Although many of us have had a good laugh making fun of the Australian accent on social media, more specifically, of the way they pronounce the word “no” as a prolongated “naaauuur”, one Aussie has shown that the down under way of saying certain things isn’t all the joy it is cut out to be.
Taking to her TikTok page, Hannah Sands went on a rant about her fellow Aussie being incapable of pronouncing her son’s name.
Hannah Sands went on this rant about her fellow Aussies being incapable of pronouncing her son’s name
Image credits:hannahsandsmusic
She continued: “Australians are so annoying with names that are like, the tiniest bit foreign. Obviously, I haven’t had a problem with that – I’m a white woman in Australia called Hannah, like, it’s not an issue I have.”
Hannah and her Brazilian partner, Paulo, named their son Raoul
She said: “Everyone here calls him ‘Paul-o’, and it drives him crazy!”
Hannah further stated that when she and her partner were naming their newborn son, they suffered from the same treatment Paulo has had to endure.
“Everyone here calls him ‘Paul-o’, and it drives him crazy!” Hannah said about her partner
This undoubtedly added to the stress the couple had been subjected to already, as they had spent many days after birth in intensive care after their son was born prematurely.
Hannah recalled: “We had to write a little name tag for him for the side of his crib. We had a few names, and because my partner is Brazilian, we wanted a name that made sense in Portuguese.
“So, when we met him, he was such a little warrior, and we just felt like the name Raoul was the best fit.”
The mom explained that upon penning their son’s name down in Portuguese as Raul, a nurse said out loud “Oh, R, A, U, L, like Paul with an R? Raul?”
Hannah reestablished what had happened after: “So, we sat on it for like a day and we ended up changing the spelling, and R, A, O, U, L, is the French spelling because we were like, surely it’s more phonetic.”
She further stated: “When I tell you no one can pronounce our son’s name in Australia, like, what is wrong with people?”
The couple spent many days after birth in intensive care after their son was born prematurely
“My own mother comes to see us in the hospital and asks his name and she goes ‘Raol’.
“There are moments when I’m just like, wow, it would be easier if we chose one of the other names.”
Many people echoed Hannah’s frustrations in her TikTok’s comment section as a person wrote: “I have a very white name and in school the teachers would still get it wrong.”
Another person commented: “It is hard to pronounce names… even if you try. I’m Aussie and I barely say English names lmao.”
A separate individual chimed in: “People always pronounce my first and last name wrong. Like I have an Italian name but people can never pronounce it and idk why like it’s not hard.”
Hannah explained that upon penning their son’s name down in Portuguese as Raul, a nurse said out loud “Oh, R, A, U, L, like Paul with an R? Raul?”
The Aussie woman revealed that not even her mother was able to get the pronunciation right
According to a paper published in theNational Center for Biotechnology Information, names are a reflection of identity and often have personal meaning.
Subsequently, the chronic mispronunciation of names can undermine one’s identity and be experienced as a microaggression.
Many people shared similar grievances
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