Our Chinese friends just had a baby girl, and would like to name her Meihan,
with the first syllable pronounced the same as May.  Would the spelling Meihan
be understandable to Americans, i. e., would they pronounced it properly
rather than me or my?

80 responses total.

my first instinct on reading it was to pronounce it mee-hahn.

  Meihan would be the closest american spelling by the transliteration
  rules I'm familiar with..  Maihan would be "my", Mi-han would be "me"
  As far as protecting her from mispronunciations, I don't think there's
  any way to do that except to name her Sam or something similarly foolproof.
  Anything than more than one vowel in it can (and will, eventually) be
  mispronounced, misspelled, whatever..

  I'm always baffled by the number of people who have trouble with my name.
  I suppose I can (just barely) envision the reasoning of native English-
  speakers who come up with bizarre attempts at "McNally" but the ones who
  mangle Michael seem to be a lost cause..

  Bottom line:  they should choose a name that will please them and their
  daughter.  If they want her to be called "May" they can spell her
  everyday name that way to avoid confusion..

my first reaction would be to say the "Mei" as the "me" in "met."

Yep, I read it as me-han.  How about Maehan?

Thanks, I will pass on the suggestion to use May as the nickname.  
And that there is no good solution to how to spell the name, and they can
probably use the standard transliteration Meihan and tell people how it is
supposed to be pronounced.

 Michael,
if you think you have problems, we have a young friend named Mikhail.  This
is apparently an attempt to name him after his grandfather Mihail, with a
 spelling that looks more like Russian (than the original Macedonian), but
for some reason his father is pronouncing the k and h separately, as
Mick-hile, and he has no nickname.  I don't know what his classmates
are pronouncing it as.  I call him Mihail (Mi-hile, stress on the hile).
How does an English speaker mispronounce McNally?

Does anyone else have a name that is mispronounced in an interesting way?
.

Thanks Colleen, we were both responding at the same time.  There does not seem
to be a good solution to this problem.  Maybe they should choose another name
for someone who will be living in both countries.  I will tell them it is
likely to be mispronounced.  How about Mayhan?  That does snot look Chinese.
Her brother was almost named Miaohan, but I pointed out that he might get
teased for a name that sounded like a cat.

Well I for one thought it as "May-han", although I can see people
mispronouncing it. I know for fact, it is a major drag having a name people
can't spell or pronounce. My first name, Trisha, is constantly mispelled or
mistaken for Teresa or Tracy.  My last name, Patton, is always mispronounced as
"Payton". And it's always misspelled. You'd think it would be easy wouldn't
you? 

I seriously doubt there are any names that will never be mispronounced,
misspelled, or made fun of.  I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about
it.

My last name is always mispelled.  People keep forgetting the silent q's and
v's

I wouldn't worry about it. Most names are would be pronounced differently
in different languages. Spell the name the way you want, and pronounce it
the way you wish. As you know, "ghoti" is prnounced "fish". Featherstonehaugh
is pronounced "fanshaw" (in England). I give my name Curl, and people
write down Kurl, Kerl, and worse. My first name is Rane....and I have
variously gone by "ran-ee", "rene'" and "rain", at different stages in my
life. There are no RULES for people's names.

This response has been erased.

I read it as 'May-han.'  Why not suggest May-Han?

Well, at least none of you are named Twila. :-) That can get pretty fun,
though at least there's only one major mispronunciation likely (Tweela,
long eee rather than Twiila long iii) and my birth last name, Oxley,
 was always good for a few mispronunciations. I am so glad I'm a PRice 
now. 

Is that pronounced "pree-chay"?

no, that would be pree-kay...

"Mei" is too popular of a Chinese name for girls -- it means "beautiful." 
It's all over the place. I think the Chinese purposely leave it as "Mei" 
rather than change it to "May" is so that the name is distinctly Chinese.

That is the cool thing with Chinese names, however -- because of the Chinese
language, every Chinese name has a literal meaning. Very rarely true with
English names.

 "Mei" also reminds me of words like "meijer's"...  
 I like the "Maehan" suggestion...

re: resp:16

Thats only partly true, Jemmie.  English names do have meaning, but mostly
the names we use were not originally English, and so the meaning aren't
evident as they are in Chinese.

And most of the names have been in use so long that the name and the word have
often diverged dramatically.  (I love names and have spent long hours learning
the meanings and origens of names, both given and familial.  It's a hobby.)
;)

How does one pronounced Rane (if not like rain)?

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I will pass them all along.  Now I know why
so many Chinese names start with Mei.   For some reason, I had not thought
of the pronounciation of Meijer (must be because I live closer to Kroger's),
even though my roommate's last name, Deigert, is pronounced with that vowel.
That could definitely be a problem.  Anyway, the parents will have to find
something that satisfies them.  I will let you all know what they choose.

