Six of Crows stuff vs. my characters (PRONUNCIATIONS)

Hi, I’m finally back. Sorry for not making a new post as soon. I got distracted by some things. 

1. May 27th was my dad’s birthday. So I was busy that day. 

2. Since Monday, I started reading Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (it’s the sequel to Six of Crows). And yeah, my big interest in the duology has returned. I waited a while to start the second book until I finished reading the books I had to read for my last college semester. The books are so good, you guys, omg. 

Then a few days ago, I finally searched the pronunciations of some of the words in the books. I’m a dumbass who should’ve done this a lot sooner, but oh well. And I realized something. I’ve been pronouncing (mostly just in my head though but still.. I felt embarrassed afterwards lmao) a few of the words wrong. Not all of the words though. Only some of them. But alas, I am a fool. 

Anyway, I’m here to write a pronunciation guide for the names of my characters. 

*cough, cough* This is about Fierdan. *cough, cough*

Yes. I’m thinking of my character, Fierdan, so that’s why I’m making this post. Well, that’s my primary reason, haha. 

Ok so, first I shall explain why I just said everything about Six of Crows / Crooked Kingdom. It’s about that pronunciation. 

There are different nations in the books’ world. One of those nations is Fjerda, and the people from there are called Fjerdans. 

Until a few days ago, I thought it was pronounced as “Fur-jer-da” for Fjerda and “Fur-jer-dan” for Fjerdan. Anyway, I was way off. 

I found out Fjerda is actually supposed to be pronounced “Fee-yair-dah” with the emphasis on the “yair” part. 

So anyway, that made me think of the pronunciation of Fierdan. When I first found out about Fjerda, I thought its pronunciation was pretty similar to how I pronounce Fierdan. Now after thinking it through, I can hear a difference between the two words. And so, I am relieved. If they were pronounced the same way, I would’ve panicked. 

Yes. That made me panic at first. Because I’m me and that’s what I do. XD 

Besides, a Fjerdan and Fierdan look completely different. Like.. come on now. There has to be a difference. 

Oh god, I’m such a little fool. Why am I even writing comparisons between my characters and names from a popular book series? Uh.. I just do that. I have no other explanation. I don’t know why I do the things I do. You think I control my brain? No. 

Uh... yeah. heh eh eh eh...... help me. 

*cough, cough, cough* 

In the books, Fjerdans usually have pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. And if you guys know anything about Fierdan, he isn’t a blond and doesn’t have blue eyes. 

Oh and Fierdan is just an edgy nickname that he made as a child after suffering his first significant trauma. Fierdan’s birth name is Daniel, and his nickname before that trauma was Danny. Fierdan was created, not born. 

Ok, ok, ok. Time for me to explain the pronunciations of some of my characters. And by that, I mean Fierdan and Ryen. So.. just two of my characters. 

Oh wait. Here’s a link to 

pronunciations of words from Six of Crows if anyone wants to know where I got that information from. 

• Fierdan: The main difference from Fjerda and his name is that there is a “y” sound somewhere in Fjerda. There isn’t in Fierdan. Then I realized that Fjerdan is pronounced more like how I first thought of pronouncing my fire man’s name, back when I made it so complicated. I originally thought of making his name hard to pronounce, then I changed my mind. Haha yeah so that happened. 

Fierdan pronunciation: “Fear-dan”. There is a brief, subtle “ee” sound in the “e” of “Fear” but it’s not as obvious as in the Fjerda pronunciation, and there’s no “yee” in my character’s name. The “a” in “dan” is a short a (another word example would be “land”). However, there have been lots of rumors about Fierdan, so there are characters who pronounce the “a” like the “a” in the word “arm”. That doesn’t really bother me as much. Honestly, I sometimes find myself pronouncing his name either way. 

Now onto my other character. I’m going to write an explanation of Ryen’s name as well before going into the pronunciation. 

• Ryen: Ryen is also a nickname. His birth name is not Ryen; it is Aeryen. So before I can explain how to pronounce Ryen, I’ll have to explain how to pronounce Aeryen. Ryen is just the end of Aeryen. 

Aeryen pronunciation: “Ayy-rye-en”. The first two letters are the hardest to pronounce. Maybe that’s another reason why Ryen gave up using his birth name (the first reason being his anger at his father who gave him that name). The “Ae” sounds kind of like “air” without the “r”; his name isn’t “air-Ryen”. The “Ae” can also be pronounced by the beginning of the word “aesthetic” (U.S. or U.K. pronunciations, it doesn’t matter). Now onto the second pair of letters. The “ry” is pronounced as “rye” (like rye bread). And now the last two letters. The “en” sounds like “end” without the “d”. However, I’m also fine with the “en” sounding a little more like “in”. Keep in mind there is no “a” and no sound that the letter makes in that part of his name. It’s Ryen, not Ryan. There is a slight difference between the two. 

Well, I hope I cleared things up about how to pronounce the names of my tragic brothers in my story. Now you know how I pronounce Fierdan and Ryen. Try to say their names out loud and congratulate yourself. Heck, I’ll congratulate you. 

What am I even saying? :’D 

And you know what book I’m currently reading. For fun. No required reading for a class. Oh wow. I’m reading as a leisure activity in quarantine. ;D 

I’m going to end this post here. Thanks for reading and dealing with me. 

I appreciate you all. :)