Ask Lemmy

I agree with the sentiment, however, some names in some languages are practically unpronounceable for 99% of native [insert language] speakers, and hearing your name butchered over and over or seeing people struggle over it gets tiring quickly.

I have experienced this myself in English speaking countries. My name is not impossible to pronounce, but stumps half the people when they try to read it the first time. They will also mishear it and call me something similar. Usually if it's a colleague or someone I'll be talking to more than once I will let them know if they got it right. It's not difficult. But if I'm talking to a customer on the phone or ordering a coffee, I go with something easy.

I remember I had this classmate from Mongolia. She had one of those unpronounceable names. She would get very upset that nobody could say it right. There must have been some very specific sounds that only mongolian natives can pick up and reproduce in her name, because I've seen absolutely nobody, ever, from any background or nationality, be able to say it right. If you ask me, many did, and I could honestly not tell the difference between her pronunciation and that of most people. But she was outraged. It took her several months to get over it and accept nobody ever would get it right. She didn't pick a new name, but resigned herself to the butchered version of her name.

So yeah. More power to Cliff if that's a name they like.