# Mispronouncing names



## Matt11111 (Dec 5, 2015)

Some of us have very interesting names. Uncommon names. Hard-to-pronounce names. So I decided to make this thread to see if anyone else has heard their name being mispronounced, especially at competitions. I'll start it off.

In the first round of 2x2 at Manhasset Fall, my name was called. I don't care if people pronounce my last name Pinnock or Pinnick (honestly, I'm not sure if Pinnick is wrong anyway), but at the competition, my name was pronounced Matthew Pine-oak. I had a dendrology unit in science class in sixth grade, so when I heard my name being called, I thought of that one tree near my school. Unsurprisingly, people called me a pine oak during that unit as well.


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## TDM (Dec 5, 2015)

Actually, the only time I've ever heard someone pronounce my name correctly and confidently first time was at a competition - I think it was Daniel Sheppard. But, most of the time my name just gets called out as "Louis" or "TDM", both of which people can usually pronounce correctly.


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## mjm (Dec 5, 2015)

My name's Milo Maher. People will usually get the first name right (occasionally, they'll say /mee-low/), but nobody's ever said my last name correctly. anyway, it's /mar/. That simple.


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## Tyler Comfy Hat (Dec 5, 2015)

My name isn't at all complex, so people never mispronounce it. At least not _anymore._

Back in my early school days however, the other kids used to pronounce both 'L's in my surname (Lloyd), turning it into a two-syllable word; "Luh-loyd". Because to a kid, Having two of the same letter at the begining of a word -especially if they're constonants- makes no darn sense at all. Some of my classmates even tried to insist that I was the one pronouncing it wrong by treating one of the 'L's as silent. Damn you, Welsh heritage!

At least my surname isn't spelt the tradtional way (Llwyd). That would've openened a whole new realm of problems.


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## Cale S (Dec 5, 2015)

I get called Cole or Caleb a lot, and my last name has been pronounced several different ways (my family pronounces it 'shone' for some reason, and my brothers get really irritated when people pronounce it 'shoon' )


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## Torch (Dec 5, 2015)

Literally 70% of the people I know, cubing or not, have trouble with my last name. It's pronounced gauze-low, not go-slow, gus-low, or Glasgow.


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## PJKCuber (Dec 5, 2015)

My name must be the most confusing.It's always spelt wrong, even in India.


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## WACWCA (Dec 5, 2015)

My dad was judging once and when he called Justin Mallari he said Justin Malaria, like the disease


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## Ordway Persyn (Dec 5, 2015)

I've never went to a comp but I'm going to one in January and I can guarantee that people will mispronounce my name.

Heres the pronunciation, Ord - way (basically its pronounced how its spelled) and my last name is just Pearson spelled weirdly.


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## Matt11111 (Dec 5, 2015)

WACWCA said:


> My dad was judging once and when he called Justin Mallari he said Justin Malaria, like the disease



Ouch.


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## MoyuFTW (Dec 5, 2015)

My name is TangLong and people keep calling me tang - long. It's tongue (with an a) - long


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## Tyler Comfy Hat (Dec 5, 2015)

MoyuFTW said:


> My name is TangLong and people keep calling me tang - long. It's tongue (with an a) - long



But "Tonuge" with an A would be pronounced exactly the same as "Tang", so I'm confused. Are "Tang" or "Tonuge" pronounced differently in upside down Faz land? What.


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## NevinsCPH (Dec 5, 2015)

My first name was disaster as it is a very rare name for a first name (the only nevins in whole WCA person archives or the only Nevins Chan that google can find excluding the nevichan twitter)

People go with New-ins, Nay-vin, Nay-vines and many more. The most common one being people forgetting the S at the end of my name. It wasn't a big deal anyway but it just feel awkward when in comp people shout Kevin and I thought people were calling Nevin instead.


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## MoyuFTW (Dec 5, 2015)

Tyler Comfy Hat said:


> But "Tounge" with an A would be pronounced exactly the same as "Tang", so I'm confused. Are "Tang" or "Tounge" pronounced differently in upside down Faz land? What.



Okay just say tongue not tang. It's slightly a ish. The tone goes down. It's hard to explain

What's tounge?


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## Tyler Comfy Hat (Dec 5, 2015)

MoyuFTW said:


> Okay just say tongue not tang. It's slightly a ish. The tone goes down. It's hard to explain
> 
> What's tounge?



Oh okay.

And urrrrr, two decades old in a few days and I still forget how to spell "Tongue". Embarassing.


