Is it better to avoid names with a difficult pronunciation in Middle Grade fiction?

Question

Many languages are written using Latin letters, but often these seemingly familiar letters aren't pronounced in the way that we are used to.

For example, an English speaker might read the name Siobhán as siob-hen, pronounce Jorge like George, and Erdogan with a "g" as in "green", while the correct pronunciations are [ʃəv'aːn] she-vaan), [xoɾxe] chorche (with the "x" pronounced like the "ch" in Scottish loch), and [ɛrdoˈan], respectively.

Now probably you all now how to pronounce these names, because you know the Irish singer, the Spanish name is common in the US, and you have heard the Turkish president's name on the news. But there are other Latin-written languages and other names that you aren't familiar with, and you likely would pronounce them wrong.

And children, who often have been exposed less to people and names from foreign cultures than adults, might have even more difficulties reading foreign names, especially if the orthography would be unpronouncable in their mother tongue (such as the Polish name Kowalczyk for an English speaker).

So when you write a Middle Grade book, for children between, say, 8 and 12, and your book features a central character (whose name is mentioned often in the book) from a culture that uses the Latin alphabet, but (some of) the letters are pronounced differently from the way they are spoken in the language that you write in, what is the common approach?

1. Use only names that exist both in the foreign and the readers' language.

   For example, a person from Germany can be called Peter in an English book.

   What I dislike about this solution is that such a name does not signify the person's foreign origin, while a foreign(-looking) name clearly conveys that fact. If you use an "international" name like Peter, you'll have to remind your readers through other means that the character is a foreigner, such as repeating the fact every now and then.

2. Use only names that are pronounced (almost) the same in the foreign and the readers' language but are uncommon in the latter.

   For example the Polish name Piotr is pronounced almost the same in Polish as it would be in English.

   This would avoild the pronunciation problem and convey the foreignness of the character.

3. Use "unpronouncable" names. Maybe provide a guide to the pronunciation of foreign names.

   This is the only way to evoke a sense of exoticism through the names, but might be difficult for many children to deal with and diminish their reading pleasure.

What is the common practice in MG books? Are there MG books with unpronouncable names? (Please give examples!) Or are they completely avoided?

I'm not looking for your personal opinion on the matter, but want to know how this is done in non-self-published fiction. Is there a sort of "rule" for this?

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I'm mostly interested in how this affects central characters, that is, characters whose names appear frequently in the book.

Answer 1

Short answer: definitely, absolutely, wholeheartedly 3.

Long answer: Sir Terry Pratchett wrote somewhere that since he was reading a lot as a child, when he was little there were many words he knew only in writing, but had never heard spoken. For example, it was years before he learnt that "ogres" were not pronounced "ogreees". Having a large vocabulary that he couldn't pronounce correctly didn't harm him in any way, nor diminish his joy of reading, but instead excited his imagination. Pratchett then proceeded not writing down to children when he himself wrote for a younger audience. Exciting kids' imaginations is something you're trying to do, right? Then go for it.

Why does it matter that a child wouldn't pronounce a name correctly? So they'll pronounce it incorrectly - it would still sound foreign, look foreign on the page, and evoke the sense of "exoticism" that you're looking for. Furthermore, a child wouldn't know that they're not pronouncing the name correctly. So how could it impede their reading enjoyment? Being 8-12, I was reading Hector Malot (at 6), Jules Verne (at 8) Alexandre Dumas (at 10), and Victor Hugo (at 12). I did not learn until around age 12 that the stress in all the French names is supposed to go on the last syllable. It did not affect my reading pleasure in the slightest.

A pronunciation guide would be helpful. Not being a native English speaker myself, I do not know to this day how one is supposed to pronounce many Irish names. I resort to googling their pronunciation, when I'm not lazy. Tolkien is one example I can think of who gave a detailed pronunciation guide.

Edit:

Found another example of hard-to-pronounce names in children literature for you: In Diana Wynne Jones's Dalemark Quartet, there are names like "Cenblith", "Mayelbridwen" and "Ynynen".

Answer 2

I'm also going to agree with the third suggestion. The idea of a pronunciation guide is a good one, and you could do as others have done and make it part of the dialogue (for example "My name's Shawn, but it's spelled s-e-a-n"). Susan Cooper did something similar with Welsh names in "The Grey King".

I know that this example might be aimed at the upper end of the age range you've suggested, but many children read books aimed at people above their age, and learning new words is part of the adventure. The counterpoint to this is that what many children really hate is people making things too simple for them Because They're Only Young.

