Names: How do you say that?

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.