# Spelling of an English place name **URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-of-an-english-place-name/976102 **Category:** Factual Questions **Created:** [December 6, 2022, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-of-an-english-place-name/976102 "2022-12-06T18:21:49Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 8
### Author: ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense) #### Post date: [December 7, 2022, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-of-an-english-place-name/976102/8 "2022-12-07T15:20:39Z")
In a column entitled “An Englishman’s Name is his Castle,” from (I think) _Life_ magazine circa the early 1970s, the author gave numerous examples of the unexpepcted pronunciations of many English family and place names. (I’m pretty sure this was before Monty Python’s Throatwarbler Mangrove bit.) I _think_ I had come across Featherstonehaugh before that in reading P.G. Wodehouse, whose character Ukridge has that as a middle name. And I _think_ my father had explained that it was pronounced Fanshaw. What I learned from the column was that different branches of the Featherstonehaugh family pronounce it differently (of course), and that while Fanshaw may be more common, other people say Festonhay or Feerstonhaw. (What I also learned from trying to find the original article is that, without remembering, I wrote a nearly identical post here 17 years ago.) > [@Do Brits sometimes change pronunciation of their names for social climbing?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/6): > > Fan-shaw is the most common pronunciation of Feathersonehaugh. But some branches of the family use Fes-ton-hay and others Feer-ston-haw. > [@Do Brits sometimes change pronunciation of their names for social climbing?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-brits-sometimes-change-pronunciation-of-their-names-for-social-climbing/337504/20): > > My cite for the variant pronunciations of Featherstonehaugh was an article that appeared in Life magazine (I think) sometime in the late 1960s or early '70s, called “An Englishman’s Name is His Castle.” It humourously examined the unexpected pronunciations of British names, many of which are well known (Leicester pronounced Lester, Worcester pronounced Wooster, etc.) Another of the other family name examples it gave was Cholmondley, pronounced Chumley. The author theorized that if Minnesota we… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spelling-of-an-english-place-name/976102)._