# The woman who mispronounced her own name **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 15, 2010, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261 "2010-06-15T04:33:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/121 "2010-07-11T07:26:11Z")
> [@Ms.Hazel\_Ice](#): > > As a high school English teacher […] Originality is nice (my parents gave my siblings and I unique names)[…] Shouldn’t a high school English teacher know better than to say “my parents gave my siblings and \*I \*” ? 😃 > [@](#): > > I suppose in 15 years or so, I should be anticipating 5 variations each on the names Edward, Jacob, and Bella. I can’t even imagine what variations on Edward, Jacob, and Bella parents will come up with! ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/122 "2010-07-11T12:43:25Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > We were half of Simon and Garfunkel … Neil Garfunkel? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/123 "2010-07-12T00:49:17Z")
Although it may indeed cause confusion, it’s impossible by definition to mispronounce your own name, excluding situations of extreme youth, speech impairment, and drug or drink effects. Aside from that, with regard to the “Pru-” part of her pronunciation, I expect it’s an example of dialectical pronunciation. I don’t know which dialects of American English do this, but I have definitely heard people pronounce words like “modern” sort of like “modren”. Linguists call this switching places of the consonant and vowel metathesis, and it’s occurred off and on throughout the history of the language. For instance, Chaucer has _brid_ and _thrid(de)_ where we say “bird” and “third” today. So “Pru-sephonay” may not be correct according to the media standards, but it does appear to have some dialectical cred. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/124 "2010-07-12T16:40:43Z")
> [@Sarah\_Bryan\_Miller](#): > > I am absolutely positive. Cite? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/125 "2010-07-12T20:37:22Z")
> [@Sarah\_Bryan\_Miller](#): > > It’s a family affliction, one applied to one girl per generation in my mother’s (Savannah, Georgia) family: My aunt was Bryan, my grandmother’s cousin was Bryan, my great-grandmother was Bryan… > > Having a name like Bryan definitely builds character. Well, hello. I wondered if you might show up here. That’ll teach me to pop in with drive-by irrelevancies. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/126 "2010-07-13T15:57:13Z")
All I have to say here is if you make up a name for your kid, look it up in a big dictionary after you decide how to spell it. It may end up being a word you don’t know that shouldn’t be anyone’s name- like Chimera. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261/127 "2010-07-14T04:47:28Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > I have a Thai friend who spells her first name Lane, but pronounces it Lani, like the Hawaiian name. I suspect some issue with how to convert her name into English characters. I’ve never heard that as a Thai name, and checking with the Thai wife, she confirms what I was thinking: It’s actually Ranee, a common girls’ name based in Sanskrit that means “queen.” Funny she’d actually spell it with an L, but many Thais really do have problems pronouncing L and R, getting them mixed up even when speaking Thai. Like the old “flied lice” joke; I knew a girl here who could not say “fried rice” in English to save her life, it came out “flied lice” every time. (I explained the old joke to her, which she found amusing.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-woman-who-mispronounced-her-own-name/543261.md?page=6)