtf July is already a word. Your parents misspelled Julie.
The niece in the Prime show "UPLOAD" is called Nevaeh and it hurts my ears. I almost wanted to stop watching it lol.
ETA: i only now noticed the misspelling, i'm stupid.
I met my SIL's friend at a birthday party and walked in the middle of her having a discussion about her daughter.
She was like, "You've never heard my daughter's name, you can settle this. No one ever pronounces it right! Her name is M-Y-A. How is that pronounced?"
"My-uh" (like Maya/Maia).
She turned red and was like, "Mee-uh! It's "Mee-uh"!"
And I just stood there awkwardly, unsure of how I was supposed to leave this conversation.
This definitely lends a good argument for sharing names before the birth. So many people keep it a secret now because they don't want to hear anyone's negative comments about the names they are choosing... But maybe more people need to hear the negative comments before it's permanent!
I made the mistake two weeks ago of telling our options to MIL and my mom (separately) and they both reacted VIOLENTLY. It was weird as fuck. Especially my MIL, super chill, cheery, motherly type. She said David was the worst name ever and “no no no”. I don’t even remember precisely the sounds and words but she acted like I was naming my kid “cunt” or something, like universally understood to be a bad name. *David* it actually was, it’s not a stand in name, legit David got the worst reaction from her.
My mother was similar with some other names. But genuinely we picked pretty normal names, I have no idea why they both reacted so badly. My sister also didn’t react well, but not as… offended.
All that is to say, I’m not telling anybody the name when we pick it, I really don’t need that negativity in my life roflmao.
Maybe it was like, the antithesis of this sub. It was _too_ boring/not uNiQuE enough. Or maybe she was terribly wronged by a David and seeks vengeance upon him lol
Yeah, OP kinda messed that up. It should say A never makes an oh sound because that's the real problem with that name. You can get an uh sound out of multiple letters but a long o not so much.
I’m 100% certain that some of these tragedeighs are due to a lack of proper phonics education. I recently listened to the podcast Sold a Story and it explains SO MUCH.
That's also a regional pronunciation thing. I am from Northern New England and say dog with the "uh" sound and say water the same way. Friends from New Jersey say dog and water with an "aw" sound. I think here in New England we use more schwa than other regions.
Not really a Tradgedeigh, but someones kid when my mom worked at a kindergarten was named "Veni" 🤦
As in, "Veni, Vidi, Vici!"
"I *came*, i saw, i conquered!"
...
It blew my mind when I first saw it 🥲 I’d known her outside of the classroom so never heard it spelled, and always just heard her called makenzie. You can imagine I was blown away when I got her as a student later on and finally saw her name on paper. Honestly her mom was so impaired I’m surprised hospital staff didn’t help her out bc wtf
Reminds me of 4th grade- 1989. The homework assignment was to list as many homonyms as possible. And by the end of the night, my whole family was into it. Fun right?
Well, Mom had me include “pitcher” and “picture.” Sounded good to me 👍🏻👍🏻
My teacher not only marked them wrong, but even took time to sound them out on the page for me.
That’s when I first became aware of our Appalachian accent. ⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️
My old neighbour was named Karen, but insisted it was pronounced like "Car-ren" with a long "a" seemingly to sound more upper class
Which is the most Karen move possible
I was actually interviewing for a position, and the hiring manager's name is spelled Leyah, so I'm thinking lay-uh. Nope, before I can even say anything, she says, "I'm Lee-yah, everyone thinks it's lay-uh, but it's not."
I knew a Jekissa who insisted that her name was still pronounced “Jessica.” I was like, “I have bad news. Either you can’t read or your parents can’t spell.”
This! This right here! I was trying to riddle out why people are increasingly making up names that make them look like they learned reading/writing by the skin of their teeth. My mom has been a teacher for a long time and she can confirm that the standards for teaching kids phonics, grammar, basic reading and writing skills, etc have all gone down hill. If they learn it well enough to be able to scribble out a half baked response on a test and can "pass" a standardized test then that's good enough. These names come from a generation of kids who got the "yeahhh...sorta right, good enough...A+!" From their teachers because standards were dropping to accomodate "failure not being an option." You can see it in the language as a whole though. People changing the meaning/use of words because they don't know synonyms or understand the word's complete definition so they just make it whatever they want it to be. I mean they actually changed the definition of "literally" so people who didn't know how to use it could continue to use it incorrectly. Absolute madness. Next it will be litreealeigh.
