It makes perfect sense in Gaelic.
The main stress is indeed on the last syllable, but yes, there is secondary stress on the first syllable:
AIR - uh - go - NAISS
I remember seeing this. It was on Arsenio Hall’s first show back in the 90s. As I recall, Schwarzenegger told Arsenio that his name means “the black ploughman” in English. Hall threw his arms around Arnold and exclaimed, “Brother!”
Gbenga Akinnagbe
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Emilie de Ravin
Yeardley Smith
John Candy
I haven’t heard these stars say their own names, but I have read “here’s how you pronounce them” references in rags like Entertainment Weekly:
CHEW-eh-tell EJ-ee-oh-fer
DIME-un HUN-sue
GAB-or-ay SID-uh-bay
I clearly remember pronunciation guides for Chiwetel and Gabourey, but not so much for Djimon. It’s possible I’m saying his name wrong.
(I would have written GA-bor-ay SI-duh-bay but I couldn’t figure out how to convey the first vowel sounds in each name properly.)
YAW-gun kin-DAY.
Too late to edit, I should have started Ejiofor with EDGE instead of EJ.
I pronounced Zooey Deschanel’s name as “ZOO-ee desch-ANN-el”, instead of “ZO-ee DASH-en-el”.
I pronounced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s last name as “AB-DUL-jabb-er” instead of “AAB-dool-JAA-bar”.
You are.
There’s a lot of inconsistency in how the vowels are pronounced, and I’ve never seen the man himself pronounce it, so I don’t know which variants he prefers*, but…
The ‘dj’ is pronounced ‘j’, not ‘d’. (See also: Django.)
- I would assume Jee-mon, but Jai-mən is common enough to make me wonder.
This one is not pronounced as it looks? To rhyme with weirdly?
For me, Samuel Pepys. How do you get Peeps from that!? Should be Peppis dammit.
Wikipedia gives (in IPA not phonetic) the latter for how his name is normally pronounced in the US, and the former for French (basically). J as in jump in both cases.
No, Yeardley is YARD-lee.
Here’s one I don’t know: Zeljko Ivanek.
Yeah. That’s why I would assume the Beninese Housou would prefer Jeemon…but the fact that Jaimən is so popular in English despite Housou being probably the only Djimon most English speakers have ever heard of makes me wonder.
Zhelko Ee-vahn-uk
Zh as the s in “pleasure” or “vision.”
Optional:
L as in the “lli” in “million” in some accents
V sound here is rare in English, but the regular v is an approximation
I like Djimon mustard.
Jamən is what Michael Jackson said all the time.
Nicolae Ceausescu. Turns out it’s “Nikolai Chow-SHESS-koo” but I think I learned each part of that at a different time. Not that it matters much because on the very rare occasions he comes up in conversation, I usually have to try about 5 different pronunciations before hitting on one the other person recognizes.
I think I was a full season into the Hawaii Five-0 reboot before I learned that the lead actor, Alex O’Loughlin, pronounces his last name as “O-Lock-lin” and not “O-Loff-lin.”
For a long time I would confuse and swap pronouncations for David Bowie (rhymes with row-ee) and Jim Bowie (boo-ee).
I didn’t know that until know.
Except that “baise” is pronounced more like “bez,” if not exactly like “bez.” It’s not an “ay” sound in there.
Until recently I had no idea that Jim Croce was of Italian origin, and so I rhymed his surname with “gross”.
I’m kind of scared of even trying to say “Jane Kaczmarek” for fear of mispronunciation. (The transcription given in her Wikipedia entry is for the original Polish, which isn’t necessarily how she says it.)