Spellings

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

On my list of favorite names, there are a number of names that are commonly spelled many different ways. I have favorite spellings for most of them, but then I thought, "What about other people?". And BOOM! Charity came up with another way to spam people with polls. ;)

[Poll #586178]

Comments

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

*revives you* Sorry. I don't really like alternate spellings, either, but some people seem to really love them. I would hope that nobody would name their child Gaenyfyr, though. ;)

[solyma.livejournal.com]

i think the poll is interesting though, because i know that i may have a different version of 'normal' spellings than others. for instance, the first girl i met named "caitlin" actually spelled it "katelyn". so, to me, that is the 'normal' way to spell it.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

But, but, but, Katelyn is *nothing like* how you are supposed to pronounce it!

[solyma.livejournal.com]

really? how are you supposed to pronounce it? i always thought it was "kate-lynn" ;)

[so-there.livejournal.com]

I think it's more like cot-leen.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Kat-leen/Kot-leen as Gaeilge.

[solyma.livejournal.com]

hmm. why is it always pronounced kate-lynn then? ;) behindthename.com classifies them as two different ones: http://www.behindthename.com/php/search.php?terms=caitlin&nmd=n&gender=both&operator=or *shrug*

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

My views as to why it is mispronounced so frequently would, I suspect, offend.

[solyma.livejournal.com]

is it possible they're just 2 different names?

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Uh, no.

[morphinae.livejournal.com]

I went to school with a Caitlin, and she pronounced it "kate-lyn", as have everyone else I've met with the name.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

And whereabouts in Ireland *was* that?

[morphinae.livejournal.com]

There's no reason to get snarky, especially to the mod. It just so happens anyone I know with that spelling pronounces it like that. And for your information, I live in South Carolina, where most people are so far from anything Irish it's silly. Most people in New England did the same.

[ladyjp.livejournal.com]

I'm Scottish and I know an Irish girl called Caitlin who pronounces it Kate-Lyn!

[solyma.livejournal.com]

i think it's possible. i don't know. it's not a big deal to me, though. this is interesting: http://www.livejournal.com/community/baby_names/180894.html?thread=2184094#t2184094

[rockstargrrrlie.livejournal.com]

I believe (this is from years of reading baby name books) that Kathleen was the Anglized version of the Gaelic Caitlin...It was the easiest way to get a similar/the same pronouncition, but spelled differently. Eventually, Americans heard the name Caitlin via the poet Dylan Thomas' wife. I'm fairly positive she DID pronunce it "kate-lyn" for whatever reason.

[rockstargrrrlie.livejournal.com]

and by "for whatever reason" I mean that I don't know WHY she personally pronounced it Caitlin. I don't know anything about her background or how she got the name, I just know that my best friend Kaitlin is named as such because her mother heard the name growing up when she learned about Dylan Thomas.

[krazyhippie.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I've only known Kathryns and Katherines. But the two I met this year are both Catherine. Sucks because I spelled it Katherine before knowing, just b/c it seems unusual to spell it that way nowadays, when in reality Catherine should have been the default since that's the original way (I think). But I got so used to the modified spellings.