My last name in Japanese comes out Keesan-san.

re 16:  Actually, many western names have literal meaning.

  Mary = 'bitter'  (probably comes from myrrh (sp?))
  Philip = 'lover of horses'
  Ethel = 'regal' or 'noble'
  Cynthia = 'of the moon'
  Celeste = 'of the stars' or 'of the heavens'
  Arnold = 'manly'
  William = 'will, helm' (helmet)
  

That's just for starters.

Re #19: my parents named me "ranee", spelled Rane. I was a ranee until I
went to high school, when I converted to rene' (ra'nay). It wasn't until
I was 26 that I adopted "rain". (I knew a girl once that called me Bernie.)
Come to think of it, it really is about time I tried something new.....

While we are waiting for the news from Meihan (?) 's parents, I am curious
about naming customs in other countries.  Meihan's mother, like all (most?)
other Chinese women, did not change her family name upon marriage.  The family
name comes before the given name.  Her family name is spelling Xiang, her
husband's is Zhao, the son's Zhao.  I will ask them which name the daughter
gets.  In Swedish daughters and sons get family names like Gunnarsson and
Gunnarsdatter (son and daughter), in the Slavic languages family names have
different endings for male and female (Novak but Novakova).  In Russian the
middle name is a patronymic, formed from the father's name plus an ending.
In Macedonian a woman's middle name before marriage is her father's given
name, but after marriage it is her husband's given name, in other words a
woman keeps her given name and adds her husband's whole name (minus his middle
name).  What at the customs in South America, Africa, elsewhere in Asia?  Come
to think of it, what are the new customs here?  If children with hyphenated
names (one from each parent) get married to someone else with a hyphenated
name, what name do they use?  Where both parents keep their own family names,
are the children always given the father's family name?  Judging from the
situation in my college reunion publication, things are still chaotic.  Any
ideas?

naming conventions in the US are currently in a chaotic state of change,
depending more upon the whim of the individual or couuple than any established
standard.  i know of one couple who both had the same last name when they met,
and when they married, they both chose a completely new surname to share.

I like it to be entirely up to the whim of the individuals, and would not
like the imposition of a new national naming convention. This is one situation
where whim is better than order. After all, we do all get a social security
number....  8^}. The example other gives of a couple choosing a new surname
is marvelous. Why not? There are other ways of keeping records of genetic
relationships, which only the medical profession really need be concerned
about.

For your information:  price (with a little v over the c) means stories,
tales, fables, and rane means wounds in Serbo-Croato-Bosnian.  The latter is
pronounced rah-nay, stress on the first syllable, in case you are looking fora
new pronunciation for the coming millenium.  
        When my brother, who never had a middle name just the initial M., got
married to someone whose last name started with M, he adopted it as his middle
name (no hyphens).
        Price (fables) is pronounched pree-chay.
        The word krlja, pronounced curl-yah, means tick (the insect), or
castor-oil plant.

Not only do a lot of people mispronounce my name, I think it is correct to
mispronounce my name on the first try.  If you don't know my gender, "Jan"
as in "Janet" is certainly the best guess.  If you do know my gender, "Yun"
is probably the formally correct pronounciation for most people.  But unless
you are speaking German, I prefer the Americanized pronounciation of "Yon".
However, I have no cause to expect people to know that, so I'm not bothered
in the least when people don't mispronuce my name the same way I do.

This brings up two of my co-workers at the _Ann Arbor News_ named Kelly, and
one of them was male and the other female.

My first guess for Jan's name was 'jan-as-in-janet', but I wouldn't have
guessed 'yun'.
(Do you pronounce the last name 'wolter' or 'volter'?)

I thought it as "yon". 

I decided that if I ever have a girl, her name will be Aquinnah. I love that.
Supposedly it is a place at Martha's Vineyard. Never been there. It can always
be Quinn for short. I like the name Schuyler too. Oddly enough, Michael J.
Fox's twin girls are named Schuyler and Aquinnah. But that's not why I like the
names. If I have another girl she'll be named Aislinn. It's irish and means
"dream". I first heard it when I learned that the Edge (U2's guitarist) has a
wife named Aislinn.

I've always thought it to be "Yon."  I'm sure dang can tell us all about
having his name mispronounced.  When a teacher pronounces his brother's name
on the first try, it's major news.  

I've actually *avoided* saying Jan's name because I could never tell who was
taking it "right".  

My name is *always* pronounced correctly, and I've never been asked by anyone
over the age of 8 to spell it (Amanda Hood).  However, the person around whom
I am most in school has the following last name: Pobojewski.  It's not a
particular challenge, but it still seems no one is willing to attempt to say
or spell it, and many who finally try come up w/ the most *creative* of
incorrect pronunciations....

