Reading unusual Character Names

[georgelee5786]

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?

It wouldn't put me off. When I see a name I can't pronounce, I just make up a butchered mispronunciation

 

[Agentt]

I don't even give my character names. Everyone is you

 

[K5Rakitan]

We've got the internet to help with name pronunciation:

 

[MorgueAnna]

We've got the internet to help with name pronunciation:

Right. So is it better to save readers the effort of looking it up on youtube by having a pronunciation guide in a glossary or character page?

 

[AliceShiki]

I don't like names that I don't know how to pronounce, but it doesn't really turn me off. I just read them in a whatever way and content myself with that.

My only advice would be to make sure the name is easily memorable for your target audience. If you wanna use some Nordic names generated on fantasynamegenerator, make sure to get the ones that are easily memorable in English instead of the ones that are like fvjkaslbhfwyqelf or something... And if you're using names from your native country or whatever, then just try to cherry pick the ones that are easy for the English audience.

And well, make sure they're distinct too. You can have three characters named Yuu in Chinese if they use different Kanjis for their names, but in English they'll be the same, so make sure you have Yuu, Lao and Wang or whatever instead.