You cannot use diacritical marks on official paperwork (birth certificates, SS cards, passports) in the United States. So [name_m]Zo[/name_m]ë may look nice, but will always be [name_f]Zoe[/name_f] officially. It sucks for us Americans who have last names that actually need an accent (like myself) but cannot use them. Technically, my “official” last name isn’t correct.
I don’t mind accents, I actually quite like them. Plus I know (from my limited knowledge of [name_m]French[/name_m] and [name_m]German[/name_m]) they can change pronunciation e.g. I’d say Ez-[name_f]May[/name_f] for Esmé(e), but Ez-mee for [name_f]Esme[/name_f]. Plus there are some names that I think look odd without accents, [name_u]Fran[/name_u]çois being one of them. I can see them possibly causing some problems online, for example, but not so much outside of that. But I also live in the UK, and I don’t think they’re as much of a problem here (don’t hold me on that, I’m really not sure). There’s a girl in my year who spells her name Chloë and she doesn’t seem to have any problems.
jackal:Diacritical marks are necessary in languages that use them, because they are essentially (if not officially) different letters. In the Icelandic alphabet, for example, there are 14 vowels: a, á, e, é, i, í, o, ó, u, ú, y, ý, æ and ö. These are all different letters that make completely different sounds. I mean literally different letters, as in you recite the alphabet: A, ”, B, D, ”, E, É, etc. So in Icelandic it’s a big deal to get those diacritical marks where they are meant to be. Spelling a name [name_f]Asta[/name_f] instead of ”sta would be like spelling [name_f]Ester[/name_f] as Asther - just wrong.
However, I wouldn’t use them for decorative purposes, and I wouldn’t expect them to be used consistently in an English-speaking country, because although an English monoglot can see that there are dots over an ö, they don’t actually register it as a different letter from o. They don’t actually respond to the diacritical mark but altering their pronunciation at all, so it’s completely pointless to use it for them. Spelling it Sören won’t make English speakers pronounce it Sören, they are still going to be saying [name_m]Soren[/name_m].
So basically, it depends what languages you are working with. For English, for the vast majority of people they are pure decoration and as such a waste of time. And they’re a pain to type on a standard English keyboard. [name_f]My[/name_f] Icelandic keyboard is set up so that it takes just one extra stroke to type an accented vowel, but this is not the case for English set-ups.
Thanks so much for saying this. My husband and I would love to use ”sta as one of our daughter’s middle names, but we can’t have accent marks on official US documents. It’ll just look like her name is pronounced Ass-ta without it. So annoying!
It depends. If the names (especially [name_m]French[/name_m] ones) are pronunced the right way then I’m all for it (and no, é does not make the Beyoncé “aye” sound). But since you’re most likey going to end up with the wrong pronunciation anyway, I say drop them at least in the first name spot. Esmé and Ophélie might look prettier with the accent but you’re still going to get (and some might even pronunce them this way themselves) Es-may and O-fay-lee instead of Es-meh (long euro e) and O-pheh-lee.
My name has an accent aigu and it’s gotten missed on paperwork most of my life. Some people look at my name and know better how to pronounce, but mostly people try to pronounce it however they want. I still wouldn’t remove this accent aigu because it would make my name incorrect. Plus, I live in a country where [name_m]French[/name_m] is the second language so I expect more people do understand the markings than in other countries.
I think in the Netherlands we’d take up a middle position in this discussion, in Dutch we mostly need diacritics for loan words and for spelling purposes because we need to be able to spell words like zeeën and geüpdate without having to hyphenate them. While you definitely won’t see a [name_m]Zo[/name_m]ë without the ë (otherwise it’s pronounced like ‘zoo’ in Dutch), there are some names which leave parents in doubt about using or not using the diacritic, like for [name_f]Fabienne[/name_f]. If you don’t use the ë people might spell it with anyway and if you do people might also spell it without. It takes a fair amount of guesswork, but the fact of the matter is that it will show up on your paperwork. I do love a good [name_m]French[/name_m] or Greek name spelled the [name_m]French[/name_m] way so that’s a risky business and while not every name needs the diacritic, some do, because for example I love Igoné, well that’s a disaster in English without the é, looks like it at least. I think that if people are very much misled about the correct pronunciation of the name without the diacritic - like [name_m]Soren[/name_m] vs. Sören - then I wouldn’t choose that name in a country not familiar with that diacritic, if people will know how to pronounce it without or you can correct them and it’ll still make sense, then don’t use it if it won’t show up anywhere I’d say, unless it’s the only correct spelling.