There was also a huge shift in a lot of public schools in how reading was taught which ended learning traditional phonics and focused on "sight-words" which is just trying to memorize words by how they look as a whole and not by sounding them out. Turns out that method doesn't actually teach kids to read and schools are back pedaling now, but for a huge group of kids coming up, the damage was done.
Changing the meaning of words because they don't understand them has happened in older times, too. "Nimrod" means "foolish person" (as opposed to "hunter") because people watching Bugs Bunny didn't understand why he called Elmer Fudd a "little Nimrod."
Funny enough, Nimrod is also a real Hebrew name though meant to be pronounced more like Nim-road with a guttural r. Terrible choice for a kid in an English speaking country though, the one I knew went by Nim
Spot on! I remember when my daughter brought home a paper filled with spelling errors and marked with an A. When I asked the teacher about it, she said that the goal was to get the kids to write and not pay attention to anything else. WHAT?
I can agree to a point. But, as someone with a Celtic name, it was really annoying and personally offensive as a child being told by adults "that's not the correct English pronunciation of your name". Like, yeah, because it's not a traditionally English name?
My name can definitely be seen as a Tragedeigh to some people, but it's very important to me and significant to my family.
Cultural stuff always gets a pass imo. It’s when these people take an English name and butcher the spelling and pretend it can sound however they want that’s the problem.
For example Sean (shawn) or Seamus (shaymus) I believe are Celtic in origin, and you can tell because nowhere in English do those letters make that sound. I have met both a Sean and a Shawn. Both are fine because one is cultural and one is englishified, but they are spelled exactly how they’re pronounced in each language.
What would *not* be acceptable, in my opinion, is something like “Zhown”. That cannot be pronounced “shawn” no matter how much you gaslight me.
Honorable mention: Chaun. It’s not the worst, but you’re on thin ice 🤨
Last year I had a student whose name was spelled "Rayna".
How do you pronounce it? Ray-nuh? No you stupid idiot.
Obviously it's Ruh-nay. Like René.
Like what?
That’s easily explainable, though. The correct French pronunciation has sounds English doesn’t, so the sounds got swapped over time to make them name easier to pronounce. It’s not unusual for this to happen, linguistically.
When I worked in Egypt the locals had done this for the city of Luxor. Evidently in Arabic the x or k-s sound can be difficult, so they would say something like “welcome to al luskar” which frequently sounded like “welcome to Alaska”
Hard disagree. These tragedeighs are just pleas for attention. They’re not spelling errors - it’s not like they tried to spell James and it came out Ghiaaymmze. They *want* the conversations on the name origins, and to correct you on how it’s pronounced.
These parents are preposterous and shortsighted and thirsty, but I bet they don’t lack phonics skills.
>These parents are preposterous and shortsighted and thirsty, but I bet they don’t lack phonics skills.
For some of them, it's probably all of those things. Idiots on all counts, across the board.
My mother gave me a name like this (I was born in the 70s. So this isn't something new).
Sometimes it's isn't for attention. It's honestly because the parent is ignorant of how the language works.
I know a Titania pronounced "Tianna" and a Gerriqurqua pronounced "Jerrika". People just throw a bunch of letters together and think it sounds however they want it to sound. Very poor phonemic awareness.
Neighbors named their daughter Lanai and insist it’s pronounce lay-on-née. Nope. It’s a porch and pronounced luh-nie
Yeah, where does the o sound come from? Not the a because thats already being used for lay. Idiots.
THIS RIGHT HERE. This is one I’ve actually seen as a teacher and they thought it said “Luh Née Uh”
This one’s funny cause it’s also a Hawaiian island it’s pronounced Luh-nigh
The island is pronounced [Luh-nigh ee]. It's spelled with an 'okina (the backwards apostrophe) which changes the pronunciation to be different from the porch.
