# Do Brits sometimes change pronunciation of their names for social climbing?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 28, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504 "2005-12-28T22:41:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 2

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### Author: ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2005, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/21 "2005-12-29T15:42:20Z")

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It’s not Hedy, it’s _Hedley_. Hedley Lamarr.

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### Author: ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2005, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/22 "2005-12-29T15:47:55Z")

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> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> Tolkein plays around with this in **Lord of the Rings**. Bilbo Baggins lives in “Bag End”, a simple Anglo-Saxon translation of the French word “cul-de-sac”. His social climbing relatives are the “Sackville-Bagginses”, a branch of the family that’s putting on airs by appending a French-sounding prefix to plain old “Baggins”. Of course France doesn’t exist in Middle Earth, but the SOUND of the name alone sugggests pretense.

And it was a sly Donnish dig by Tolkien at the Bloomsbury group, particularly Harold Nicolson and his wife Vita Sackville-West.

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### Author: ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2005, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/23 "2005-12-29T16:05:14Z")

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In Schenectady, “Featherstonehaugh” is pronounced “feather-stone-haw.”

Not British, but Josef von Sternberg and Erich von Stroheim added the “von” to their name to make is sound aristocratic. Von Sternberg never denied the name change, but von Stroheim kept the change secret most of his life.

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### Author: ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/24 "2005-12-29T16:39:16Z")

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> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> “That’s FROHNKinsteen!”

It’s pronounced, “throat-warbler-mangrove.”

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### Author: ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/25 "2005-12-29T17:58:51Z")

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> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Not British, but Josef von Sternberg and Erich von Stroheim added the “von” to their name to make is sound aristocratic.

I’ve read the same thing about Ludwig “van” Beethoven (or rather, his father); but the Wikipedia article on him doesn’t mention it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven)

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