My roommate wants to point out that it is helpful to have a last name that
people do not know how to pronounce, because that way you know when someone
calls and mispronounces it that they don't know you and are probably trying
to sell something.  Or if they use the full given name instead of the nickname
they got you off of a list.  (My roommate's phone listing is J. Deigert, and
it is a sure tipoff that they are selling something when they call for Mrs.
Deegert).  If you want to track where your junk mail came from, you can make
up a different given name each time you give your name out.  We made up Sheila
Loth for She, the Lady of the House, which has taken on a life of its own,
changing to the spelling Shelia without our help.  Sheila lives with Herman,
who is no longer getting any mail for some reason.  (If you want to stop
getting any junk mail, call Nancy Stone at the Solid Waste Dept. and ask for
a list that I made up and which they send out to people who complain to the
post office).
Pobojewski is Polish - po-bo-yef-ski.  Stress the e.  Boj has something to
do with battle.  A boyar (the old nobility) was someone whose ancestors had
won power by fighting.  Does anyone have a last name with an interesting
meaning?  Or  Slavic last name that they would like to know the meaning of?
(I am still waiting to hear about Meihan.)

This response has been erased.

 (Incidentally, I feel like adding this about last names:  
        My favorite solution to the problem of names when having kids or
    being married is a creative combination of the respective last names.
    Unfortunately, "Hood" really doesn't combine with things particularly
    well...  But, as another example.. for Jan and Valerie's names for kids
    I'd think of such last names as "Matters.")

 QUESTION:  Does anyone happen to know the meaning or possible origin of
        "Wosczac(k?)" as a Polish name?  (It's my older brother's first last
        name, as from his biological father/my mother's first husband......
        his full name is "Jeffrey Spencer Wosczack Hood" and his wife's is
        "Lorenza <don't know how to spell middle name> Burrato-Hood")

Woska in Polish means wax.  Woszczek is ear wax.  A woszczak was probably a
person who worked with wax, or a candle-maker, as in English Chandler, of
which the phone book lists 29.  sz is pronounced sh, cz is ch (church) and
w is v.  Voshchak, stressed on the first syllable, a as in father.

Polish does not generally have double consonants as in mattis.  Perhaps this
came from something like Matthias?  Polish equivalent might be Matias, and
the last name would be equivalent to Mathews (person whose father is Mathews,
as in John Mathews being John the son of Mathews).  The phone book has all
sorts of variants of this one:  Mate, Mates, Mateja, Matejak, Matelic
(?related), Matewicz

I forget just where I was in this, having received my first chat call.
Back to the phone book.  I find both Mate and Mates and Matej and Matejak and
Matewicz and Matey and Mateja and Mathai (Matthew) and Mathay and Mathe and
Matheison, etc.  My guess is that the Polish name was Matej (misspelled in
English as Matey and Mathe and Mathay) or perhaps some longer variant.  I find
also Mathey, Matheys, Mathia, Mathiak, Mathias, Mathis, Mattes.  Maybe the
Jewish name was spelled with an -s, as in one of the above, or the official
at the border just picked the closest equivalent English-sounding name. 
Anyway, at some point in the distant past one of your ancestors may have been
named Mathew or Matej or the like.  My best friend in high school had a last
name Bloom, shortened at the border from Bachmutsky, because they were
standing in line behind a Bloom.   See page 276 and the beinning of 277 for
more names +(Universal phone book 1997-98), including Mattic, Matthies,
Mattice, Mattis, Mattison, Matts, Mattschek, Matwiejczyk, Matwiczhyk, Matzke.

I only pronounce my name correctly if I am speaking German.  In that case it
is "Yun Ditma Voilta".  In English I use "Yon Walter".  I don't know how to
pronounce my middle name in English (it is spelled "Dithmar").  I never use
it, so it never got Americanized.  No standards exist for other languages
either, though I suppose I could try "Jean Voltaire" if I spoke French.

Come to think of it, Matthew does not sound like an old Jewish name.  I would
guess the original was Mattes or Mattis (which are probably both the same
thing spelled differently, since Yiddish was written in the Hebrew alphabet
and I don't think spelled out the vowels).  This would be 'son of Matte'. 
Any experts on Yiddish?
Colleen McGee says that her name means 
'young girl son of Gee' and that daughter of would be ni Gee, but this is not
used much except on some of the islands.  (McGee is Scots-Irish, which is the
Scots who emigrated to Ireland during the clearances, when people were evicted
to make room for sheep during the Industrial Revolution).

Jan, which dialect of German do you speak?  I thought only British English
and east-coast US left off the r's.  

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss