# Why are Italian-American names so badly mispronounced, even by their owners? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660 "2005-03-22T00:49:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/141 "2022-10-10T16:25:49Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I don’t know what you mean here. I mean the word Ethnic is used to describe something non white. For example shopping aisles will be named as : 1. Ethnic Haircare : meaning haircare products used by Black / Hispanics. It gives an impression that haircare in general means White haircare products. 2. Ethnic foods : You will not find Italian foods in the Ethnic aisle. Only foods from non-white minorities. In the white vocabulary, Ethnic is code for non-white. Just like Caucasian is code for white. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/142 "2022-10-10T16:27:43Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This one is extremely irritating. He thinks he is pronouncing it the “authentic Italian way” but he is badly botching the Italian _R_ sound. That’s what I was thinking, yet he has the media pronouncing it that way. I guess, as was mentioned, one’s pronunciation of their own name can never be “wrong” but it seems funny / strange that he went out of his way to change his name to something he kind of made up. I’m not, off the top of my head, coming up with an authentic foreign name that people go out of their way to pronounce “accurately” like they do Fieri’s. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/143 "2022-10-10T16:58:03Z")
“Ethnic” often means “referring to any ethnicity other than the dominant / unmarked one.” In the same way that people often wrongly think only other people have accents, they think that only other people have ethnicity. The post **Not\_Insane** wrote in 2010 describes our Italian name perfectly: > [@Not\_Insane](#): > > I have an Italian surname. It is a very simple name of the form CVCVCV. > > I pronounce my name using the Anglicized pronunciation, the one used by all of my relatives with that name and by everyone in the US I’ve met with that name, even unrelated persons. > > Since I don’t speak Italian at all (or more relevantly, don’t speak it as a native language), how could anyone consider the Italian pronunciation to be correct? > … > 2. Most Americans use what they think is the Italian pronunciation of my name, but like many Italian names, it is an exception to the stress rules. I’m so used to it that I don’t even correct people anymore. In our case (and probably theirs), the name has an accent on the final syllable, which is written in Italian. An Italian person, reading Cvcvcv̀, would pronounce it correctly, but Americans almost never write or even allow accents in names. So it got written Cvcvcv, and even Italians would not know how to pronounce it correctly from that. So the American relatives pronounce it as if it were the unrelated accent-less Genoese name. The other Italian family name ended in E in Italy. In English, the final vowel got spelled I and pronounced “ee,” which turns it into a correct but different Italian surname. Think “Abate” (original) vs “Abati” (American). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/144 "2022-10-10T18:20:16Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > “Ethnic” often means “referring to any ethnicity other than the dominant / unmarked one.” In the same way that people often wrongly think only other people have accents, they think that only other people have ethnicity This may be the case, but it was a non sequitur as a response to my post. Yes, sometimes “ethnic” is used to mean “non-white.” That’s not how I was using it and there is really no better term in the context I used it in, in my view. “Ethic” has not lost all its other meanings. > [@am77494](#): > > Just like Caucasian is code for white. It’s not code. It’s a straight-up synonym. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/145 "2022-10-10T21:37:51Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](#): > > I guess, as was mentioned, one’s pronunciation of their own name can never be “wrong” but it seems funny / strange that he went out of his way to change his name to something he kind of made up. He didn’t exactly make it up - he changed his name back to the way his grandfather spelled it when he left Italy. But Guy either doesn’t know how to pronounce it properly or is unable to, which is by no means uncommon. My grandfather’s name is Sicilian. Some of his siblings changed the spelling ( or had it changed) at some point to Anglicize it but although Grandpa and his kids and grandkids all spelled it the correct Sicilian way, they all, every one of them , mispronounced it. To the point where when one of my cousins got married, the born-in-Italy DJ used the correct pronunciation and my family didn’t know who he was talking about for a moment. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/146 "2022-10-10T22:00:21Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > He didn’t exactly make it up - he changed his name back to the way his grandfather spelled it when he left Italy. But Guy either doesn’t know how to pronounce it properly or is unable to, which is by no means uncommon. Funny thing is if he just went by Ferry, it would sound closer than his pronunciation of Fieri to the way Italians say Fieri. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/147 "2022-10-14T02:55:14Z")
