Hi everyone,

today someone asked me an interesting question. She's German and she's learning English. While on holidays in London, the hotel receptionist asked her and her huband for their names - let's say, Sabrina and Christian. They pronounced them the German way, /zaˈbʁiːna/ and /ˈkʁɪsti̯an/, and the receptionist said that she didn't have these names in the system, but instead said she had /ˈkɹɪstʃən/ etc. - and pronounced them the English way.

Hence my question. If your name exists in a different language, should you change its pronunciation according to the foreign language that you're speaking? In my opinion, you don't need to, and I would pronounce German names the German way while speaking English. Sure, you can do that to be understood more easily, but in situations where you're supposed to give your actual name, you should stick to the native pronunciation. What do you think?

Basically, I need a girl name that's simple, preferably short-ish, and that's not one that could lead to confusions over the spelling when spoken (the Ellie/Allie mishearing, or Kate/Cate misspelling). I'm not a native English speaker and while I do have a good accent, I need to be able to pronounce it correctly without it probably being confused with a different one. Are there such names in the English language? 😅 Cute and somewhat known/popular names (clearly not tryndy) are appreciated, but everything goes! Thank you!