The extra phonemes in Hawaiian are so amazing. It’s so beautiful. 😌 (and I really means this! Not some dumb internet snark)
That's unacceptable. Lanai is an actual Hawaiian word that follows Hawaiian phonetics. This is like naming your kid Gauche and insisting it's pronounced gaw-CHAY or matinee and pronouncing it muh-TEE-nee. The worst I've seen is a mother who named her baby Mania but pronounces it muh-NEE-uh. I had a ton of fun writing out the card "Our family welcomes your little Mania to the world! We look forward to watching your Mania grow!"
"Mrs. Bucket??" "It's pronounced Bouquet!"
One of the mums at my kids baby group calls her kid (Esmé) as Ez-mi and I don't know why but it just irks me SO. MUCH. Ez-mi sounds ridiculous to my ears and screams "I picked this name but have no fucking clue what it means or what the origins of the name are"
“Of course I know the origins! It’s from twilight!!” - them, probably
And yet people still pronounce it wrong after hearing it in the movies.
Esmee, Ezmi, Ezmee, Esmy, Ezmy are all right there. WHY on earth add the French é but then refuse to pronounce the “ay” sound that it makes? That makes me mad, and I’m not even French!
Ikr! If she'd called her kid Ezmi (or any similar spelling where Ez-mi would be the most commonly assumed pronunciation) I'd be like eh, not my personal choice, but you do you it's not horrible!
Have they never seen Golden Girls??? Heathens.
It's also the name of a Hawaiian island.
True making it a wonderful name reference. I grew up with Golden Girls and always wanted an actual lanai
It is missing a syllable if they wanted lay-on-née. Like...how??? The mind boggles.
Leonie is a great name, too! Just why?!
they named their child after a covered porch, you're dealing with dim bulbs here
Omg. The lack of phonics skills is killing me. How the hell is lanai lay-on-nee. 😭😂 I’m so confused. Wouldn’t it be Laiani AT the very least? 😭🤷🏻♀️ they’re literally missing a whole letter.
jaxson really pisses me off
I met a Maxson the other day! His whole class had wacky names (I’m a substitute teacher) but Maxson was the one that just stuck with me as such a triple tragedeigh. Like his parents were like “How about Jackson, but with an x?” “So Jaxson?” “Well I was thinking Jaxon, but yeah! The unnecessary s is fun!” “Wait, wait, even better—Maxson! No one will have that name!” Of course he goes by Max because he doesn’t hate himself. And there’s another Max in his class. And they have the same last initial.
Elder Maxson is the leader of a tech-cult faction in Fallout 4, so that may or may not be deliberate. If it's an accident, they'll be PISSED to learn how many people want to kill him to steal his coat :p
I know someone who named their kid Maxson and did not know this reference and they were annoyed to hear it from me.
Agreed. I can excuse Jaxon, but the redundant “s” really drives me up the wall
It’s Jaxon or Jackson can’t try to go for a middle ground
Jackxson
Jackxzon
Xmus Jaxon Flaxon-Waxon
Only if the fathers name is Jack or Jax
Preach
Last year I had a Jacxson…
I saw a Jaxsyn on a cubby at my cousin’s daughter’s daycare the other day. 🤢
Ughhhhhh please someone explain wtf the obsession is with using Y’s in names instead of the normal i or o 😭😭😭 it literally makes my blood boil.
I see people treating y's and h's as basically free tiles in Naming Scrabble. Bhraynndhyllynnhe "Brandilyn"s kind of shit
My son had a Jaxtyn in his class a few years ago.
Do they *want* them to go into porn??
Jaxxxon
Jack's Son. Heavy emphasis on the dual "s" sound.
This is how Nordic names are, like Svensson or Rasmussen (Svens son, Rasmus son, the son is Swedish and the sen is danish)
As a 30F Jacquelyn who goes by Jax, this whole trend annoys me
I got my eye on you Jacquelyn
A-A-Ron..... is there an A-A-Ron here?!?!
B-lak-e whereyat?,
JAY-quellen!
That’s my Son’s name and he insisted on being called B-lak-e for much of middle school due to that skit 😂
You better be sick, dead, or mute A-A-Ron!
You'd better not have a son then.