My name is supposed to have one. 90% of the time it gets dropped, and occasionally I’ll get a random symbol in place of the letter.
So in general, I think it’s pointless unless you live in a country where they are used in everyday typing.
jackal:Diacritical marks are necessary in languages that use them, because they are essentially (if not officially) different letters. In the Icelandic alphabet, for example, there are 14 vowels: a, á, e, é, i, í, o, ó, u, ú, y, ý, æ and ö. These are all different letters that make completely different sounds. I mean literally different letters, as in you recite the alphabet: A, ”, B, D, ”, E, É, etc. So in Icelandic it’s a big deal to get those diacritical marks where they are meant to be. Spelling a name [name_f]Asta[/name_f] instead of ”sta would be like spelling [name_f]Ester[/name_f] as Asther - just wrong.
This. Diacritical marks are not decoration. And it is rather annoying that diacritical marks don’t appear on official American documents, to say the least…
I wouldn’t use them as I can never remember how to type one on a computer, but I wouldn’t cringe if I saw one in a name. I know they can be legitimate spellings, so why not use one if you like them?
jackal:Diacritical marks are necessary in languages that use them, because they are essentially (if not officially) different letters. In the Icelandic alphabet, for example, there are 14 vowels: a, á, e, é, i, í, o, ó, u, ú, y, ý, æ and ö. These are all different letters that make completely different sounds. I mean literally different letters, as in you recite the alphabet: A, ”, B, D, ”, E, É, etc. So in Icelandic it’s a big deal to get those diacritical marks where they are meant to be. Spelling a name [name_f]Asta[/name_f] instead of ”sta would be like spelling [name_f]Ester[/name_f] as Asther - just wrong.
However, I wouldn’t use them for decorative purposes, and I wouldn’t expect them to be used consistently in an English-speaking country, because although an English monoglot can see that there are dots over an ö, they don’t actually register it as a different letter from o. They don’t actually respond to the diacritical mark but altering their pronunciation at all, so it’s completely pointless to use it for them. Spelling it Sören won’t make English speakers pronounce it Sören, they are still going to be saying [name_m]Soren[/name_m].
So basically, it depends what languages you are working with. For English, for the vast majority of people they are pure decoration and as such a waste of time. And they’re a pain to type on a standard English keyboard. [name_f]My[/name_f] Icelandic keyboard is set up so that it takes just one extra stroke to type an accented vowel, but this is not the case for English set-ups.
Perfectly worded response. I coined the term “name confetti” for misused accents on names. It really ruffles my feathers to see things like Rënèe or [name_m]Simon[/name_m]é (pronounced [name_u]Simone[/name_u], like [name_u]Raven[/name_u] [name_m]Simon[/name_m]é. This drives me CRAZY).
I can really appreciate when people use accents correctly in an English-speaking country, but unfortunately, in some of these countries, the accents won’t be legally registered, and the general public won’t know how to say the proper pronunciation anyway.
Well, I wouldn’t use an accented name. So any name that may possibly have an accented letter I’m not really fond of.
For example, I’m a bit iffy on [name_f]Renee[/name_f]. I know it has an accent over one of the letters, but I can’t remember which one. In addition, some sites change the accented letter to some random symbol.
The keyboard on my iPod allows me to type accented letters. There’s a word I type all the time with an é in it, and it drives me crazy when it’s just written as e.
I think unless you live in a country where accented letters are common recognized, I would avoid using a name with an accented letter.
I wouldn’t since I live in the US, and like many previous posters already said, it won’t be on official documents. It just ends up feeling pointless. Although, I am hoping that they are added on official documents soon because it’s gotten much easier; I know with my mac you just hold down the letter and you can pick which accent mark you want. Unfortunately, knowing the US, we’d end up with kids having names like Ēlîzæbęth and Kãthërįnê just because people want to make the child more “unique”…
ottertails:Unfortunately, knowing the US, we’d end up with kids having names like Ēlîzæbęth and Kãthërįnê just because people want to make the child more “unique”…
So true!! I think it’s superfluous in the US (I’m excluding people who have a genuine connection to a language besides English). For the typical American, though, é is just a “pretty” e. I only know [name_m]French[/name_m] and [name_m]German[/name_m] accent marks because I studied them in college; otherwise I’d also just think they were decoration. We would usually make no distinction in pronunciation in [name_f]Zoe[/name_f] and [name_m]Zo[/name_m]ë, and that’s missing the whole point of accent marks.
