I studied Japanese at university. Tsu with dots is also pronounced zu, and not du as the row on a table might imply, but it is rarely used over the su version in writing. The only one I know of is the Japanese way of saying 'to be continued' (つづく tsuzugu) Here's a writing table with the romaji for anyone who's interested. Edited to add Kana table and hiragana
It would probably take my eyes a bit to readily recognize that as a name, to be honest. But I don't mind most names, so long as they have a decent excuse behind it. Essentially a "what were their parents thinking?" explanation.
The guy I knew in college, we just pronounced his name something like "Ning," with the i smashed up to the roof of the mouth, and he never corrected us. But, vis-a-vis the OP, I can just hear it: Teacher calling roll: Ng? Is there a student called Ng here? Student, offended: It's pronounced Wu!
Ning is a common one people try. That and Nag, Nug, Nig. The guy probably just got used to it and decided there's no point correcting you lol. Nah, if it's pronounced Wu, it would be spelt Wu, not Ng. We only spell it Ng in Hong Kong because we speak Cantonese there, and Ng is the Cantonese spelling and pronunciation for it. The same Chinese character is pronounced Wu in Mandarin, hence in China they'd just spell it Wu. Think of it like the names Wilhelm and William - they're the same name. But that doesn't mean the English William is gonna spell their name "Wilhelm" or that the German Wilhelm would spell it "William". Jan, Hans and John, or even John and Jonathan - same concept. So, Ng and Wu, if that makes sense
As a reader, I'm not a big fan of names that I don't know how to pronounce. Affects the flow of my reading.
UPDATE: I did some nore digging and found this as potential replacements for the name Nwahs. Nosh - The name Nosh is a baby boy name. The name Nosh comes from the Native American origin. In Native American The meaning of the name Nosh is: Father (Algonquin). Or i can just go with Naz? Thoughts?
Interesting. I wonder why, when translating these names into English using the English alphabet, folks don't just spell the name as Mm? Or Wu. Or Bu? I'll never forget the day, at work at my doctor's surgery, when a group of babies were in for their health check with our health visitor. The health visitor came out to the desk to call each one in, and when she got to Aoiffe ...everything stopped. A couple of my colleagues went to help her out. After a few moments of them all yapping like a pack of overly-excited Chihuahuas, a very displeased mother with little Aoiffe on her shoulder appeared at the desk, to declare: 'My daughter's name is EVE.' Well, why the hell didn't she spell it 'Eve?' Of course Aoiffe is an Irish name, and I think in Ireland it probably floats well with that spelling. And it's not quite pronounced "Eve" there either. But ...well, that kid is going to be coaching people for the rest of her days.
Naz is a decent name, although in my head it's a girls name but that's just because I knew a Natalie who went by Naz as a teenager. See, I'm almost certain that Aoiffe is pronounced 'Ee-fer' with a long last e, which is distinctly not Eve. Even if you insist that the f sound is a v it'd be like 'Eve-er'. And that's one of the major problems with names here; parents are not actually an authority on names. Neither are authors. Because names are 'public' things. They live in the public consciousness. It doesn't matter what the intention is, what matters is what people will actually call the person (or character) and that's something that we forget at our peril. That's why it's so much better (even for weird names) to write them the way they are supposed to sound. Especially for fantasy-type characters it's so easy to say 'Oh but you see in their language it makes this sound...' but without a treatise on their language this will just make the readers brain hurt. Even Tolkein, who is the king of pointless world building and linguistic dickery, knew better than that. Even for characters with Elvish and Dwarfish and God names he sticks to ones that transliterate cleanly into English. Even a name like Galadriel, which is a bit of a mouthful, is one that you can work out how to say with no big problems. I do hate to bang on but it is important stuff. I knew kids at school who couldn't pronounce 'Hermione' when they first read Harry Potter because they had never run into that name outside of the books and thought it was a whimsical wizard name like so many others in the books, even though her name is supposed to read like a 'normal' muggle name. Sure, that's children not adults but it illustrates how things can go awry and why it's important to think in utilitarian terms about names.
My father recounted when he was in Malta during WWII; RAF pay parade, and a lot of the local lads on the payroll were called Pace...about as common over there as Smith over here...with the Sergeant leading the parade calling out Pace, to rhyme with horse race...but it's a more Italian culture, so it's pronounced more like Par-Chay...sarge gets irritated when he gets no takers!
Nosh still means eat or snack, so I'd go with Naz. Assuming you mean for it to be pronounced Naz, and not some other way...
