I had a similar experience in spite of not needing any R, living and working in several English speaking countries. My name is Mathias, and the variety of ways English speakers called me was a proper issue, in the sense that I sometimes didn't even recognize that somebody was talking about me, or calling me across a workshop. When I started introducing myself as "Matt", all became easy. Never had this issue with pretty much any other culture I worked with :D (all kinds of Europeans and Arabs mainly)

If it's about Rs, I worked on an oil rig with a Mexican guy named Javier. The American OIM had such hard time telling "Javier" (with the two different gutturals) on the tannoy, Javier got called "George" for the rest of our stay.

Which two gutturals? “Javier” only has one sound I’d call “guttural” — the velar fricative (i.e. the Spanish J sound).

My wrong, I meant the two different non-english-like consonants.

To me names are simply not translatable. A name is not a word, is a sound we associate with our selves. The Americanized form of "Rodrigo" is not the sound you associate with your self I'd too feel weird to introduce myself trying to emulate an accent.

Have you ever lived in a country that spoke a language other than your native one?

You very, very quickly get used to introducing yourself in a way that people from that country can pronounce. It’s really not a big deal.

> A name is not a word, is a sound we associate with our selves.

All words are just sounds we arbitrarily associate with various concepts; names are not special in this sense. (In fact, in some languages, the word for “name” and “noun” are the same).

Like every other word, names follow the phonological and phonotactic rules of the language they’re part of. There’s a reason English has John and Spanish has Juan.

I used to do the same for "Samuel" but figured I'm happier saying my name the correct way when asked instead of having that weird feeling. I don't mind if people say it differently with their accents or don't try to say it like I do, but it's nice when somebody says it correctly.

"correct pronunciation" to me, in terms of names, roughly means the pronunciation that that person grew with (so it's about where they're from).

I thought about it, and I don’t think I would be happier not changing the pronunciation. This weird feeling is very minor, just a matter of curiosity, not something that bothers me.

And one key difference is the said Portuguese R. It’s trickier than Samuel variations. I think a lot of people would not understand what my name is at all if I pronounce it the way we do it in Brazil.

Hah! I'm also Rodrigo, and I've been living in Canada for 6 years now. I've given up hoping people would get the pronunciation of my name right. At this point I think I'm even more used to the North-American way. Rodrigo is a hella hard name if you've never spoken Portuguese.

"Rod" might work as a suitable nickname, since it's also used for names like Roderick (which sounds eerily similar to Rodrigo now that I think about it).

No one calls me Rod, I am not comfortable creating an actual nickname. I am happy enough just changing the pronunciation

You don't necessarily have to frame it that way. "Hey folks, I understand my name can be difficult to pronounce sometimes so feel free to call me X". But I also totally understand if you don't feel like it's necessary. Just something to keep in mind :)

My approach as well. I’m not bothered with different people pronouncing my name differently. Does not stop me from being pedantic about pronouncing other people’s “correctly” :)

If the problem was only with R's.. In my case (João) i just got used to have my name pronounced as "joao" :)

Lots of languages don’t have nasals and native speaker are almost physically unable to pronounce it.