It might help to know that “Geddy” Lee uses that name because his original real name, “Gary” was mangled by his Polish mother. While they don’t sound particularly similar, it’s not hard for people to blend together ‘d’ and ‘r’ because the point of articulation is veddy, er, very close. I hear a lot of a ‘d’ sound in some Japanese pronunciations of what we write as ‘r’ as well. So it’s something that’s occurred plenty of times. ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/148 "2022-10-14T04:05:23Z")
I believe Steve Buscemi is on record as saying any way you pronounce his name is okay with him. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/149 "2022-10-14T13:08:40Z")
When I introduce myself in English, I sometimes do so with an Anglicised pronunciation of my German family name. This Anglicised version is homophonous to a very common English word which is normally spelt differently, but it’s still at least a plausible pronunciation of the way the name is spelt in German. By a fortunate coincidence, the etymology of the German word actually means that the English pronunciation is a correct translation of the German name, even though the same word is now different in modern German too. So it all works out quite nicely, even though I pronounce the name differently in German and English. Plus, I get to say something cool, like “The name is [common English word], but spelt in a weird way.” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/150 "2022-10-14T16:48:30Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > > [@am77494](#): > > > > Just like Caucasian is code for white. > > It’s not code. It’s a straight-up synonym. I cannot contradict you [in fact I have seen American police records in which individuals were described as “Caucasian”], but, coincidentally, the other day I was looking through a pile of CDs and one of them had “Caucasian Folk Songs”, so Caucasians can absolutely be “ethnic” as well. Dagestani, sure, Circassian, Georgian. If it were up to me, I would put zero weight on the cops’ ethnic theories (which obviously arise from the prevailing culture), but practically speaking it may be like the reply the guy who asked if he was black or white got: go to L.A., and the cops will let you know. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/151 "2022-10-14T17:03:00Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > > [@am77494](#): > > > > Just like Caucasian is code for white. > > It’s not code. It’s a straight-up synonym. But a heads up: don’t call an Armenian “white” unless you know they self-identify that way. Some do, some don’t, so it’s better not to assume. It’s a controversy within their community. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/152 "2022-10-14T17:13:22Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > the other day I was looking through a pile of CDs and one of them had “Caucasian Folk Songs”, so Caucasians can absolutely be “ethnic” as well. Dagestani, sure, Circassian, Georgian. Those are two definitions of the word “Caucasian.” Lots of words have multiple meanings. “Caucasian,” at least in the United States, is a common synonym for “white.” It’s not just cops. > **[Caucasian - Wiktionary, the free dictionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Caucasian#Adjective)** > 1. Canada, US Of a person: having a white complexion and European ancestry; white ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/153 "2022-10-14T17:44:00Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > > [@Acsenray](#): > > > > > [@am77494](#): > > > > > > Just like Caucasian is code for white. > > > > It’s not code. It’s a straight-up synonym. > > But a heads up: don’t call an Armenian “white” unless you know they self-identify that way. Some do, some don’t, so it’s better not to assume. It’s a controversy within their community. Ethnic groups in America don’t usually get to decide for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/154 "2022-10-14T20:54:58Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > It’s not just non-British names that get mixed up, either. My own surname is a very common, four-letter Scottish-English name that’s perfectly comprehensible to any native English speaker. Me, too! > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Yet in the 200 years of records we have on my family, it’s been spelled five different ways. I only know two different spellings for my last name. It’s _really_ simple. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/155 "2022-10-15T02:32:22Z")
The first four letters of my surname are an English word. Two words, actually, not related and pronounced differently. The family uses pronunciation A, but when my brother went into the Navy people kept using pronunciation B and he got tired of correcting them. A few years later I moved to a different city, and the same thing happened to me. So my brother’s family and mine now use pronunciation B, while my sisters and their families (and our cousins) use pronunciation A. The Paquettes I went to school with pronounced it “paKETT”. When I was working merchandise pickup, I went out into the lobby and called “deCHEZZaray”. A woman replied, “Oh, you say it like my grandpa does!” She pronounced it “deSEEzer”. What I find extremely annoying is people who spell their name “-stein” but pronounce it as is it were spelt “-stien”. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/156 "2022-10-15T17:18:24Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > The family uses pronunciation A, but when my brother went into the Navy people kept using pronunciation B and he got tired of correcting them. That’s a version of what happened to one of my uncles. He was 17 when he signed up with the Armed Services (can’t remember which branch), and it was his first “official” government document. They misspelled it, so he kept the misspelling. ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/157 "2022-10-15T18:46:02Z")
