Recently, I moved to the UK due to the war in Ukraine and have noticed that people here struggle to spell my name correctly. As a result, I would like to ask for suggestions on alternative versions of the name Vitalii that are easier to pronounce. Thank you in advance for your replies.
Vito is probably the easiest for your average “what’s your name?” Queries at a coffeeshop. But I think Vitaly would also work since it’s just the word “Vital” with a Y added to the end. I’m sorry you had to move because of the Russians :(
I think Vito is pretty cool name, now they can actually call me, lol Yeah i hate russians because of this, i cant even explain what they’ve done to my country Thank you for your support
I would definitely suggest losing the second i at the end, that looks weird. Or maybe go for "Vitaly" (which you can tell people spells like V + Italy).
(Incidentally, a couple years back, I had email contact with someone named "Vitalis", which I thought sounded like a female and vaguely flower-y name. Only when we finally met in person did I notice he was male. Somehow he didn't seem too irritated by me having misgendered him in multiple emails though.)
Perhaps the Italian spelling of the same name, Vitale? I expect anglos to be a bit more used to it than to Slavic names, specially since romanisation adds another layer of complexity. This should stop them from butchering the first vowel, at least.
Keep in mind that no matter the spelling, English speakers are prone to reduce some unstressed vowels until they’re unrecognisable, or to “stress” them randomly; it’s a restriction of the language itself, not the spelling. I kind of predict that they’ll do it with the last vowel of your name no matter the spelling.
Another approach would be to find some similar-sounding local name that you like, I know a few Armenian speakers who did this here in the Southern Cone - for the same reasons as yours, people got a hard time pronouncing their names.
Any way, there’s no “single” answer for that, but I hope that you find one that works for you.
No, I don’t want people to think I’m Italian, but i love Italian language and culture. And i don’t want to change my name completely, maybe i will go with Vito or V+Italy
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