Beriothien

Many years ago I had a roommate who was born in a different country and had taken a "Canadian name" when moving to Canada because no one was ever able to pronounce her African name correctly. (For her privacy I will refrain from mentioning names or her country of origin.) I asked what her given name was and she tried to teach me to say it. No matter how many times I repeated her name, and no matter how exact I thought I was being with the tones and inflections, she continued to laugh at me and say, "No, that's not it!" Apparently I could not get it right. 

Society is growing when it comes to names. It used to be that immigrants would move to Canada and take what was called a "Christian name," or basically an English name. But times are, gratefully, changing where people of all cultures are beginning to feel free to use their given names. And yet, often, as English only speakers, we may struggle to pronounce names of those from other cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Let's face it, with the way things are going in naming babies obscure names in our own culture, many children's names of any ethnic background are hard to pronounce. 

What bothers me is that if someone is trying, and I mean really trying not just being ridiculous, and they still can't get your name 100% perfect, is that really a reason to laugh at them? Take my name for example: I have one of the easiest names on the planet to pronounce. But yet I've been called Leeza, Leeser, Liz, Lissa, Leezer, Liza, Lysa, and Katey. But I don't say anything or complain, although that did make it awkward after being called Katey by a client for 6 months to have to admit to them that it wasn't my name. Unless they're doing it to harass me for some reason, I understand different people have different accents and they're all going to say my name differently and that's okay. 

At the back of the book, The Wicket of Silvus, there is a name list with all of the human and elvish names with a pronunciation chart. If you choose to take a look and find out that Beriothien is actually pronounced Behr-ee-oh-thee-ehn, then more power to you. But if you are enjoying the book and choose to call him Berry-oh-theen, go for it! It's your imagination and your experience. If ever I am able to turn this into an audiobook, I will have a discussion on pronunciation with the narrator. But for now, I really don't care what you call the characters. If you want to discuss them with me, I will likely figure out who you're talking about, no matter what weird name you give them.