When will people learn to pronounce Sajid Javid’s name properly?

Earlier on this morning, Andrew Marr tried his hand at Urdu. Or was it Punjabi? In any case, he made a point of introducing Lancashire-born and bred Minister Sajid Javid as ‘Sajeed Javeed’. The Communities Secretary didn’t flinch – as you’d expect, given that this is definitely not the first time his name has been mispronounced. He’s probably given up correcting people, or even noticing mispronunciations. But his name is hardly a tongue twister: he’s a northerner, his name rhymes with avid. As all schoolchildren know, words ending in –id are pronounced with a short ‘i’. Lid, kid, hid, quid. So where did Sajeed Javeed come from?

As a member of the club of British people with problematic first names, I can appreciate the problem. Growing up in China, I didn’t realise that Xiaodan, my Chinese name, would cause such headache (to myself, mainly) in British classrooms. So pretty early on I’ve used my other name, Cindy.