Names: How do you say that?

24 Sep 20104 comments

Is your family name unusual?

Do people have trouble saying or spelling it?

If so, you might enjoy this post that appeared earlier this month in the MyHeritage Genealogy Blog.

They look at your name, stammer, and ask "how do you say that?" What do you do?

Do you patiently spell it several times? Will you, as I often do, spell it out as in "D as in David, A as in Apple, R as in Robert".........

Do you break the name down into syllables for the other person? Do you give up and say, "Call me by my first name!"

People look at DARDASHTI and their eyes glaze over. "Is that two Ds and two As?" asks the person on the phone or in a store. I usually break it into three syllables: Dar-dash-ti. For TALALAY, strangers usually put the accent on the wrong syllable, and say Tah-LAY-lee, instead of TAH-lah-lie. To confuse matters, one family branch uses TALALAY in English, but pronounces it Tah-la-lay.

Click here to read the complete post by genealogist Schelly Talalay Dardashti at the MyHeritage Genealogy Blog.

Posted by Schelly on September 24th, 2010 - 00:01

Tagged as: newspapers, surnames

Share |

Comments (4) Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Heather W. Rojo
September 24th, 2010 - 00:29
No one here in the US can pronounce my married name ROJO although it looks fairly simple. However, when I go to Spain no one can pronounce "Heather" although it is fairly common here.
Schelly
September 25th, 2010 - 00:21
Hi, Heather,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think many of us understand why our ancestors changed their names.

I am always surprised when someone looks at DARDASHTI and says it correctly. I usually feel like hugging them and giving them a big gold star!!!

with best wishes
Schelly
sarah seigrist
September 29th, 2010 - 18:55
LoL , the name seigrist isn't a picnic either. people end up saying sargest or seacrist. lol or like in school."miss sarah sargets. lol
Louisa Gormley
October 3rd, 2010 - 10:47
Gormley, pronounced exactly as it reads, GORM-ley. We get Gourmayley, Gromlet, Bromley, Gormly. No-one ever gets my first name right wither, Louise, Theresa, Frances (?), Liz (?)