As mentioned by many here, intentional mispronunciation to make it easier for non-native speakers to pronounce is probably the answer. I know how to properly pronounce my surname in Japanese, but only use it when speaking to native speakers or if I’m introducing or referring to myself in Japanese. Out of respect, if someone introduces themselves with the proper pronunciation, I don’t romanize their name, but use the proper pronunciation out of respect. As for whatever pronunciation the speaker uses is correct, I respect the right for Vera Wang to rhyme her last name with bang, but cry at the thousands of years of Chinese heritage and history she disrespects by doing so. Especially since her surname is written with the character for emperor or ruler. As an aside, I’ve been told\* that being Okinawa on my father’s side, our surname, Nakamura is supposed to actually be Nakandakari with different Kanji.\*\*. Being changed to the Japanese pronunciation after Japan annexed Okinawa. _In the newly proclaimed Okinawa Prefecture, the result was the importation of mainlander bureaucrats and educators (at first mostly from Satsuma) to fill all positions of local control. [The use of Ryukyuan languages, deemed “backwards,” was discouraged](https://unseenjapan.com/indigenous-ryukyu/). In Okinawan classrooms, children who spoke in their native tongues were made to wear hogen futa (方言札, dialect cards) around their necks. Pupils were made to police each others’ language usage. Wearing the card was a great source of shame. Native Okinawans whose names had common kanji began to pronounce these as mainland Japanese did for fear of sticking out in an anti-indigenous power structure_ [https://unseenjapan.com/okinawan-names-japan-language-history/](https://unseenjapan.com/okinawan-names-japan-language-history/) \*I can’t find a cite that Nakamura is actually Nakandakari, but other common Ryukyuan names are vastly different from the original. \*\*I believe my Dad meet his relatives when he went to Okinawa to pick up his elder sister’s ashes to be placed in our family tomb. According to my mother, my grandfather was disowned by his family after coming to Hawaii and has never returned to Okinawa. I once asked him through my Dad why he (my grandfather) never returned to Okinawa and told me my grandfather said there’s nothing there for him. _And then, of course, there are the names. Whether a Higa, Kaneshiro (once pronounced Kanagushuku), Oshiro (once Ufugusuku), Miyagi, Aragaki, or Uehara (once Wiibaru), the Okinawan names remain. They serve as a marker for Okinawa’s deep roots, and for a Ryukyuan future that will still surely exist – in whatever form it might eventually take._ [https://unseenjapan.com/okinawan-names-japan-language-history/](https://unseenjapan.com/okinawan-names-japan-language-history/) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/158 "2022-10-17T17:36:31Z")
When you do genealogy research, you can expect to find names,even non-exotic ones, spelt multiple different ways. In the past people spelt names pretty much as they had a fancy to that day. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/159 "2022-10-17T19:34:30Z")
Yep, Shakespeare, for example, didn’t always spell his own name the same way. Spelling wasn’t as sacrosanct in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2022, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660/160 "2022-10-18T09:45:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This one is extremely irritating. He thinks he is pronouncing it the “authentic Italian way” but he is badly botching the Italian _R_ sound. He is getting almost everything else wrong too, including the placement of the stress, the length of the _E_ vowel, and the pronunciation of the _FI_. And his real name is Ferry. It’s quite common when the speaker does not have certain sounds in their own dialect; they do the best they can, but muscle memory isn’t there to make it sound authentic. I get this a lot - I pronounce the name of some (often Spanish) food item as best I can - and with awareness of Spanish pronunciation, but I get people saying they wish I wouldn’t pronounce it like an Englishman. I _am_ an Englishman; I’m doing the best I can within the limitations of what my mouth can do (and in some cases, what my ears can hear - I believe it’s true that if your own dialect doesn’t contain a specific sound, you have trouble even perceiving it). I could probably train myself to pronounce it exactly right, but then if I do that in embedded in the middle of my regular English, it would probably sound like I was putting on a comedy accent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-italian-american-names-so-badly-mispronounced-even-by-their-owners/295660.md?page=9)