[carang]

hkaussie....
you're right on the money!

my name is Cara (i think you could have guessed that one, right?)

i get care-a from n americans and car-a from others...to me it doesn't really matter which pronunciation i get, i know who they're talking about!

[sky123]

Personally I think it doesn't matter cos of the different accents you will get different pronunciations. If you don't mind people getting it wrong, then that's fine. But just think your daughter will have this same problem (probable mispronunciation)for the rest of her life.

[Sara]

I think it's just what we're familiar with. If you say your name is Care-rie-lyn, I will just hear Care-ro-lyn, because that the only name of that sounds I'm familiar with.

Karilyn is a beautiful name though. I love it.

[aussiegal]

I don't know how people get 'carolyn' from that. I think you'll find that most names get confused by people all the time out of sheer laze or just because they read too quickly. People don't actually read entire words when they read, they just glance at something. I get many variations of my name, some i just don't know how they got to. I really hate it when people get names wrong, it's such a sign of disrespect, like i don't care enough about you to learn your name! I don't think you should change the spelling so people get the name right. It won't work anyway and you won't be giving your daughter the name you wanted to!

[Sleuth]

Originally Posted by hkaussie

Sleuth, your pronunciation logic only applies if you're American (I guess?). Australians don't pronounce the 'o' in Carolyn, it's more of a schwa, so it's understandable to assume Karilyn was pronounced the same. We also wouldn't say 'care' for 'kar' in a name. EG, my friend Kara nearly always gets 'Car-a' from Australians and Britons, but 'kair-a' from Americans/Canadians.

Yes, American. And I would have said kair-a.
But, as you can tell from the wide variety of opinions and accents, the name in question will never be pronounced correctly by everyone. Especially on the first go.
Now the question becomes, "Do you care?"
I have a friend who gets really upset when his (last) name is mangled (and it often is); my last name is mangled all the time and it hasn't bothered me in ages.