Naming your baby after someone in your life can be a significant way to honor your relationship. But it has to be done with respect, as without it, it’s nothing more than a mockery of a name. 

Just like in this story, where an American woman decided to name her baby after her Irish brother-in-law with a traditional name from his country. But the problem was that she didn’t know how to pronounce the name correctly and didn’t even try to learn it. Doesn’t sound very respectful, does it?

More info: Reddit

Where is the line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation when naming a baby?

Image credits: Alexander Grey (not the actual photo)

An Irish man learned that his sister-in-law was planning to name her baby after him, even though she didn’t know how to say his name correctly

Image credits: Damien Perez (not the actual photo)

Image credits: u/Responsible_Push_702

When the man called her out on it, instead of correcting her behavior, she called him a jerk

The OP is an Irish man married to an American woman. The couple lives in the woman’s country near her family. And apparently, they are all so close that the sister-in-law and her husband decided to name their upcoming kid after the author. 

His name is Oisín. It is of Irish origin. It came from the Irish word oss, which means “little deer.”

It also has an Irish folklore origin. Oisín was viewed as the greatest poet of Ireland, who was also the demigod son of the mythical hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his love Sadhbh. 

According to BabyCenter data, in 2024, the name is in the 938th place for the most popular boy’s names. This means that around 180 in 1 million babies are named Oisín. 

Well, the OP’s sister-in-law wants her son to be one of these 180 babies. But there’s one problem. Neither she nor her husband can pronounce the name correctly. She keeps pronouncing it as Ocean or Osshian. The name is supposed to be pronounced this way or, as the OP spelled it out, “Ush-een.”

The sister-in-law’s pronunciation has been corrected many times by both the man himself and his wife. In fact, it was said in the post that it was done far too many times to be ignored. Yet, the SIL still always brushes it off. 

A name is an important part of a person’s identity. It carries personal and cultural connections and meanings. Bored Panda got in touch with an expert teacher of the Lithuanian language, Loreta, who agreed that it’s important to learn how to pronounce names from other cultures. “It not only helps to ensure proper interpersonal communication, but [it] also shows respect for other cultures.” 

In her opinion, intentional mispronunciation is a sign of disrespect not only to the person themselves but to their culture, too. She thinks that we all should strive to be respectful to others, no matter how different they might be. 

Image credits: katemangostar (not the actual photo)

The purposeful mispronunciation communicates that the person isn’t viewed as valued as much as others. It can even be a sign of othering (or discrimination), especially when the botched pronunciation is of a name from a different ethnicity. 

Loreta said she always strives to improve her pronunciation when needed. “If I kept mispronouncing the student’s name, it could potentially hurt their self-esteem and affect their results in the long run.”

All of this only proves how ignorant it was for the sister-in-law to want a baby name she doesn’t even bother to pronounce right. Many family members understood what a poor idea it was. For instance, the parents tried to convince the couple to choose a more common name as the first one and put Oisín as the middle one. But apparently, it didn’t work. 

While everyone was bewildered by the baby’s name choice, the couple themselves were stumped about another thing. They thought that the brother-in-law would be more thrilled to have someone named after him when we know how he ended up actually feeling. 

He told the sister-in-law that she should learn the right pronunciation before giving the name to her kid. This insulted the woman, and she called her sister’s husband a jerk. But this didn’t phase him. And he told her that calling him a jerk doesn’t mean he is not right in this scenario. 

Understandably, people on Reddit agreed. Some even pointed out that SIL’s actions sound like cultural appropriation. This is when people of a majority group adopt a minority’s cultural elements disrespectfully. Like giving a non-Irish kid an Irish name without knowing how to pronounce it. And then making it all worse by acting out when called out on it. Sounds almost like a textbook example of cultural appropriation, doesn’t it?

Well, we can only hope that someone in her life will educate the woman about this kind of stuff and she’ll realize how poorly she acted and what a poor decision she made for her baby.

People online assured the man that he wasn’t a jerk here and dubbed the sister-in-law’s actions as cultural appropriation

Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)

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