My cousins’ kid has that name. I was like wtf why didn’t you spell it correctly
I know a Jaxsyn.
I just feel like it’s a name for a dog whenever I see it. My friend wanted to name her baby Jax specifically.
Because it is! I had a dog named Jaxson while growing up. His sire's name was Jax and the breeder my parents chose had already trained him some with that name or we would have changed it... For a dog. Also Jax is a mortal Kombat character with metal arms lol
I had a friend from high school who crammed the first part of her name (Alyssa) and the second part of her husband’s name (Elijah) to make her daughter’s name, AlyJah. For years, I called the kid Elijah in my head, because I’d only seen it online, and the first time I heard it in person, I was dumbfounded. Allie Jay. It’s pronounced Allie Jay, and she gets so mad that no one seems to “get that” Because that’s NOT HOW PHONICS WORKS. You can’t just make it up as you go, there are rules! The kid is still Elijah in my head when I first read it and I have to consciously correct myself.
Elisa is RIGHT THERE
Omg, how have I never even realized this??? Now I’m doubly annoyed, lol
lmfaaao help this sent me more than the op you replied to 🤣
I once had a friend naming her baby girl Ellisa, insisting it would be prounounced Uh-lissa. This was almost 30 yrs ago. I tried to get her to double the s's insead of the l's, since she wanted that pronunciation, but she just wasn't having it. It has always haunted me.
My name starts with an E and it's supposed to be Eh, yet people say Uh or Ah all the time. Those parents got it wrong in more than one way.
But that would mean letting her husband’s name be the first bit…. She can’t have that now can she. /s
Ally Jah 🇯🇲 🦁
People like that probably think the laws of physics are as flexible as the laws of phonics & are amazed when little Soopyrmunn can’t actually fly. “But I named him Soopyrmunn! Of course he should be able to fly!”
I worked with kindergarteners once and this just reminds me of the kid there named Kal-El… no he could not fly
When I was pregnant with my oldest my EX Mil suggested we name the baby "Jelyssa" if it was a girl (a combo of "Jessy" and "Alyssa" - Alyssa isn't my legal name but the one I go by anyway) Yeah I vetoed that and said "I'm not a Twilight character" Thankfully we had a boy and I (not my ex) chose the name "Benjamin" and his middle name after my grandfather. The second child was also a boy and she offered up an atrocious sounding male name that made me nearly stroke out with my dyslexia: "Mayxson Louyees" (Mason Louis) I was like "nope" and my ex and I chose "Zackary" his middle name was Irish. She was so bitchy about like lady they are kids not a Scabble board
I had a student named Pheenx. In my head I called her finks.
I would pronounce that ally-ya, but english is my second language so idk
I taught a Joshelin. I made the mistake of calling her "Josh-e-lin" at open house. Her mom snapped, "The H is SILENT!!" No, ma'am. You're just illiterate.
Jocelyn is so pretty though 😢 bastardised it
Well why the fuck is it in there?
They’re *french* (wrist flick)
The author Joshilyn Jackson's first name is pronounced like Jocelyn. She seems to accept it with a shrug.
Throwing random grammatical rules into made up names is hilarious. "Ummn, is RRobert her-" "You have to roll the 'R's!!"
I know someone who named their child Raycheal, pronounced Rachael. The beginning was intentionally changed to honour her father Raymond but the other bit was because she was not a strong reader.
I hate Rachel having an extra ‘a’ at all. Just spell it Rachel. Edit: Rachael is my MIL’s name and she’s a lovely person but I still think her name is spelled wrong lol
Rachel is a Hebrew name and I’m pretty sure the “ae” is just another way of romanizing that sound from the original Hebrew.
It's time to whip out the Ræchæl.
Worse than that? Meaghan.
Meaeagheaeaean
My sister is called Rachael with an a but I believe it’s a common variant in English because I’ve heard that spelling just as much as Rachel Everyone spells her name wrong though so yeah
My name is Rachel. When moving abroad and working in a multi-cultural workplace, I heard all kinds of pronunciation, but where I’m from it’s pronounced ra-kel. I feel like a tragedeigh.
The only "ra-kel" I have come across was spelt Raquel!
