Mom Complains Nobody Can Pronounce Her Baby’s Very Common Name
Naming your baby is a headache at the best of times.
How to ensure you call them something that reflects how special they are, while not causing embarrassment when you have to inevitably shout their name across the school playground? It’s a tough one.
But one new mum, who really felt like she had erred on the side of caution, has encountered issues with her daughter’s moniker at just three months old.
The woman revealed her distress on Mumsnet that nobody seems to be able to pronounce her baby girl’s name correctly – despite it actually being quite common.
“So my baby girl is almost three months old, we named her Alyssa,” she wrote on the popular parenting website.
“Probably about 75% of people have mispronounced her name and it’s really starting to get to me now!
“I don’t want her having to go through life having to correct people all the time. How would you pronounce Alyssa?”
Her question prompted a large response from other parents who sympathised with her difficulty.
One user suggested: “A (as in apple) – liss (as in miss) – a (again as in apple).
Another agreed, commenting: “I’d pronounce it a-LISS-a, with the emphasis on the middle syllable. I know an Alyssa, and that’s how she says it.”
Throwing a curveball, a third shared: “I’d pronounce the Y.”
A fourth put forward: “Where I’m from it would be pronounced Al-eee-sha.”
But another disagreed with the latter suggestion, writing: “How could it be Aleesha? Where’s the ‘sha’ sound?”
Many couldn’t understand how it could be said incorrectly, with one adding: “Unless you pronounce it Alice-Ah, I can’t think how it could possibly be mispronounced.”
Alyssa’s mum responded to the comments by clarifying, “I pronounce it A-liss-a, which I thought was fairly obvious. But loads of people are calling her a-lee-sa…driving me mad!”
At three months old, we’re thinking she’s going to have get very used to a variety of pronunciations as she grows up…