I know that for many Americans, reading/pronouncing Gaelic/Celtic/Irish/Scottish/Welsh names is difficult because it seems like it's not encountered frequently.
For example. I have seen many people call the Final Fantasy VII character, Cait Sith pronounced as "kate sith" rather than "
ket-shee." I've a friend named Sinea ("shin-aid") and people give her a lot of grief over it. Hell, even my name is apparently difficult for people to grasp. (It's Morgana ("more-gone-ah") which feels simple to me, but that second a at the end intimates people into turning off their brains.)
When reading stories, if I don't know how something is pronounced, my internal narration does a sort of "brain mumble" that skips past it until I can look up the pronunciation. I do this a lot with names like Caoimhe, Niamh, Aoife as well as for other languages that have many consonants and sparse vowels. Irish is just an example I'm using.
Would a story with characters following these sorts of naming conventions put you off as a reader?
If a story had a glossary of characters and concepts that included pronunciations, do you think that would help alleviate the issue?