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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/34548
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Many languages are written using Latin letters, but often these seemingly familiar letters aren't pronounced in the way that we are used to.

For example, an English speaker might read the name Siobhán as _siob-hen_, pronounce Jorge like George, and Erdogan with a "g" as in "green", while the correct pronunciations are [ʃəv'aːn] _she-vaan_), [xoɾxe] _chorche_ (with the "x" pronounced like the "ch" in Scottish _loch_), and [ɛrdoˈan], respectively.

Now probably you all now how to pronounce these names, because you know the Irish singer, the Spanish name is common in the US, and you have heard the Turkish president's name on the news. But there are other Latin-written languages and other names that you aren't familiar with, and you likely would pronounce them wrong.

And children, who often have been exposed less to people and names from foreign cultures than adults, might have even more difficulties reading foreign names, especially if the orthography would be unpronouncable in their mother tongue (such as the Polish name Kowalczyk for an English speaker).

So when you write a Middle Grade book, for children between, say, 8 and 12, and your book features a _central character_ (whose name is mentioned often in the book) from a culture that uses the Latin alphabet, but (some of) the letters are pronounced differently from the way they are spoken in the language that you write in, what is the common approach?

1. Use only names that exist both in the foreign and the readers' language.

2. Use only names that are pronounced (almost) the same in the foreign and the readers' language but are uncommon in the latter.

3. Use "unpronouncable" names. Maybe provide a guide to the pronunciation of foreign names.

What is the common practice in MG books? Are there MG books with unpronouncable names? (Please give examples!) Or are they completely avoided?

I'm not looking for your personal opinion on the matter, but want to know how this is done in non-self-published fiction. Is there a sort of "rule" for this?

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I'm mostly interested in how this affects _central characters_, that is, characters whose names appear frequently in the book.

Original score: 12