(Snipped for brevity)
I remember that interview very well; Letterman asked what his name meant and he said “Black plowman,” and Letterman asked “What does Maria’s family think about her being married to a black plowman?” to many laughs from Arnold.
Joaquin Phoenix - I went to school with a kid who’s parents immigrated from Spain to Australia whose name was spelled the same way and pronounced ‘WAh-kin’.
Most of the time the media here pronounces Phoenix’s first name like it’s spelled: Jo-ah-quin. 
The correct pronunciation rhymes with Sahara, but most people who don’t know of the family pronounce it to rhyme with car.
They finally gave up correcting people. The last time I saw one of them point it out was two years ago when Kate Mara was on Live! with Kelly and Michael promoting season 2 of House of Cards.
Michael Strahan mispronounced it to rhyme with car when he introduced her, which was shocking. Kate actually took him to task for it, since if anybody in the entertainment business should know, Michael Strahan should.
(He played his entire Hall of Fame NFL career for the New York Giants, which is owned by the Mara family. Kate used to sing the national anthem at home games when she was a teenager.)
I’d love to know why, when he went into acting, he didn’t switch to using the equally common but much more pronounceable spelling, Donal. He had to know that nobody outside Ireland had a shot at pronouncing ‘Domhnall’, and that he’d spend the rest of his career trying to force a smile while he explained for the millionth time that it rhymes with tonal, yes aren’t the Irish funny and quaint and bizarre, ha ha.
I’ve only ever heard it the first way in the US, or with a slight “h” sound at the beginning. For him, and that’s assumed pronunciation of any non-famous Joaquin, as well as in San Joaquin (valley and county, California).
The name is a variant of Joachim (yo-a-kim or -chim, ch as in “loch”), which might be pronounced more like the latter in other languages, e.g. French.
Ah, the Berenstein Bears. Classic children’s literature.
Ah, you must be from that parallel universe where “Berenstain” was spelled differently.
http://www.avclub.com/article/how-you-spell-berenstain-bears-could-be-proof-para-223615
…that’s not very helpful - IME, a lot of people mangle that, the last two ‘a’ phonemes are supposed to sound like the ‘a’ in father not cat.
Yeah, I was wondering if that was clear or not.
MAIR-uh
Rhymes with stair, chair, etc…
Ha, I was thinking the same thing. I pronounce it more like Sa-hair-a (only not quite that bad). Maybe it’s regional, or maybe it’s just wrong, but it’s a common way to say it in these parts.
Now, would somebody be so kind as to tell me how to pronounce the name of the model with the extraordinary eyebrows and way too many consonants in her last name?
A few years ago during an intermission the New York Islanders had a brief video of asking people to pronounce the last name of assistant coach and former player Dean Chynoweth. All sorts of different pronunciations were offered, with shots of Chynoweth reacting in mock surprise or puzzlement. It’s “Shh-nuff”…the name is of ancient Cornish origin
Sergio Aragonés, long time contributor to Mad magazine (“A Mad Look At …” and “Marginal Thinking” especially) and creator/artist of the hilarious Groo the Wanderer, pronounces his last name with the emphasis on the fourth and final syllable. I always thought it was on the third; guess I shouldn’t ignore those accent marks, huh?
Prepare the Iron Maiden!
NFL Quarterback Joe Theismann’s name is actually pronounced “THESEman” but when he was QB at Notre Dame, a publicity person at the school convinced him to tell everyone it was pronounced THIGHSman, since he was a candidate for the Heisman Trophy. He lost to Jim Plunkett, but the pronounciation stuck.
Notre Dame isn’t even pronounced like it should be in French. (Sounds like the thing beavers build, not a woman who vexes a hardboiled private eye).
This reminds me of comic book publisher Catherine Yronwode. I spent a long time trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of Yronwode until someone told me it’s pronounced Ironwood.
Randy Bachman of BTO. For the longest time, I thought his last name was pronounced like “Bock- man,” because that’s how I heard most American radio DJs pronounce it and because it looks the same as the classical composer J. S. Bach. Then I found out that he prefers to pronounce it as “Back-man’” with a short “a” sound.
Similarly, Tony Dorsett’s name was originally pronounced with the stress on the first syllable. Apparently some PR person or agent thought it sounded better with the accent on the second, and it stuck. Mostly. I recall OJ, when he was doing color commentary, still pronounced it the old way.
Because ‘bh’ in Gaelic (Irish and Scottish) makes a ‘v’ sound. Some consonants change their sound when placed next to an h, which happens mostly in the vocative case, but can also happen in the gendered cases. If I remember correctly, it’s letters b,c,g,m and p that take h’s. You’ll find Mhairis who call themselves My-ree and Vy-ree.
Some names, they change if you’re speaking about them or to them. It’s the vocative case. Oversimplified Scottish example: you talk about Seamus, you talk to Hamish.
Isn’t this impossible? There needs to be an accent on the first as well for that to work. I just tried to say it without any accent on the first three and it sounded very pretentious.
So, how DO you pronounce it? Start with the first: Renny? But is the second A ber JOIN us? Ah BARE ghon wa? Does he go full French?
SEE o ban. Three syllables. Shivon makes nae sense.
And some I’m lost on. How do you pronounce:
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Djimon Hounsou
Gabourey Sidibe
I never watch award shows, or ET, so I have no clue. I’m a reader!