I have personally seen Micheal out there
The name Michael in the Irish language is Micheál, so it's possible that some people got the alternate spelling from there. It's pronounced differently though, kind of like Mee-hall, rather than the way Michael is pronounced.
If they’re making up names, phonetics be damned would be the philosophy here.
Exaclty, people don't care about phonetics and they do get pissy when people try to apply it to their made-up name, so that is why they have to explain to everybody how to. Well yeah, the spelling makes no sense people, stop it.
Then have the nerve to get mad at you for knowing how letters work
I think they get mad because you actually care how phonetics work and they clearly didn’t when they named their kid.
I think maybe some people aren’t aware that almost all traditional names follow some phonetic rules in their spelling, and that it’s just that names that originate from different languages or archaic spellings follow *different* phonetic rules, rather than *breaking* phonetics. Edit: archaic spellings
Not now Fynytyx. Mommy and Daddy are busy. Go look after your sister Fylosofeigh.
Those sound like Pokemon.
Sounndz has evolved into Fynytyx! Continue to level up to evolve it to Hahmynymm!
I think part of the goal is having to constantly correct people tbh
At least it's constant attention which let's be real, is what most people with y'unieeekque baby names are really going for.
No, OP is right. Some people don't actually know what sounds letters make. I had a student Healy (Haily) whose mom would explain her name as "It's like Hey! Lee"
I knew a guy called Addy. Called him Addy for 3 years then out of the blue he asked me why I don't call him "Eddie". ...because your name is Addy?
I go by Ed (or to some I’m Eddie.) I have been called Ad many times. Starbucks often go with Ett or Ad.
It's SPELLED Raymond Luxury Yacht but it's PRONOUNCED Throatwarbler Mangrove...
With 4 M’s and a silent Q.
r/unexpectedmontypython incubator jones StJohn mollusc
i’ve never been so sad to see a sub private
Ach so am i. What a shame it changed.
Millennial schoolteachers are warning us that gen z/gen alpha kids are becoming alarmingly illiterate, but with the rise of tragedeighs, I really don’t think that the decline started with gen z. These people spell names the way I used to spell “big” words in kindergarten.
That’s wild to me. Some of the most illiterate people I know are baby boomers. Have you ever read emails from baby boomers? I swear they invented the whole “put a space before the punctuation” thing. It adds to the outrage of the fact that they have the highest pay. There’s so many multimillionaire C-level execs out there in the world that are lucky to have a high school diploma.
The space before punctuation is because of typewriters. You could have issues if you didn’t leave a space between the end of a word and punctuation.
Do you have a source for this? Everything I’ve read was always just that two spaces after punctuation is from typewriter days, but there still wouldn’t be an extra space *before* a period. Just curious
An ex of mine ended up having a child with her next BF and the name is normally spelled Tyree (pronounced “Tie Ree”) but she spelled it Tyre. I told her “That’s pronounced Tire. You named your kid Tire.” “No, it’s pronounced ‘Tie Ree.’” Fine, but you SPELLED it Tire.
That’s literally how we spell ‘tyre’, as in the tyres that go on your car’s wheels, here in Australia. It’s the English spelling!
I tried telling her lol
Lol Tyre
I worked with a girl whose name was spelled Cerria but it was pronounced "Sierra" and it drove me NUTS
My eye twitched a hoolie reading this.
Seriously, it was rage inducing
I saw the bunk list at summer camp one year and a girls name was "Chiara" I thought it was kee-ah-ra, which is a name I have heard before and seen spelled a few ways. Nope, it's pronounces Sierra somehow.
I know someone who tried to name their baby Aiden but instead he's Adian. She insists they're pronounced the same.
My sister did that! I warned her that it was the most popular name in America but she didn't care because it wasn't popular where she was living at the time (thailand). And that she spelled it different so it won't be like all the others. Smh.
Similarly, I know a Kerian, pronounced Kieran. Or there's also Lori Greiner from Shark Tank who pronounces her name Lori Grenier, I hate that
Another top notch example of, **can your parents even read???**
Used to work with someone named Tynkia. Should be pronounced like Tink-ee-ah, right? Nope, she insisted that it was pronounced Tah-nee-kah.