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## Matt11111 (Dec 5, 2015)

NevinsCPH said:


> My first name was disaster as it is a very rare name for a first name (the only nevins in whole WCA person archives or the only Nevins Chan that google can find excluding the nevichan twitter)
> 
> People go with New-ins, Nay-vin, Nay-vines and many more. The most common one being people forgetting the S at the end of my name. It wasn't a big deal anyway but it just feel awkward when in comp people shout Kevin and I thought people were calling Nevin instead.



Maybe this is just because I live in New York and Nevins Street is a subway station, but I don't see what's so hard about pronouncing your name.


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## NevinsCPH (Dec 5, 2015)

Matt11111 said:


> Maybe this is just because I live in New York and Nevins Street is a subway station, but I don't see what's so hard about pronouncing your name.



Nevins street is probably what helps. Also the fact that I come from asian background really doesn't help with the situation. As if I'm an asian with a super rare english name.


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## Dene (Dec 6, 2015)

Ha don't I know all about mispronounced names.


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## penguinz7 (Dec 6, 2015)

Cale S said:


> I get called Cole or Caleb a lot, and my last name has been pronounced several different ways (my family pronounces it 'shone' for some reason, and my brothers get really irritated when people pronounce it 'shoon' )



I've never though about it before, but to be honest I probably would've pronounced it like Skoon. I guess I'm just thinking of the word schooner.


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## Yuxuibbs (Dec 6, 2015)

Multiple times at every single competition unless the runners were always people that I knew.
It ranges from almost right to "how do you even get that pronunciation from this spelling?"


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## tux1230 (Dec 6, 2015)

at a competition today my name (rasmus guldager) was pronounced rasmus gold-aker, anyway... that was a person from bellgium, my name is danish


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## Matt11111 (Dec 6, 2015)

Doesn't Chen sound like it looks?


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## qqwref (Dec 6, 2015)

A lot of people seem to have trouble with my last name... but it's mostly older people like my parents might talk to. Young people (such as cubers) get it right most of the time. (It's got-leeb.)



Yuxuibbs said:


> Multiple times at every single competition unless the runners were always people that I knew.
> It ranges from almost right to "how do you even get that pronunciation from this spelling?"


I'll be honest, I would have absolutely no clue how to pronounce the second half of Yuxuan.



Cale S said:


> my last name has been pronounced several different ways (my family pronounces it 'shone' for some reason[...])


That reminds me of Dutch pronunciation - "oo" is an o like in "shone", but "oe" is the sound that we would write as "oo". (It does seem to be the Dutch word for "clean", so there you go.)



Torch said:


> Literally 70% of the people I know, cubing or not, have trouble with my last name. It's pronounced gauze-low, not go-slow, gus-low, or Glasgow.


Oh, it's not gozz-low?


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## Hssandwich (Dec 18, 2015)

Some kid called me Harry Say-vij. I suppose savage is supposed to be pronounced Sa-vij instead of Sa-vage, but have they never heard the word savage before?


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## WACWCA (Dec 18, 2015)

Sometimes people just add letters to my last name, they will say like Callander or Callahan. I dont know why they say that when its obviously just Callan


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## Mikel (Dec 19, 2015)

Thankfully I've never pronounced a name wrong before. I'm a blessing to cubers everywhere.


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## hamfaceman (Dec 19, 2015)

Nobody knows how my last name is pronounced. Usually people pronounce it as Mock Town, which I'm almost used to now. People sometimes get it so bad that I don't even realize that they're calling my name. At one competition, my first name was pronounced as HAM-ish (as in the meat) like a billion times.


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## Ranzha (Dec 19, 2015)

hamfaceman said:


> Nobody knows how my last name is pronounced. Usually people pronounce it as Mock Town, which I'm almost used to now. People sometimes get it so bad that I don't even realize that they're calling my name. At one competition, my first name was pronounced as HAM-ish (as in the meat) like a billion times.



People sometimes think my last name is your first name.


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## hamfaceman (Dec 19, 2015)

Ranzha said:


> People sometimes think my last name is your first name.



I suppose it does look slightly similar.


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## DJ4Y (Dec 19, 2015)

Hssandwich said:


> Some kid called me Harry Say-vij. I suppose savage is supposed to be pronounced Sa-vij instead of Sa-vage, but have they never heard the word savage before?


