When I was young, I had a friend whose last name was pronounced “tah-HAH-check” and I would like to look him up on Facebook or the like, but I don’t know how he spelled it. It was a slavic name, with a lot of consonants and one or two vowels, like ‘tjazgik’ or something like that, but I haven’t clue what the actual spelling was.
Do any of our slavic dopers recognize that name?
I’m not Slavic, I just like reading about the histories of surnames and such, but I’m no expert so I could be/am probably wrong. What about this?
Tuhacek/Tuháček
This is a Czech name and doesn’t fit the description you gave of few vowels, but I think the pronunciation would be similar.
I haven’t tried it with a “u”, I will give it a shot. I lost contact with him when I was seven or eight, so I really don’t ever remember seeing it spelled out. My brother agrees on the pronunciation though.
Tkachuk, As in the hockey player?
Is that pronounced tah-HAH-check?
There seem to be a fair number of Tkachuks on Facebook; just look around until you see one that might be him, is my guess.
Most NHL announcers- and the player himself - pronounce it “ka-chuck” but that doesn’t mean it’s “originally” pronounced that way; he’s of Ukranian descent, though.
I think it would be hilarious if your friend turns out to be Keith Tkachuk.
Nope. His name wasn’t Keith, and he would be considerably older, 60-65.
It wouldn’t be Tkachuk, in any case; in Ukrainian it’s approximately ka-CHOOK, almost like a fake sneeze.