How do you pronounce the surname Jurczyszyn?

I have a meeting with a Mr. Jurczyszyn tomorrow, but don’t know how to pronounce the name. Any suggestions?

You could politely ask him. I’m sure he’d rather tell you than have you mispronounce it.

Walk in, shake hands, and say “hi, I’m (real name here)”, after which he’ll automatically respond in kind.

“Smith.”

At first glance, I’d look at it and say it’d be, ‘Yur-cha-zin’, but then Oakminster has a better idea anyway.

Tripler
Mine’s of Polish descent, but way, way easier.

Throatwarbler Mangrove

Apparently, it’s pronounced “something like You-rchishin”

As I guess I’d have gone for Yer-shzin, with the emphasis on the first syllable - can you give us points for how close we are, once you know? :slight_smile:

Unfortunately he’ll probably say “And I’m Jim.” :smiley:

Jurczyszyn -

Now, depending on whether he uses an Americanized pronunciation or not (I have a Polish last name myself, but use an English pronunciation), the Polish way to pronoune it is approximately:

yoor-CHIH-shin.

Accent is almost always on the penultimate syllable in Polish (with exceptions for certain words of Greek origin).

I will once I am in there - but I’ll need to ask at reception for him first, and I’d like a rough approximation of the name so they will know who I am looking for.

The suggestions all seem about the same, so I will go with Yoor-CHIH-shin and see how I get on. Will let you know how he likes to say it when I find out.

If it’s Americanized, perhaps it’s Jur-coozy-sizzin. No?

:). I’d guess something closer to “jersey-sin”.

Most likely. I used to know a guy who pronounced his name Kreh-ZEW-sky.

The author of the Tightwad Gazette books, Amy Dacyzyn, said her name was pronounced nearly identical to “decision”. So I’d go with “yer-cision”, which looks pretty close to what you already have there.

You got a little bit of a different collection of consonants there (and you forgot a “z”). “Dacyczyn” would be pronounced “dah-TSIH-chin”

A fast & loose (& approximate) guide to Polish pronunciation:

Polish - English
sz = sh
cz = ch
dz = dz (as in the sound made by the final consant cluster in “reds
rz = zh
y = short i
i = long i
ci = chee (an i softens the preceding consonant if it’s a c, s, or z)
si = shee
zi = zhee
dz = j
j = y
w = v (or unvoiced ‘f’ at the end of a word or immediately preceding an unvoiced consonant, as in “Krzyzewski”)
c = ts (as in “tse tse”)
r = rolled “r”

There’s are also cees, esses, and zees with accent marks which are pronounced “ch,” “sh,” and “zh,” respectively. (One again, this is approximate. Polish actually has two different types of “ch,” “sh,” and “zh” sounds. You also have two nasal vowels (an “a” and “e” with a tail) which we’ll ignore.

Note: the combination “sz” appears in many Hungarian names, too. Beware, though, as in Hungarian “sz” is pronounced as “s” and “s” is pronounced as “sh,” the opposite of Polish. So, “Szabó” (“Tailor”) is “SAW-bow” not “SHAW-bow” or “SHAH-bow.”

Hello, Mr. Jurc - sez - whut. :slight_smile: