So an odd thing happened when we named our youngest son Enoch.
We thought, “It’s a Bible name. It may be a bit obscure, but most people can pronounce Bible names regardless of their religious background, because they filter into culture.”
No.
Even those nearest and dearest to us couldn’t pronounce it.
Before we brought him home, my mom was talking to Isaiah about “baby EE-nick.” Isaiah somehow had snagged the correct pronunciation from the beginning and corrected her, “GRANDMA. It’s EE-nock.”
I was completely mystified how I had grown up in this woman’s home and somehow still came away pronouncing a Bible name differently than her (you might not think that’s shocking until you realize how MUCH Bible she read to us).
I didn’t even know “EE-nick” was a potential pronunciation.
But it became an increasing problem. I heard our friends at church stumble over his name the first few times, because they knew it wasn’t supposed to have “nick” on the end, but old habits die so hard.
People who met Enoch, after only seeing his name written under his Facebook pictures, called him EE-nick.
Even the guy that reads the audio version of the ESV Bible on YouVersion says, “EE-nick.” For the love!
I was starting to feel insecure about our pronunciation. Maybe they were all right and I was wrong. I mean, there is no “I” in Enoch, so phonetically, I couldn’t see how they had a leg to stand on. But it was so prevalent.
Then Chris’ mom completely brought awareness to the issue.
She was visiting a few weeks back and asked, “Did your church people have a hard time learning to say Enoch’s name, since they were used to saying EE-nick?”
I mean, she just assumed that all “church people” said EE-nick. And people that aren’t church people don’t even know the name exists (trust me, I’ve painfully discovered this as well). So church people are pretty much the pronunciation plumb-line on this one.
I started to wonder if I was one of those parents. You know, the ones who name their kid Ann, but spell it “Ayhn.” Or they name them something gender neutral that really isn’t so neutral any more, like Leslie for a boy. Or they name them after whatever they just ate for breakfast: “This is my daughter, Toast.”
That’s when kids start going by J.D. or something.
So, fearing for Enoch’s future name pronunciation self-esteem, I decided to google the correct pronunciation of his name. This typically should be done BEFORE the baby is born. Not 8+ months into his life. Because there’s not much we can do about it now.
But turns out. YOU ALL ARE CRAZY!
We’ve been pronouncing his name right all along! Told you so.
Someone even took a poll:
In case you’re still in doubt, here’s a video:
If you can’t see the video, click here.
OK, I feel vindicated. We are not those parents. We aren’t like people that name their daughter Brian and claim you say it “Bree-Ahn.” Nope.
I realize I’m going to have to include pronunciation guides for his name on all his school forms and camp forms and VBS forms, world without end. But at least I know I am right.
We’re normal people, with a normal baby name, with a normal pronunciation. Now if I could just convince everyone around me…