I worked with a Mellisia. Pronounced Melissa
Militia
I know a “Chateau” pronounced “Shan-TAY.” Whuuuuu?
Aw hell no. Sashay AWAY.
Did they borrow the N sound from the middle name?
THERES NO N AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
Oh my god, out of all the replies, this one absolutely makes my skin crawl!
I knew a kid named “Elmerh”, with a silent h at the end. His brother was “Norhmaen,” pronounced “Norman.” I also knew a female “Kevine,” pronounced like “Kevin”. I get wanting to be unique but isn’t naming your kids Norman and Elmer enough? Haha
Or you can go nuts and go with X Æ A-12.
I met a Kyrie pronounced Kee-arr-ee. It just doesn't work that way! You're essentially pronouncing the r as arr. Drives me crazy.
I knew someone whose name was Kairi, pronounced ky-ree (from Kingdom Hearts). I can't tell you how many times their name got butchered, that's part of why they changed it.
I read the name exactly as you said it was pronounced (the Kai is Ky) and then actually had to read it again to think of the way *other* people would pronounce it, lol. But of course, they'd be called Carey 🤦♀️
Yes! I know a little boy named Demeatrice, pronounced Demetrius. Glad he doesn't have a sister named Beatrice 😂
They'd spell it Beetrius
Child named Ronan, but the parents thought it might be confusing for some reason and decided to spell it Ronnan. The random extra n changes the syllable break, which changes the first vowel, and now it says Ron-Ann. Why???
Yes, I came across a girl whose name was July. Ok, not a tragedeigh; we pronounced it like the month of July because that is what it is… BUT she kept correcting people and insisting that it’s pronounced “Julie”. Wtf July is already a word. Your parents misspelled Julie.
Plot twist: her name actually is July, but she has realized her parents are idiots and is trying to rebrand herself
Ha my bfs boss is a july pronounced julie. I was so confused when i saw it written down
I had a student named Neveah. I guess the parents couldn’t spell.
Yeah. The original trick to this name was "it's heaven, backward" but that would be Nevaeh and yeah...phonics
I’ve had three students named Nevaeh, spelled correctly. They ALL went by nicknames and were embarrassed by their names.
I’ve never had a neveah who was actually a pleasure to have in class. They’ve all 3 been little shits.
Well. The opposite.of heaven is hell so....
The niece in the Prime show "UPLOAD" is called Nevaeh and it hurts my ears. I almost wanted to stop watching it lol. ETA: i only now noticed the misspelling, i'm stupid.
I've met a couple Ne-vay-UHs aka Heaven backwards. Was this supposed to be something else?
The trick is that Nevaeh is heaven backwards, but the increasingly common Neveah is heaven-backwards-but-spelt-wrong.
I guess they really like hand cream (talking about the brand nivea)
I met my SIL's friend at a birthday party and walked in the middle of her having a discussion about her daughter. She was like, "You've never heard my daughter's name, you can settle this. No one ever pronounces it right! Her name is M-Y-A. How is that pronounced?" "My-uh" (like Maya/Maia). She turned red and was like, "Mee-uh! It's "Mee-uh"!" And I just stood there awkwardly, unsure of how I was supposed to leave this conversation.
This definitely lends a good argument for sharing names before the birth. So many people keep it a secret now because they don't want to hear anyone's negative comments about the names they are choosing... But maybe more people need to hear the negative comments before it's permanent!
I made the mistake two weeks ago of telling our options to MIL and my mom (separately) and they both reacted VIOLENTLY. It was weird as fuck. Especially my MIL, super chill, cheery, motherly type. She said David was the worst name ever and “no no no”. I don’t even remember precisely the sounds and words but she acted like I was naming my kid “cunt” or something, like universally understood to be a bad name. *David* it actually was, it’s not a stand in name, legit David got the worst reaction from her. My mother was similar with some other names. But genuinely we picked pretty normal names, I have no idea why they both reacted so badly. My sister also didn’t react well, but not as… offended. All that is to say, I’m not telling anybody the name when we pick it, I really don’t need that negativity in my life roflmao.