jackal January 21, 2015, 1:58am 20 ottertails:Unfortunately, knowing the US, we’d end up with kids having names like Ēlîzæbęth and Kãthërįnê just because people want to make the child more “unique”…
People would do that for sure, haha! I already see this sort of thing sometimes on Facebook, people making their names ‘cooler’. It’s really funny if you are familiar with accents and special characters, because it makes you pronounce their names in a ridiculous way. Like someone reckons that ”avid looks cooler than [name_m]David[/name_m] and then you automatically read it as Thavid.
Incidentally I did some research on the situation for UK official documents recently and you are not allowed to use accented vowels on a British passport. So it seems like the UK is the same as the US on that - not sure about other documents, birth certificate, driving licence etc.
I will definitely have a child with accented letters in her name (they’re already in the patronymic so it doesn’t matter which names we pick as first names), so I guess she will just have to have a slightly different official spelling in each country. It’s kind of lame but that’s how it is.
I agree with previous posters. In [name_m]French[/name_m], Russian, [name_m]German[/name_m], Icelandic-speaking countries diacritical marks are necessary. For example, in [name_m]German[/name_m] a is “uh” and ä is “a” like in cat; in Russian, “e” is “eh” and “ё” is “yo”. It’s a mistake not to use one.
However, in English-speaking countries they are just a headache. People will butcher the name unless they speak [name_m]French[/name_m]/[name_m]German[/name_m] etc, and they will misspell the name in the passport.
My sister’s name is written with an accent mark, but they didn’t put it on her passport, so her is name is spelled wrong in her most official document. It irritates me so much, because then it’s a different name with different pn.
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mermuse January 21, 2015, 6:00am 22just another way to stand out, I like them! 
Unless you or the other parent is a native speaker of the language the name is from, or unless your family lives in the country where the language the name is from is spoken, I think it’s kind of dumb to use accent marks. If you’re really that concerned about pronunciation, the accent marks aren’t going to help you anyway because 99% of people won’t know what they mean anyway. It would be easier (although still not necessarily a good idea) to just change the spelling to something that would make more sense phonetically in the language that is spoken around you.
Thanks for all the replies! [name_m]Even[/name_m] though this may not be a “cure cancer” sort of conversation, but it still is important beacuse I think what it really is about is respecting other cultures. It’s the difference between words like naïve and naive. Can people still pronounce naive as it should be? Of course, but not only does naïve look right, it’s actually closer to its roots. [name_f]Every[/name_f] time I seem someone spell it with the accented “i”, it reminds me of the closeness English-speakers have with the [name_m]French[/name_m] language. (That sounds overly romantic…)
lucialucentum:I coined the term “name confetti” for misused accents on names. It really ruffles my feathers to see things like Rënèe or [name_m]Simon[/name_m]é (pronounced [name_u]Simone[/name_u], like [name_u]Raven[/name_u] [name_m]Simon[/name_m]é. This drives me CRAZY).
I definitely agree with this. When I see [name_m]Simon[/name_m]é, I say, “[name_u]Si[/name_u]-mohn-nay”, instead of just “[name_u]Si[/name_u]-mohn”.
Again, thanks for your input in this discussion!
If we could use accent marks in the US, my daughter’s name would have been spelled Noemí. This accent mark would put the stress on the third syllable. I feel like Americans wouldn’t pronounce it any different with or without the accent.
As others have said, diacritical marks mostly serve to confuse people in [name_u]America[/name_u]. I think that most Americans would see Francois with or without the diacritical mark and say “[name_u]Fran[/name_u]-kois.” Most of the people I know with diacritical marks as part of their names have parents who misused them to begin with. For me, I live in the US and I wouldn’t give a kid a name that requires any accent marks. However, I would use an “Americanized” version of a name that requires diacritical marks in the original. My husband and I both love the name [name_f]Esme[/name_f]. I know that [name_f]Esme[/name_f] is the masculine version and that Esmée is the feminine, but I would use [name_f]Esme[/name_f] for a girl here. If this hypothetical daughter ever moves to [name_u]Paris[/name_u], she can change it to Esmée.
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