March 15, 2021 - Name your kid Bobby, and there's no question how to say it. But name your kid Saoirse, and it's a different story. Here, 15 hard to pronounce baby names.

March 10, 2025 - Pronounced as sur-shuh, it means ‘freedom’ in Irish. Actor Saoirse Ronan is a famous bearer of this hard-to-pronounce baby name. Siobhan is a name for girls and is of Irish origin. It is pronounced as shi-vawn.

May 25, 2018 - While most people tend to pronounce Stephan like Steven, some parents give their baby this name and throw everyone for a loop by pronouncing it STEPH-ahn or even STEFF-en. Moral of the story? Never make assumptions. ... Girls star Zosia Mamet is yet another celebrity who has to deal with people not knowing how to say her name. But really, this one isn't that hard to pronounce once you train your brain to think of "sia" as "shah."

January 24, 2014 - The following girls name are derived from the [name_m]Breton[/name_m] saint’s name, Maël. The closest I can describe the pronunciation to this name is that it’s very similar to Mile (if we said Mile with a french accent). Roughly My-el or Mah-el (as in [name_u]Yael[/name_u]). (I’ve heard it both ways).

April 12, 2022 - It is a modern girl’s name with Native American origins meaning pretty prairie. Inez is a twisted version of Anges of French, Portuguese and Spanish origins. It means pure, virginal, and is pronounced as EE-nez. Jacinta is a Greek-origin female name meaning beautiful. It also has Spanish and Italian origins related to the flower name hyacinth.

March 26, 2015 - Anna.. since Frozen came out.. my dd says on-a, in the movie its ar-na..before the movie I said An-a My dd's name is Acacia.. we say it A-kay-sha. .but she get A-car-shia, A-caish-ia and A-kay-seeya ... I never thought anyone would get Iris wrong! Weirdos! lol I get twisted with Lila. I know it's Lie-la but even with practice I want to say Lill-a when I see it. I prefer the Lyla spelling for that one as a result! x KAZ ... Sara. Ive always thought it was pronounced Sah-rah but then I heard people calling my dads new wife seh-rah like Sarah so now Im all confused and dont know what to call her lol.

January 30, 2025 - As many traditional Irish names go, it’s not at all spelled how it’s pronounced and most people look at it for a few minutes before guessing something like “Say-or-sea.” And I get it. If I didn’t already know her name, it would absolutely trip me up, too. But after years of gathering the most unique and beautiful names I could find, I love that we went with Saoirse—even if it’s a hard-to-pronounce name.

September 14, 2020 - Imogen means “maiden” and pronounced as IHM-eh-jen. Ina is a diminutive form of names ending in “ina”. India refers to the name of a country. India was derived from the Indus river. Isa means “strong-willed”. Iva means “God is gracious”. Iva is a variation of Ivana. Ivana means “God is gracious”. Ivana is a female variation of Ivan. Jada comes from the word “jade,” which is a hard, typically green stone that is used for ornaments.

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March 15, 2024 - This popular Irish girl name originates from the Irish word caomh, meaning ‘gentle’. If you’re a fan of vowels, this is the name for you – it has a generous sprinkling of four in just a seven-letter word. If you’re not from Ireland and you struggle to pronounce Caoimhe, please don’t feel too bad – even the natives have an active debate about how this particular one should be said. This is definitely one of the hardest to pronounce Irish first names.

Within samples of African Americans (Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004) and ethnic immigrants (Oreopoulos 2011), job applicants with less fluent names experience lower callback rates, and name complexity explains roughly between 10 and 50 percent of ethnic name penalties. The results are primarily driven by candidates with weaker résumés, suggesting that cognitive biases may contribute to the penalty of having a difficult-to-pronounce name.

August 5, 2025 - (She admits it's "really ironic" that she's a fan of the 2000s show Gilmore Girls, given the names of the two main characters.) Our new app is here! Free, fun and full of exclusives. Scan to download now! The reason these names might be difficult to pronounce for young kids, explains Conrad, is that many kids pronounce the ‘R’ or ‘L’ sounds as a ‘W,’ which becomes tricky when it is paired with another rounded ‘O’ sound right after.

For example, for me, names with multiple p's are hard. I.e. Pippa and Piper. I also have a problem with names ending in l like Kyle and Gail. (I'm not Asian or anything) ... For some reason I always read Alastair as "Alas-stare" even though I know that is nowhere close to how it's pronounced.

June 28, 2023 - My mother's name is Lateefah Kituku, and I can remember a parent called asking to speak to 'Lil' Cuckoo.' I just about fell out." ... "I moved to England a few years ago, and I do correct English people, but they tend to be much better about it than Americans: 'Oh! Is that how you spell it? I'm sorry, I got it completely wrong. Please forgive me,' or, 'Oh dear, have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time?

September 21, 2025 - Though I understand what you’re saying and there is definitely truth to it I’ve always taken a different viewpoint on this issue. I’m a white German girl who’s hippie parents gave her an unusual hawaiian name that no one can pronounce or spell. Though it was hard as a child when I grew ...

December 28, 2016 - Irish names are some of the most difficult to pronounce for us in the USA. A very common girl's name is Siobhan (pronounced "SHIV awn," not "SEE o ban"). The name is actually an Irish form of Joan which means "God is gracious."

Answer (1 of 25): Disclaimer: My own opinion incoming. Names of places in Iceland happen to be one of the most mind boggling things I’ve encountered, because they happen to be ridiculously hard to pronounce (at least in my opinion and several other people I have interacted with). Hallgrimskirjk...

March 5, 2018 - Maybe because I am asian and those names are more familiar to me 😶 I pronounce Chaol as “kale”, Hermione as “her-my-knee”, and Thiago as “thee-ago”. I find it hard to pronounce names with “i” as that letter is pronounced as “ee” in my country, instead of “eye” as it is in english…

October 26, 2019 - The name Huehuecanauhtlus is hard to pronounce and comes from the Aztec word for 'ancient duck.'