My son is not a dunce
BUT...On reading the Harry Potter books, from not long after they came out being quite small at the time, asked me about one of the characters.

'what's happened to sea moose?'

'sea moose?' I asked innocently..

'Yes sea moose? you know, the Irish one of Harry's friends?'

'Oh...Seamus you mean?

BLESS
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 23:48, 9 replies)

Irish names are bastards
unless you hear them pronounced *and* see them written to match them up.

Fortunately I went to school with a Siobhan (shuVAWN), a Sinead (shinADE), a Roisin (roshEEN) and a Sean (shawn) (and a Shawn, which was a bit confusing) so I got early practice. None of them had irish accents, which was a bit odd.
( Fronds are waving gently on, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 1:38, closed)

Porrig
I was the same with Padraig.
(langers, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 12:53, closed)

From same book, I had confusion with Hermione
I thought it was HerMEEown

What??

I'd never heard that name before
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 10:07, closed)

This.
And I thought Hagrid was hay-grid, not haggrid.
( Bob Todd whee, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 11:56, closed)

.
I thought this until I read this, then googled for the pronunciation. I've never, ever, heard this name before.
(Bewareofthephil, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 19:33, closed)

As a child,
having only seen the name in Hugo's House of Horrors, and not having heard anyone say it, I pronounced Penelope as Penny-lope.

It's with some childish glee that I still pronounce it like that these days. Similarly, trebuchet as tree-bucket.
(teff, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 12:02, closed)

this
me too
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 22:15, closed)

also - enid blyton
specifically the children of cherry and willow tree farm

penelope i though was pe-no-pole

somewhat disturbing now!
(twiceydrinker hmmm is it pint time?, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 13:23, closed)

My internal voice still doesn't get it right
Whenever I read a book with a character in it named Sean, I read it as though it's pronounced "seen". I know it isn't, I've known for MANY YEARS it isn't, but I still can't convince my brain to pronounce it as "shorn".
Of course, the pronunciation is occasionally used deliberately, especially when Sean Bean is on the telly.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Sun 21 Mar 2010, 15:25, closed)