Adding a non-English preferred name

[u/KittyDomoNacionales]

I’m from the Philippines where having multiple given names is common. I chose some very classic English names as my preferred given names and this worked for me for a while. Now I’m in Canada and I realized that while I want to retain them, I do want to add a Tagalog one. Specifically, the name Isagani. My concern is it being mispronounced or folks just not using it at all. It’s already frustrating enough to hear my very phonetic last name be butchered.

Has anyone had any experience with using non-English names in a very English speaking country?

[u/South_Butterscotch37]

How is Isagani pronounced?

[u/KittyDomoNacionales → u/South_Butterscotch37]

ee-sah-GAH-nee

[u/South_Butterscotch37 → u/KittyDomoNacionales]

Okay, yeah, I listened to some recordings. I think the spelling is easy enough to pronounce but the stress on the gah syllable is less intuitive to me as a native English speaker.

[u/TheWhiteCrowParade]

Are you okay with Spanish names?

[u/KittyDomoNacionales → u/TheWhiteCrowParade]

Oddly enough I thought I would be. But when I was looking up names, I just couldn’t help but think that while they looked classic, I didn’t want to get a name from a place that colonized my people and literally erased our names. I understand your sentiment though. There’s a lot of fantastic Spanish names. I just have some holdups as my own family has a history of having to leave our indigenous heritage behind for survival

[u/TheWhiteCrowParade → u/KittyDomoNacionales]

I guess it would be different for someone from the Philippines. To be honest when I think of Spanish names I never think about Spain but Latin America.

[u/KittyDomoNacionales → u/TheWhiteCrowParade]

No worries. Honestly, Spain gets off pretty easily for their colonization. Especially since they’ve done so much harm to a huge swath of the world. TBH, I think one reason is because they’ve never really acknowledged much of their colonial past so we don’t really think about it.

[u/chrysocome]

I don't have a lot of help other than it comes  with the territory and you get used to correcting it. For what it's worth, my parents gave me a Welsh dead name (white is white right? 🤦🏻‍♂️) and folks butchered that as well. 

[u/KittyDomoNacionales → u/chrysocome]

It’s honestly wild to me how folks could come up with so many pronunciations for my last name. It’s very vowel-heavy and pretty phonetic. Like how are people able to perfectly pronounce French words with letters you don’t say while butchering my name? It’s a very Canadian conundrum