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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41747
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41747
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Hard-to-pronounce names suggest a different culture. If _War and Peace_ had its characters named not Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky and Pierre Kirillovich Bezukhov, but Andrew Bolk and Peter Bek; or if the characters of the Kalevala were named not Väinämöinen and Joukahainen, but Van and John, _that_ would ruin my immersion. It would break my immersion because the names would not match the culture presented.

As a reader, if I encounter a name I don't know how to pronounce (e.g. certain Welsh names in the _Mabinogion_), I pronounce it the best I can, and move on. If I am informed of the "correct" way to pronounce the name, I amend what I thought the name should have been pronounced like, and stick to the correct pronunciation. I see no problem there. (And I've never heard of anyone claiming they can't read the _Mabinogion_ because they don't know how to pronounce the names.)

If you care about the readers pronouncing the names correctly in their heads, you can provide a pronunciation guide. Tolkien did this with _The Lord of the Rings_, others did it too. A pronunciation guide doesn't assure, however, that readers would actually follow the pronunciation you have in mind. For one thing, it can be somewhat hard to explain in writing what sound you have in mind. For another, if you put the pronunciation guide in the beginning, it's not sufficiently interesting, the readers are not yet sufficiently immersed in the story to care, they might well just skip it. And if you put the pronunciation guide in the end, it's already too late - the readers already have the "wrong" name in their heads, and they've already finished the book anyway.

An alternative is to add some hint within the story. A name can be woven into a bit of verse, so the rhyme helps the reader understand how the name should be pronounced. That, however, requires work, it might not be natural to your story, and even if it is, you wouldn't do that for every single character.

In short, no, hard-to-pronounce names do not break immersion.

However, if the names you plan are particularly long, you might find [this discussion](https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/36420/14704) of long names helpful.

Original score: 60