And another way to say Richard means something else as well but we won't go there. lol. I understand what you mean. Strange thing is when I told people about the change I had a revolution on my hands. "Don't change the name!" "How could you?" "None of those names fit!!" Good grief you'd think I was nominating the next pope. So yeah I may go with Naz to keep the peace. Strange thought though, None of them read the second book but have been very vocal about the name. *Shrug* Eh, go figure.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's because they like the character. That's why people have strong reactions. And that's a good thing. They've visualized this person very clearly and to them now that name is synonymous with the character you created. And that does credit to you as the writer. Changing a name is changing a fundamental part of the character, just like changing their race or stature or lopping off a limb. It's a facet of the character that the reader feels they understand that's now changing. But it's important to be dispassionate. With a project before it's published everything is up for change. Everything. And while your betas might love this character how they are, it does matter to be accessible, especially to the non-fans who you have to get through on the way to being published. No-one in the agents and publishers world will give you the time to explain how to say the name.
Very true; and I thank you for saying that so elegantly. I'm really glad I asked here for their opinions as it gave me an idea of how the world may react. So thanks to each and every one of you for your thoughts.
In my case, Czech names didn't leave me with a lot of choice. They have a tonne of names, of course, but 90% of them are old and outdated, names like Jaroslav. Then you get common, "modern" names that unfortunately are used only amongst older folks in British culture, like Babora (Barbara - which shortens to Bara. Ugh) or Tereza (Teresa) - and these names do sound old to me, so I don't want them. You're finally left with a handful of about 20 names that get recycled over and over and over and over. In a single class, I might have, 3 Jans, 2 Martins, 2 Adams, 2 Daniels. These names will recur again, in the same frequency, in a different class. In every class there's at least one Tereza, or Marketa, or Veronika, or Zuzka (Zuzana - Susan). I've met so many Katkas (Katerina) and Lenkas. It's no joke lol. And I don't want my daughter to sound like the 10th girl with the same name. Abi will just have to either go by Abi or Tingka, which the Czechs think sound like Tinka, short for Kristyna or Kristinka Because the "Gail" sound is unheard of in Czech - the -ai sound simply doesn't exist here. It's why Jan wouldn't let me name our kid Chloe. That was my first choice. But the Czechs would pronounce it Hlo-er, which sounds like Chlorine in Czech, and Jan thinks it sounds like Claws... He wanted Adela too - it was a toss up between Adela or Abi. Now I'm glad we didn't go for Adela. I've come across so many Adelas since - even our nanny's called Adela. Like I said, Czech names - there's about 20 of them in active use it seems...
It sounds as if you've chosen an interesting, unusual name, but not one that will be the least bit silly or embarrassing for her. Good choice.
If you go with Naz, you've lost the notion of Shawn spelled backwards, haven't you? So I'd go with "Nosh" instead, and if asked, the person can say it's "Shawn" SAID backwards. Nosh won't be mispronounced. Naz will. Folk will say "Nazz." Nosh is a snack in some places, but I think you'd get away with it in others. Or ...maybe ...just dump the idea altogether?
Yeah it's not too bad. In England her name would just be normal. In Czech she could go by Abi, which the Czechs have no issues with. And increasingly it seems Czechs are going for foreign names or more unheard-of names - I'm probably not the only one to think Czech names are a bit dull A friend of mine told me, when they were making their seating plan for their wedding reception, it was horrible, because they had like, 8 Petrs (Peter) - so each name tag had to come with the first letter of their surnames too. Problem: several of them also had surnames that started with the same letter
I did not know that Nosh is a snack, now that I know, I still don't care. It sounds good, I like it. The name of the main character in Fahrenheit 451 (a really famous work by Ray Bradbury) is Guy Montag. Come on... Guy... Montag. Montag is Monday in German by the way. Did anyone ever care about that? Hell no. If you absolutely must spell it in some different way, don't overdo it. Nawsh maybe... If you want it to be spelled backwards perhaps look for a different name, because Shawn isn't working really well.
Yes, in this case Naz will be pronounced 'Michael' Joking aside, if you absolutely must go with stupid names, naz is infinitely better than Nwas, or whatever it was. But I prefer the name Kenneth, pronounced 'Simon'.
Plenty of literary precedent for that... Man Friday in Robinson Crusoe (1719) and, OK, the next two are subsequent... Ruby Tuesday - The Rolling Stones (1966) Kate Monday in Mathnet (1987) Or, if you prefer reality... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Montag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Monday
Monday is fairly mundane compared to some German surnames that are around in the US (and, obviously, Germany herself). Mark Zuckerberg is one that stands out to me. Sugar mountain?!