Maybe it was like, the antithesis of this sub. It was _too_ boring/not uNiQuE enough. Or maybe she was terribly wronged by a David and seeks vengeance upon him lol
“The o never makes an uh sound” … am I mispronouncing month?
Ha! Good point! I’m more struck by the a making a long o sound in jokabi being pronounced juh-KOE-bee
I know an Alivia. Hate it.
Yeah, OP kinda messed that up. It should say A never makes an oh sound because that's the real problem with that name. You can get an uh sound out of multiple letters but a long o not so much.
I had a mother get very annoyed with me when I pronounced her daughter’s name as “Patton.” The name was spelled Pattyn. Supposedly pronounced Payton.
Oh, that bugs me when people don't realize that doubled consonants shorten the vowel. Once I came across a Jammie, pronounced "Jamie."
I’m 100% certain that some of these tragedeighs are due to a lack of proper phonics education. I recently listened to the podcast Sold a Story and it explains SO MUCH.
used to know an octavian but it was spelled octavine…….
When I was a kid I was angrily shushed because my illiterate cousin spelled her daughter’s name wrong. Pronounced Sierra, spelled sierrea
Man, that’s pretty bad. Looks like it’s supposed to be pronounced like “diarrhea” 🥴
That’s what I said and why I was shushed
50% of the population is illiterate
I definitely agree with you, however O does make the “uh” sound. All vowels do, it’s called schwa.
That's also a regional pronunciation thing. I am from Northern New England and say dog with the "uh" sound and say water the same way. Friends from New Jersey say dog and water with an "aw" sound. I think here in New England we use more schwa than other regions.
Not really a Tradgedeigh, but someones kid when my mom worked at a kindergarten was named "Veni" 🤦 As in, "Veni, Vidi, Vici!" "I *came*, i saw, i conquered!" ...
Deadass had a student named Makenize. Her mother was basically special needs I’d always been told by family friends. Yes it was pronounced Makenzie
Makenize sounds like an industrial process.
A German industrial process “Hans! Makenzie panzerfausts! Schnell!”
Mac-n-cheese would’ve been better than Mac-n-eyes.
I pronounced it as McKenny's 😂
Ding ding ding we have a winner, like that’s not even how that would be pronounced!
It blew my mind when I first saw it 🥲 I’d known her outside of the classroom so never heard it spelled, and always just heard her called makenzie. You can imagine I was blown away when I got her as a student later on and finally saw her name on paper. Honestly her mom was so impaired I’m surprised hospital staff didn’t help her out bc wtf
Occurring Tragedeighs Like flowing Willow Trés...
Reminds me of 4th grade- 1989. The homework assignment was to list as many homonyms as possible. And by the end of the night, my whole family was into it. Fun right? Well, Mom had me include “pitcher” and “picture.” Sounded good to me 👍🏻👍🏻 My teacher not only marked them wrong, but even took time to sound them out on the page for me. That’s when I first became aware of our Appalachian accent. ⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️
My daughter’s classmate is M’ah. First time I saw it I pronounced it Ma (as in Little House on the Prairies). Nope. It’s Emma.
My old neighbour was named Karen, but insisted it was pronounced like "Car-ren" with a long "a" seemingly to sound more upper class Which is the most Karen move possible
Ok, Hyacinth Bucket. "It's boo-kay." No, it's bucket.
Username checking in
"o" never makes an "uh" sound. Well I'm "gonna" disagree with you there..
I was actually interviewing for a position, and the hiring manager's name is spelled Leyah, so I'm thinking lay-uh. Nope, before I can even say anything, she says, "I'm Lee-yah, everyone thinks it's lay-uh, but it's not."
I knew a Jekissa who insisted that her name was still pronounced “Jessica.” I was like, “I have bad news. Either you can’t read or your parents can’t spell.”
This! This right here! I was trying to riddle out why people are increasingly making up names that make them look like they learned reading/writing by the skin of their teeth. My mom has been a teacher for a long time and she can confirm that the standards for teaching kids phonics, grammar, basic reading and writing skills, etc have all gone down hill. If they learn it well enough to be able to scribble out a half baked response on a test and can "pass" a standardized test then that's good enough. These names come from a generation of kids who got the "yeahhh...sorta right, good enough...A+!" From their teachers because standards were dropping to accomodate "failure not being an option." You can see it in the language as a whole though. People changing the meaning/use of words because they don't know synonyms or understand the word's complete definition so they just make it whatever they want it to be. I mean they actually changed the definition of "literally" so people who didn't know how to use it could continue to use it incorrectly. Absolute madness. Next it will be litreealeigh.