Eek, that would be me, it was meant to be a joke buut I saw that you were annoyed and took it literally. Sorry [emoji14]


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## DJ4Y (Dec 19, 2015)

DJ4Y said:


> Eek, that would be me, it was meant to be a joke buut I saw that you were annoyed and took it literally. Sorry [emoji14]


To add on this, I was the guy who asked if I could call you Say-vij not someone else who actually thought your name was Sayvij


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## Hssandwich (Dec 19, 2015)

DJ4Y said:


> To add on this, I was the guy who asked if I could call you Say-vij not someone else who actually thought your name was Sayvij


Nah, it wasn't you. I can't remember the name of the person who it was though. But I do remember that they had an extremely bad bowl haircut


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## DJ4Y (Dec 19, 2015)

Hssandwich said:


> Nah, it wasn't you. I can't remember the name of the person who it was though. But I do remember that they had an extremely bad bowl haircut [emoji14]


Oh shame, yay, not me [emoji14]

Also, I wonder if anyone will ever pronounce my first name wrong, that would be quite something xD


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## Torch (Dec 20, 2015)

qqwref said:


> Oh, it's not gozz-low?



Maybe it's just my southern-ness speaking, but I would pronounce gauze and gozz the same way.


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## MattMcConaha (Dec 23, 2015)

My name is pronounced exactly like Matthew McConaughey, but people like to trail off at the end instead. I don't really care, though, I don't correct anyone unless they ask me to.


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## Boneless (Mar 9, 2016)

Although I've never been to a competition, I've never had my last name mispronounced in general, but it's been misspelled more times than correctly spelled. My last name is Humphrey, which is a mildly common name, but an uncommon spelling. I've gotten Humphrie, Humphries, Humphreys, Humphry, Humphery, Humpfree, Humfleet, Hugfree (seriously), Humfree, Humfries, the list goes on.


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## henrysavich (Mar 10, 2016)

Boneless said:


> Although I've never been to a competition, I've never had my last name mispronounced in general, but it's been misspelled more times than correctly spelled. My last name is Humphrey, which is a mildly common name, but an uncommon spelling. I've gotten Humphrie, Humphries, Humphreys, Humphry, Humphery, Humpfree, Humfleet, Hugfree (seriously), Humfree, Humfries, the list goes on.



Firstly, nice bump

Secondly, I've never seen that name spelled any way other than Humphrey, so I wouldn't call it an uncommon spelling


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## Boneless (Mar 10, 2016)

henrysavich said:


> Firstly, nice bump
> 
> Secondly, I've never seen that name spelled any way other than Humphrey, so I wouldn't call it an uncommon spelling



I've always considered it a "secondary" spelling, because Humphries is the most common misspelling I get.


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## DGCubes (Mar 10, 2016)

It's pretty hard to mispronounce "Daniel Goodman," but there was one competition where a few of my friends and I were all being called up by our YouTube names. To say the least, it was pretty amusing to hear someone shouting "DGCUBES" from across the room.

I feel pretty bad for my friend, Daniel Karnaukh. The last name is just pronounced car-nauk, pretty much how it's spelled, but he's been called "Karnooki" and "Karnaw." And then some people who know they can't pronounce it just go with "Daniel K."


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## Matt11111 (Mar 10, 2016)

DGCubes said:


> It's pretty hard to mispronounce "Daniel Goodman," but there was one competition where a few of my friends and I were all being called up by our YouTube names. To say the least, it was pretty amusing to hear someone shouting "DGCUBES" from across the room.
> 
> I feel pretty bad for my friend, Daniel Karnaukh. The last name is just pronounced car-nauk, pretty much how it's spelled, but he's been called "Karnooki" and "Karnaw." And then some people who know they can't pronounce it just go with "Daniel K."



A K and an H as the last two letters of a word... not the best combination. But he definitely has the potential to become world-class, so people had better start learning how to pronounce his name.

Or we could just keep calling him Derpy Cuber.

One time in class, we were talking about our names, and one girl said her last name, Auerbach, has also been mispronounced many ways, one of them being... Archie-barchie. I don't even...


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## asacuber (Mar 10, 2016)

DGCubes said:


> It's pretty hard to mispronounce "Daniel Goodman," but there was one competition where a few of my friends and I were all being called up by our YouTube names. To say the least, it was pretty amusing to hear someone shouting "DGCUBES" from across the room.
> 
> I feel pretty bad for my friend, Daniel Karnaukh. The last name is just pronounced car-nauk, pretty much how it's spelled, but he's been called "Karnooki" and "Karnaw." And then some people who know they can't pronounce it just go with "Daniel K."



yes it is.


