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HelpRe: Thoughts on Hugh?
in reply to a message by Jagoda
I like Hugh a lot. If I'd had a second son, I'd probably have considered Hugh or Hugo as part of an 'H + Daniel' combo; that was a tradition in DH's family but died out early in the last century. (They used Daniel as the fn.)
Unfortunately, where I live some people have great difficulty with hearing/saying Hugh! Afrikaans-speaking South Africans stumble strangely over the English h. They regularly insert an h into 'piano', making it 'piHANo', but do the opposite with Hugh. For instance, I worked in a department once with equal numbers of English and Afrikaans speakers, and an older Scotsman named Hugh McFarlane, now deceased. He was a gossip, and passed on some news to me which I later heard again from an Afrikaans colleague whose English was close to native-speaker competence. I said that, yes, I knew about that, and she asked how. I said "Hugh told me" and her startled reply was "No, I didn't!" So I'd probably have gone for Hugo - which is not a problem, oddly enough.
Unfortunately, where I live some people have great difficulty with hearing/saying Hugh! Afrikaans-speaking South Africans stumble strangely over the English h. They regularly insert an h into 'piano', making it 'piHANo', but do the opposite with Hugh. For instance, I worked in a department once with equal numbers of English and Afrikaans speakers, and an older Scotsman named Hugh McFarlane, now deceased. He was a gossip, and passed on some news to me which I later heard again from an Afrikaans colleague whose English was close to native-speaker competence. I said that, yes, I knew about that, and she asked how. I said "Hugh told me" and her startled reply was "No, I didn't!" So I'd probably have gone for Hugo - which is not a problem, oddly enough.
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Replies
As always, I love reading your input! Hugo is great but it’s just too popular for me.
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You’ve summed up exactly why I *don’t* like this name. It doesn’t travel well. It’s unpronounceable in almost any non-English-speaking country (except its native Scotland, of course). As someone who travels a lot I’d never use Hugh because the name would be butchered elsewhere. As someone who lives in a non-Anglophone country I’m not surprised you feel the same.
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Hugh does not originate only in Scotland, and people in Scotland speak English.
This message was edited 2/6/2018, 8:02 AM
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I know that, but Scotland does have a lot of native Scots and Gaelic speakers.
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1.1% of the population speak Gaelic, but I didn’t even need to look that up to be able to tell you that there are very few people who speak the language. I have strong ties to Scotland and grew up not far from the border.
This message was edited 2/6/2018, 12:15 PM
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I apologize.
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