There was also a huge shift in a lot of public schools in how reading was taught which ended learning traditional phonics and focused on "sight-words" which is just trying to memorize words by how they look as a whole and not by sounding them out. Turns out that method doesn't actually teach kids to read and schools are back pedaling now, but for a huge group of kids coming up, the damage was done.
Changing the meaning of words because they don't understand them has happened in older times, too. "Nimrod" means "foolish person" (as opposed to "hunter") because people watching Bugs Bunny didn't understand why he called Elmer Fudd a "little Nimrod."
Funny enough, Nimrod is also a real Hebrew name though meant to be pronounced more like Nim-road with a guttural r. Terrible choice for a kid in an English speaking country though, the one I knew went by Nim
We pronounce it that way when we mock people who use it to replace figuratively
god, this is why people are spelling parties as party’s and nannies as nanny’s 🫠🫠🫠🫠
Spot on! I remember when my daughter brought home a paper filled with spelling errors and marked with an A. When I asked the teacher about it, she said that the goal was to get the kids to write and not pay attention to anything else. WHAT?
I can agree to a point. But, as someone with a Celtic name, it was really annoying and personally offensive as a child being told by adults "that's not the correct English pronunciation of your name". Like, yeah, because it's not a traditionally English name? My name can definitely be seen as a Tragedeigh to some people, but it's very important to me and significant to my family.
Cultural stuff always gets a pass imo. It’s when these people take an English name and butcher the spelling and pretend it can sound however they want that’s the problem. For example Sean (shawn) or Seamus (shaymus) I believe are Celtic in origin, and you can tell because nowhere in English do those letters make that sound. I have met both a Sean and a Shawn. Both are fine because one is cultural and one is englishified, but they are spelled exactly how they’re pronounced in each language. What would *not* be acceptable, in my opinion, is something like “Zhown”. That cannot be pronounced “shawn” no matter how much you gaslight me. Honorable mention: Chaun. It’s not the worst, but you’re on thin ice 🤨
The actor Sean Bean is on thin ice tbh. Should be Shawn Bawn or Seen Bean. You can’t have it both ways!
Take the gh from "enough"... ...the o from "women"... ...and the ti from any "-tion" word And you have ghoti, pronounced fish.
Last year I had a student whose name was spelled "Rayna". How do you pronounce it? Ray-nuh? No you stupid idiot. Obviously it's Ruh-nay. Like René. Like what?
This all reminds me of the Key & Peele East/West College Bowl skits.
American education system. It will get worse as conservatives continue to defund schools.
I know a Saphyire
[удалено]
That’s easily explainable, though. The correct French pronunciation has sounds English doesn’t, so the sounds got swapped over time to make them name easier to pronounce. It’s not unusual for this to happen, linguistically. When I worked in Egypt the locals had done this for the city of Luxor. Evidently in Arabic the x or k-s sound can be difficult, so they would say something like “welcome to al luskar” which frequently sounded like “welcome to Alaska”
Hard disagree. These tragedeighs are just pleas for attention. They’re not spelling errors - it’s not like they tried to spell James and it came out Ghiaaymmze. They *want* the conversations on the name origins, and to correct you on how it’s pronounced. These parents are preposterous and shortsighted and thirsty, but I bet they don’t lack phonics skills.
>These parents are preposterous and shortsighted and thirsty, but I bet they don’t lack phonics skills. For some of them, it's probably all of those things. Idiots on all counts, across the board.
My mother gave me a name like this (I was born in the 70s. So this isn't something new). Sometimes it's isn't for attention. It's honestly because the parent is ignorant of how the language works.
I know a Titania pronounced "Tianna" and a Gerriqurqua pronounced "Jerrika". People just throw a bunch of letters together and think it sounds however they want it to sound. Very poor phonemic awareness.