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## brunovervoort (Mar 10, 2016)

My name in Flemish accent: /'bryno vər'vo:rt/
One time at a German comp: /'bʀuno 'fe:fot/ more or less


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## Boneless (Mar 10, 2016)

I extend my deepest condolences to every person with a Polish last name that never gets pronounced right. Two of my friends' last names are Koperczak and Przytulski. The first is pronounced Koe-per-zack, and the second has a 99.9% mispronouncing likelihood if you haven't heard it before. Not only are the P and R silent, but the Z doesn't make a traditional Z sound. It's pronounced Shi-toll-skee, but Pruh-toll-skee is what people say when they see it. Speaking of Eastern European names, while it wasn't mispronounced, a kid in my elementary school a while back had the unfortunate last name of Trotsky.


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## Tycubing (Mar 17, 2016)

My first name is extremely easy to pronounce(unless you are 3), Tyler. My last name, though, is where 93% of people butcher my name. It is Specht, which translates into woodpecker in German. At first reading, it looks like Spe- ch - t, but it is pronounced Spe- kt.


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## Tony Fisher (Mar 17, 2016)

You might think that mine would be pretty easy but often people wrongly assume I am Anthony without even asking. In addition my name card at the Dutch Cube Day is wrong 90% of the time. Instead of Tony there is Toni or Anthony (again) and instead of Fisher is often Fischer. The funniest one though was someone on the twisty puzzle forum who thought I was Fissure.


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## Matt11111 (Mar 17, 2016)

Tony Fisher said:


> You might think that mine would be pretty easy but often people wrongly assume I am Anthony without even asking. In addition my name card at the Dutch Cube Day is wrong 90% of the time. Instead of Tony there is Toni or Anthony (again) and instead of Fisher is often Fischer. The funniest one though was someone on the twisty puzzle forum who thought I was Fissure.



You know, this makes me wonder how we ended up with multiple spellings and variations for just about any name in existence.


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## DGCubes (Mar 17, 2016)

Tony Fisher said:


> You might think that mine would be pretty easy but often people wrongly assume I am Anthony without even asking. In addition my name card at the Dutch Cube Day is wrong 90% of the time. Instead of Tony there is Toni or Anthony (again) and instead of Fisher is often Fischer. The funniest one though was someone on the twisty puzzle forum who thought I was Fissure.



What, but don't people know who you are by name anyway? That's pretty funny though. I have another two to add to this thread (not my name but my friends'): Eva Kato (the "e" in Eva is pronounced like a hard "a," not a hard "e," and the "a" in Kato is a soft "a" sound) was mispronounced Evan Kayto. And they accidentally wrote down Allison Yu instead of Allison Li for her card for 3x3 round 2. I still don't understand that one.


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## Matt11111 (Mar 17, 2016)

DGCubes said:


> What, but don't people know who you are by name anyway? That's pretty funny though. I have another two to add to this thread (not my name but my friends'): Eva Kato (the "e" in Eva is pronounced like a hard "a," not a hard "e," and the "a" in Kato is a soft "a" sound) was mispronounced Evan Kayto. And they accidentally wrote down Allison Yu instead of Allison Li for her card for 3x3 round 2. I still don't understand that one.



Oh yeah, I always thought the E in Eva was a long E rather than a long A, until you said, "Eva beat Derpy!" at Manhasset Fall.


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## Tycubing (Mar 17, 2016)

Well, welcome to the 21st century everyone...


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## YouCubing (Mar 28, 2016)

My name (Noah Joiner) has been managed to be worked into "Noah Joner". Same goes for my dad. :/ I tend to be better at pronouncing names than everyone else for some reason. But I still don't know how to say Chandramohan.


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## guysensei1 (Mar 28, 2016)

I have a chinese name. However you can think to mispronounce it, it's been done.


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## shadowslice e (Mar 28, 2016)

guysensei1 said:


> I have a chinese name. However you can think to mispronounce it, it's been done.



Oh god whenever someone sees my full name they're just like wat (but I'm mostly ok cause English first and last name- though sometimes people in Malaysia mispronounce that  not usually though and that's only when I go back)


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## YouCubing (Apr 9, 2016)

guysensei1 said:


> I have a chinese name. However you can think to mispronounce it, it's been done.


I honestly don't know how you mispronounce Wong Chong Wen :/


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## AlexMaass (Apr 9, 2016)

YouCubing said:


> I honestly don't know how you mispronounce Wong Chong Wen :/


I guess they pronounced it "wrong"


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## tx789 (Apr 9, 2016)

My first name is always pronounced wrong by those unfamiliar with it. It's always the middle syllable.


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## Matt11111 (Apr 10, 2016)

tx789 said:


> My first name is always pronounced wrong by those unfamiliar with it. It's always the middle syllable.



*clicks WCA profile* Uhhhh...


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