# Mispronounced names (NSFW) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 22, 2022, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648 "2022-10-22T23:56:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2022, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/1 "2022-10-22T23:56:50Z")
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](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. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/2 "2022-10-23T00:29:53Z")
> [@Didi44](#): > > Korean dancer No:ze (pronounced No-jay) added the colon to her name because non-Koreans would call her Nosy or Nose. Yeah, putting a colon there isn’t going to help tell non-Koreans to pronounce “ze” as “jay”. ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/3 "2022-10-23T00:43:45Z")
True. LOL 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. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/4 "2022-10-23T00:55:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/5 "2022-10-23T01:11:48Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/6 "2022-10-23T15:06:43Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/7 "2022-10-23T15:12:44Z")
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!” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/8 "2022-10-23T18:38:57Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/9 "2022-10-24T07:19:55Z")
I have never been able to pronounce the Ayn Rand’s first name the way I am told it is supposed to be pronounced. It always comes out “Ann”. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/10 "2022-10-24T07:24:02Z")
How should it be pronounced? I’ve always assumed it rhymes with “pain”. No? ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/11 "2022-10-24T07:52:00Z")
> [@Didi44](#): > > 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. There’s also Takenoshita, which I like better. Take no shit ay! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/12 "2022-10-24T12:21:41Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > How should it be pronounced? I’ve always assumed it rhymes with “pain”. No? Nope. In her own words: “It’s ‘Ayn’: rhymes with swine.” ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/13 "2022-10-25T01:43:09Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/14 "2022-10-25T06:20:12Z")
I’ve always heard Sally Rand [the fan dancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Rand) pronounced like rhyming with band. Edit: Just remembred, I had a professor whose first name was Rand with a hard D. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mispronounced-names-nsfw/973648/15 "2022-10-25T06:24:29Z")
I once had to ship a package to someone named Semenkow. It was probably sim-en-co but we obviously called her semen cow.