{"id":12552,"date":"2017-02-20T11:16:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T15:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12552"},"modified":"2017-10-05T21:05:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T01:05:41","slug":"baby-naming-issue-sabine-pronounced-sabina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2017\/02\/20\/baby-naming-issue-sabine-pronounced-sabina\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Sabine, Pronounced Sabina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! Hoping you and your readers can help me out. Sabine is tied right up there as one of my favorite girl names. I first heard it in Germany, where it’s pronounced “suh-BEAN-uh” (it is also a French name, but pronounced “suh-BEAN” in France. We prefer the German pronunciation). But, here’s my quandary: would people who hear it just think that the baby’s name was Sabrina?<\/p>\n

I love(!) this name, but really don’t want to saddle a child with being misheard all her life when she introduces herself.<\/p>\n

Ta!
\nRobin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think the bigger issue is that people will think the name is spelled Sabina (if they hear it) or pronounced sah-BEEN (if they see it). If you were spelling it Sabina and asking if it would be confused with Sabrina, I would be shrugging and saying, “Well, sure, sometimes it will be, but many names are mistaken for other names, and all you have to do is make the correction.” A Claire can be mistaken for a Clara, or a Kristen for a Kirsten, or an Alissa for an Alicia, and I wouldn’t let that stop me from using any of those names. Parent and child both get accustomed to pronouncing it very clearly the first time and to correcting it periodically, and it isn’t a big deal.<\/p>\n

However, in your case you wish to use a familiar name with an unfamiliar pronunciation. This is not a perfect example (it’s a more extreme case), but it’s similar to naming a daughter Caitlin and wanting it pronounced the Irish way, which is more like Cathleen: in that case I would advise spelling it Cathleen, rather than trying to override the already-familiar U.S. pronunciation of KATE-lin. And that’s the same suggestion I would make for Sabine: I would spell it Sabina, if that is how you would like it pronounced. I would consider that a matter of translating the name into the American English alphabet, as we’d change Annike to Annika, or Eoin to Owen.<\/p>\n

I’m definitely not saying I think names should always be spelled as they are pronounced. You would not catch me, for example, advocating that Chloe should be spelled Cloey or Daphne should be spelled Daffnie, just to help out American English speakers. American English speakers have become accustomed to many names that are not spelled as we’d pronounce them phonetically: Chloe, Daphne, Isla, Zoe. But in this case you are trying to use a name that is already familiar with one pronunciation and asking to have it pronounced a different way. It would be like using the name Daphne and asking people to pronounce it Daff-na; or bringing the name Chloe here after we already had a name spelled that way but pronounced Clo. It’s not impossible, but it’s an additional hurdle: you not only have to teach people how to pronounce it, you have to override how they are already pronouncing it. (Note: this may not be relevant if you live in an area of the U.S. with a large German\/Dutch population.)<\/p>\n

But spelling it Sabina is such an obvious solution to the problem, it leads me to this question: Do you have a particular reason you don’t want to? It can definitely happen that a small change makes a huge difference in the way the parents feel about a name: many of us, for example, are likely to feel very differently about the name Catherine versus the name Kathryn, or Claire versus Clara, so you are in good company if you feel the same way about Sabine versus Sabina.<\/p>\n

If the only way you like it is if it is spelled Sabine, I think you can decide it’s worth the hassle—but I do think it will be a hassle, more than the usual hassle of Kristen\/Kirsten or Sophia\/Sofia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

Baby girl was born September 25! A surprise to both my husband and I was that we couldn’t quite figure out her name; with her brothers, the names seemed to fit them straight out of the womb. Part of the problem was that she had been dubbed “Hortense” in utero, and initially no other name felt as right. \ud83d\ude02 We bandied about names for the better part of a week – Marguerite, Aletheia, Thea, Colette – but ultimately came back to what we had thought all along. Baby girl has been Sabine Nina-Elaine for almost a week now, and it fits her perfectly. Thanks to you and your readers for all your advice!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Robin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! Hoping you and your readers can help me out. Sabine is tied right up there as one of my favorite girl names. I first heard it in Germany, where it’s pronounced “suh-BEAN-uh” (it is also a French name, but pronounced “suh-BEAN” in France. We prefer the German pronunciation). But, here’s my quandary: would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3gs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12552"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12979,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552\/revisions\/12979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}