In article , Tom Enright
says...

Hillary Israeli wrote:

In ,
Donna Metler wrote:

*I'm imagining the poor teachers trying to call the roll on future first days
*of school-better hope some of these parents decide to homeschool! (Or
*include phonetic pronounciation guidelines on their child's registration
*form!). How do you pronounce Xicigu, anyway?

The pronunciation thing doesn't bug me as much for some reason. Ever since
a high school teacher of mine called a classmate "Joe-ACK-win," (the kid's
name was Joaquin, you know, wah-KEEN), I have kind of just figured that no
matter what name you use, someone will screw it up.

There is a point where if the number of people who mispronounce a name is
greater than the number who prounounce it "correctly" one should consider
that perhaps the parents or owner of the name is actually in the wrong.

I know someone named "Lara." She pronounced her name LAIR-AH. She complained
that people would prounce her name LAR-AH, it is not that people are
mispronouncing her name, it is the fact that she and/or her parents have
misspelled the name.

But in the case of Joaquin, the name was spelled correctly. The problem is that
others are ignorant of Spanish pronunciation.

For "Xicigu" I might venture "Shee'-chi-gu" using the PRC convention for Chinese
spelling, but IRL I would probably ask, or at least check.

I don't think there should be an expectation that name spellings be Anglicized.

Banty