As a classroom teacher for students who are >80% immigrants from non-anglophone countries, I can actually speak with some authority on the subject. I have many students who have traditional names in other languages, as well as students whose parents 100% just made up something they thought sounded nice. I am one of the few teachers who emphasises correctly pronouncing students’ names. If they put stress on the second syllable, I put stress on the second syllable. I work very hard to make sure I’m pronouncing their names exactly how they do.

I have had three students in the last month alone remark on how I am the only teacher they’ve ever had who pronounced their name “right”. I have a student named Djibril who had extremely poor relationships with most of the teachers in the building, but who always does my work, and he straight up told me last year that it was because I am the only person in the entire school who actually pronounces his name correctly. Everyone else just calls him “juh-BRILL”, when he says it should be pronounced closer to “JEE-breel” (with a lilted r).

Making sure you pronounce someone’s name how they pronounce their name can be extremely important to social relationships, and having an anglicised name attached to them against their will is often mentioned among memoirs of immigrants as one of the first and most alienating things to happen to them when they enter an anglophone country. It’s not about expecting others to cater to your weird name. It’s about people having a basic modicum of respect for the humanity of non-dominant cultures.