‘People are always mispronouncing my baby’s classic name – they assume she’s a boy’

A mum has shared the names she picked for her two daughters along with her surprise that many people often mispronounce the monikers, despite the fact she thinks they’re ‘classic’

Parents have gotten very creative with baby names over the years, coming up with original monikers that you won’t find on any of the top 100 lists. You’d expect some of these unique names to be a little tricky to pronounce and often they’ll be butchered on the first go.

But you might not expect more classic options like Lois to be so difficult for people to say.

However, one mum has claimed that the “classic” names she picked out for her two daughters are always being mispronounced by strangers and she can’t get over the different ways people say them.

Writing on Mumsnet, the unnamed parent explained that she’d named her children Beatrix and Lois.

She shares how she thought they were “two classic names with a single settled pronunciation each, with minimal room for misinterpretation”.

However, she’s come to realise that she was wrong.

The mum first explains how she and her partner pronounce their children’s names as ‘bee-uh-trix’ and ‘lo-iss’, but others often say ‘beet-rix’ and ‘Loyce’.

She continued: “I usually let the first go as I just think ‘close enough’, but I can’t resist correcting ‘Loyce’.”

But the most unexpected mispronunciation occurs when her daughter Lois is mistaken for a boy and called “Lewis”.

“Beatrix is sometimes also called ‘Beatrice’, which is an understandable mix-up that we did expect but is annoying when even family do it, and Lois is often misheard as ‘Lewis’ so that people assume she’s a boy,” the mum adds.

Her post prompted other parents to share the ways their children’s names had been mispronounced.

One replied: “I have an Emilia. Technically she should be em-ee-lee-ya but people often and usually say Amelia. But they’re so closely sounding I really don’t care.”

Another said: “My daughter has mentioned that she occasionally gets ‘Jean’ from Leanne. Lee-anne…who would have guessed that one?”

A third added: “I have a Louis – as in French ‘Lou ee’. A classic name but in UK he gets called Lou-IS. Drives me mad. Luckily we now live in a French-speaking country so everyone gets it! However, that brings new challenges with daughter’s name!”

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