When it comes to baby names, someone is always going to pronounce it wrong – this is especially true of Irish names, which are rarely said the way they are written.
However, it’s surprising for the parents to be the ones making a big mistake with their child’s name.
But according to a woman on Reddit, this is the case for her cousin and his wife.
The unnamed 23-year-old from Ireland took to social media to explain the bizarre situation she had found herself in, after pointing out that her relatives had been pronouncing their son’s name incorrectly his entire life.
In a post on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole forum, the woman told how her aunt and uncle had lived in Ireland when she was growing up, but they moved to England when her cousin Liam turned 18 so he could attend university there.
Now all grown up with his own family, Liam has a four-year-old son.
To celebrate his Irish roots, he and his wife gave their child an Irish moniker, but it turns out they’d been saying it how it was spelt for the little boy’s entire life – and getting it very wrong.
The woman didn’t share the child’s actual name in the post but gave a very similar example to highlight her point.
She explained: “Liam grew up in England, married an English girl, and had a son, who’s four. For the sake of this post let’s say they named him ‘Oisin’, which is an Irish name that is meant to be pronounced like ‘oh sheen’, in accordance with the old Gaelic tradition of nothing being pronounced like it’s spelt.
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“I am in England right now at university. I also have a son, who is three. Liam and I are within about an hour of each other and we had always meant to meet up. Liam suggested that yesterday, on Christmas, when he and his wife take Oisin to the park, that my son and I come and meet them.
“I had met Liam before when we were kids and teens (just a few times), but since Oisin was born we had only texted, so I had never heard Liam pronounce Oisin’s name. We went to the park, we met up with them, and I said ‘this must be Oisin’. Liam asked why I said it like that. I asked what he meant. He said it’s pronounced like ‘oi sin’. Like hoisin sauce without the h. I tried to move past it, introduced my son, sent the boys off to play.”
The post continued: “Liam’s wife asked about my son’s name (also very Irish) and I told her. Liam joked that with all I know about Irish names, it was shocking that I’d mispronounced his son’s name so badly. I said something like ‘I’m not the one mispronouncing it’.
The couple then asked what she meant and she explained that the Irish language often tricks people and explained how the pronunciation really worked.
Later that evening she received a call from Liam’s parents asking why she’d told them they’d been saying the name wrong and that ‘oi sin’ was correct.
“I said it’s really not. They said they were in Ireland until they were 18, so there’s no way they could be saying it wrong. During this conversation, I also got a message from Liam saying I’d really upset his wife because she’s now convinced that they’ve been calling their son the wrong name his entire life and that she loved his name before she met me.”
The family branded the woman an “a**hole” and advised her to apologise and tell her cousin and his wife that she was wrong about the name.
However, she doesn’t think she should have to as it’s “not [her] place to correct them on their own son’s name”.
Hundreds of people commented on the post, with many agreeing that the woman wasn’t in the wrong for what she said.
One person replied: “Irish is an entirely separate language with completely different rules to English. I don’t understand why that is so hard for people to grasp.
“If people are going to use our language and culture they could at least have the decency to learn how to say it.”
Another said: “I’m American and the number of people here who use alternative spellings and pronunciation is dizzying. I also agree that she was right to react that way at first meeting as long as she is respectfully going forward.”
A different user added: “It’s not ‘corrected’ if you’ve never heard your name pronounced that way. It’s what he’s been called his entire life, that’s all that matters in a name.
“However, OP is not the a**hole for correcting them when they tried to suggest she was pronouncing it wrong, she was willing to let it go until they insulted her. And now the cousin’s wife is upset because she doesn’t think her child’s name is his name anymore? Get over yourself, your child’s name is independent of your past. You’ve been calling him by his name his entire life.”
Do you think the woman was wrong for pointing out the error? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.