I’m listening to Jim Coronette, former wrestling manager’s podcast. Don’t care about wrestling, but his chatter before the wresting talk is hilarious, especially his lead-ins to his sponsors!
Okay, back on topic. He was talking about a Japanese wrestler, Takeshita (Tah-kay-she-ta) and says the onscreen graphic of his name says Take-Shit-A. https://youtu.be/OvEWNor9wZw?t=1797
Being Okinawan/Japanese, I have never, ever thought of it that way!
Decades ago, on Tom Snyder (The Late Late Show) laughed out loud and kept asking if it was true his guest the next night/morning was Reverend Abraham Akaka. I got angry because Reverend Akaka was a highly respected and revered pastor and his brother Daniel was a long term Senator who was also high respected.
On a lighter note, my brother and I found Ike’s Pool (billards) supply store and pronounced being in Hawaii we pronounced it ee-kay in the Hawaiian style. It wasn’t until years later that I realized it may have been Ike, like Eisenhower.
My Dad’s name was nickname was Nobu (No-boo), but he said one of his co-workers, a high ranking military officer, would call him No-ball in a heavy Southern accent. He was never sure if it was intentional or not!
You’ve probably heard the joke about someone’s name being ABCDE (A-bee-cee-dee), and there’s someone at my workplace whose name is Abecde
We also have an Albino, which I assume is Al-bee-no
Korean dancer No:ze (pronounced No-jay) added the colon to her name because non-Koreans would call her Nosy or Nose.
I heard her name on TV before I looked her up, so I knew how her name is pronounced. And in respect to her, it’s not a simple as No-jay. More like No-jei, with an accent that can’t be properly romanized.
Mods: Please move this to Pointless Mundane Stuff…I just realized, I posted in the wrong forum.
Getting back to wrestling, Rick Rude acting as an announcer would pronounce wrestler Juventud Guerrero’s first name as “Hoot-n-toot”. Rude wasn’t the only wrestler or announcer mispronouncing his name in that and other ways.
Henry Morgan, a sardonic, somewhat deadpan comic best known for being a game show panelist, once accepted a dare that he could get laughs just by reading a phone book. He opened it to a page full of Chinese names and proceeded to turn each name into a tongue twister.
I remember this specifically because my father, with our own hard-to-pronounce-name, felt that Morgan was simply mocking people with funny names.
My first name is phonetic. Marita. The mispronunciations I hear. Martha. Marta. Maria. Mar-tee-ah. Margarita. Marietta. Marika. Rachel (no, I don’t understand it either).
Reminds me of a joke from the old show “News Radio”. Andy Dick played a terrible radio news reporter who constantly got things wrong. He had just finished reading a news story on the ‘Long Island Lolita’ case, mentioning Joey Buttafuoco. Afterward the station manager comes out and says “for the last time, his name is pronounced Butt-a-FOO-co!”
Just one of the wonderful laughs that show gave us. Not quite on topic but a running joke had the cast not knowing Joe’s last name was ‘Garrelli’ despite it’s frequent use on the show.
Going back further, there was Les Nessman on “WKRP in Cincinnati” who when he was doing sports reporting pronounced ChiChi Rodriguez as Chai (rhymes with “sky”) Chai Rod-ree-QUEZZ (accent on the last syllable, rhymes with PEZ).