Americans of Polish extraction can rightfully envy their east Slavonic neighbours whose names are in general pronoucned correctly in the USA. The reason is simple.
An eastern Хмелницкий simply transcribes his surname into English as Hmyelnitsky and Чарковский becomes Charkovsky.
A Pole named Chmielnicki or Czarkowski would end up having his surname Anglo-mangled into some God-awful Chimmel-Nicky or Zar-Cow-Ski.
Szumiacki ends up sounding like a Japanese restaurant entré: soo-mee-yakee.
And you can imagine a first former named Dombkowski on his first day of school and class mates taunting him with: Does your DUMB COW SKI?
Even Czechs and Slovaks named Novak do not have to go through life being called NO-WHACK the way a Polish Nowak does.
There is really no solution except respelling the name phonetically: Yablonski (Jabłoński) or patiently correcting each and every Anglo-mangler.
People with lots of cheek may counterattack like a lady I once knew named Wróblewski. When someone addressed her as Mrs Rob-a-loose-key, she would shoot straight back: ROB A LOOSE KEY? HELL, I WOULDN't EVEN WANT TO ROB A TIGHT KEY! Often the Anglo-mangler would become flustered and stammer: Ah, er, um, you mean that's not how you pronounce it?
Have anyh of hyou encoutnered such problems.
An eastern Хмелницкий simply transcribes his surname into English as Hmyelnitsky and Чарковский becomes Charkovsky.
A Pole named Chmielnicki or Czarkowski would end up having his surname Anglo-mangled into some God-awful Chimmel-Nicky or Zar-Cow-Ski.
Szumiacki ends up sounding like a Japanese restaurant entré: soo-mee-yakee.
And you can imagine a first former named Dombkowski on his first day of school and class mates taunting him with: Does your DUMB COW SKI?
Even Czechs and Slovaks named Novak do not have to go through life being called NO-WHACK the way a Polish Nowak does.
There is really no solution except respelling the name phonetically: Yablonski (Jabłoński) or patiently correcting each and every Anglo-mangler.
People with lots of cheek may counterattack like a lady I once knew named Wróblewski. When someone addressed her as Mrs Rob-a-loose-key, she would shoot straight back: ROB A LOOSE KEY? HELL, I WOULDN't EVEN WANT TO ROB A TIGHT KEY! Often the Anglo-mangler would become flustered and stammer: Ah, er, um, you mean that's not how you pronounce it?
Have anyh of hyou encoutnered such problems.