As Galastel mentions, it really doesn't matter if people get it wrong. For years I pronounced the name "Honoria" is if it was a disease two very close friends might share, and I've heard that there might be some quite popular books around with a character named "Hermione", which also has potential to be a tricky one. But I still get a small thrill of discovery when I encounter a name I've not heard (or read) before - it's one of the reasons to keep reading.

Answer 3

I grew up in the 70's in Britain reading C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Christopher, along with Enid Blyton, Elizabeth Beresford, Joan Akien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Road Dahl, Rudyard Kipling, James Herriot, Mary Norton and so on.

I started reading quite late, but caught up very quickly, and as a voracious reader who scaled up from having huge trouble learning to read to reading Tolkien's LoTR at 7 - and for me, I'd say 3 is not only acceptable, but best practise.

This encourages young readers, evokes the exotic element you desire, seeds the readers' interests in new-to-them sets of basal phonemes, aiding them in learning other languages should they desire, and seeds a level of comfort and interest in other cultures as well.

Answer 4

Real names

Real human names with counterintuitive pronunciation should be used for artistic integrity if nothing else.

However, as a children's writer, educating children is your job, too. Provide correct pronunciation straight away in the footnotes at the name's first appearance.

Don't use the International Phonetic Alphabet; instead, imitate the correct pronunciation using intuitive written English and italicize the stressed syllable, like so:

Sean [1] and Siobhán [2]

1. shawn

2. she-vahn

Unless you're writing a popsci book where the narrator going off on a tangent wouldn't be out of place, avoid clarifications, notes on origin, and complete sentences. Don't write "Siobhán is an Irish female given name. It is pronounced she-vahn", write

1. she-vahn

to avoid disrupting the story.

Invented names

It is also good to treat invented names the same way, because children are inquisitive and will want to know the "correct" pronunciation. Provide an authoritative source to help settle arguments and stage school plays:

Galadriel [1]

1. gah-lad-ree-ell

Do not use invented names which are also counterintuitively pronounced. Having come up with a new word, you're best poised to also come up with the optimal way to represent it in writing.

Raymond Luxury Yacht [1]

1. thro-at-warb-ler man-grove

WRONG!

Answer 5

While I generally agree with "don't worry if the reader can pronounce a word or not", I'd like to point out that having a letter that's not available on the "standard" keyboard makes a bigger difference than your typical hard-to-spell name.

There was a Siobhan in my classes in middle school, and while I wouldn't be surprised if her name was actually Siobhán, I never saw it spelled that way. This could have been an intentional decision by her or her parents, or it could have been related to the fact that everything was being pulled from computer systems which were... let's say out of date. Either way, class attendance and seating charts all listed her with a standard "a", no accent, and as a middle school student who had never known any other Siobháns, I never questioned it. Did she put the accent on when writing her own name? Maybe - I wasn't close enough to her to know.

So while I would never bat an eye at a character named Siobhán in Ireland or a fantasy setting, even while I was ten years old, if your setting is an American school system, there may be additional nuances which you can consider (and completely ignore, if you so choose). If a teacher writes it on the board, they may leave off the accent because they're copying the name from their roster; a substitute may mispronounce it (let's be honest, subs mispronounce everything). Depending on how close she is to the point-of-view characters, it wouldn't be surprising if they knew how to pronounce her name, but not how to spell it. They may legitimately think it's spelled Siobhan, and if it's not a third person omniscient narrator, it may make more sense not to give it the accent unless/until she specifically pointed it out, or they saw her write it down and wondered why she put a weird apostrophe over the "a".

Answer 6

I would say 3 but do the guide for pronunciation in a way that works in the story. For example, in Harry Potter, Rowling became aware that fans were having a difficult time pronouncing Hermione's name, so she had a scene in the fourth book where Hermione is on a date with a foreigner who doesn't speak English as a first language and was unable to correctly pronounce her name. This can be achieved in other settings. As an American with an unusual Irish given name (which is a corruption of a fairly common one at that) I can tell you such people are cursed by their parents to correct the pronunciation of their names many times over the course of their life. The Irish were also victims of getting their names recorded as something different when coming to the U.S. states so their are probably variants of the name with different spellins, one close to the correct pronunciation. As another answer listed Sean, Shawn, and Shane good example of this. Sean is the correct spelling, Shawn is the correct pronunciation, and Shane is the correct pronunciation in a different Irish accent (the Ulster region accent to be specific). Sean itself is a corruption of the English name John which is corruption of the Hebrew name Yohanan. Most European and Arabic names are actually corruptions of names given to biblical characters so there's a variety of ways to spell and pronounce these names.