12 ms·

Put an end to people mispronouncing your name

122 points by obvio 12y ago

pessimizer 12y ago
I've liked the way some people have mispronounced my name. Answering to a mispronounced name feels like wearing a wig to me; it's fun, and it makes me feel more exotic than I am.
timsayshey 12y ago
Nice, reminds me of a Brian Regan sketch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8BoYEgy1I&t=4m11s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8BoYEgy1I&t=4m11s
strozykowski 12y ago
As a bearer of an apparently hard-to-pronounce name, this looks interesting, but I don't know that I would do this.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  If it's the same name as your HN username, I don't see any obvious way to mispronounce it, other than whether the first 'o' is long or short. Is that the bit people mispronounce?
  - Kluny 12y ago
    I'm guessing any pronunciation errors are caused by people misreading it and skipping letters or adding extra ones.
    - strozykowski 12y ago
      This is pretty close to what happens. It's generally phonetic, and yet there seems to be a wide variety of first pronunciations, which deviate from the phonetic by several syllables either way.
  - vitd 12y ago
    My Polish friends tell me that speaking in Polish "ow" is pronounced like the English word "off" (or maybe "of"? I forget) instead of the English word "ow". So "off-ski" or "uv-ski" instead of "ow-ski", at least for some of them.
- anuleczka 12y ago
  Same here (Polish names unite!). I usually get embarrassed by the amount of attention mine will get. Using this tool feels like it would just add even more attention to it.
  - gnosek 12y ago
    My last name is actually simple to pronounce but I usually ask to "just call me Greg", as Grzegorz is probably the epitome of unpronounceable Polish names. Still, I'm not sure if I'd ever use this tool. Seems somewhat pretentious, even if useful.
    - anuleczka 12y ago
      Maybe it's a cultural difference? I can almost see people in the States use this, but anyone in Poland would be laughed off.
      - gnosek 12y ago
        Probably. If you're Polish and you see a Polish name, you instantly know how to pronounce it. In the US It's more more hit-or-miss due to ethnical diversity and the English language itself. Come to think of it, I'd like other people to use this site, but still wouldn't use it myself. Maybe it's because so far I can't see a way to mispronounce my last name and I've essentially given up on my first name.
- cezary 12y ago
  Another -ski here. Sometimes there's room for varying pronunciations of the same name. I grew up pronouncing my last name the way my non-English speaking parents thought it should be pronounced in English. It wasn't until college that I realized there was an easier way to pronounce it.
- reinhardt 12y ago
  The ultimate challenge: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.
  - minopret 12y ago
    Pronounced "author of Flow"
hluska 12y ago
My last name looks hard to pronounce so I'd technically be their target, but unfortunately, I'm not sure that I'd actually set this up. Cool idea though!!
TheLoneWolfling 12y ago
I actually like that my name is hard to pronounce (as in: I have yet to hear someone pronounce it correctly without being told). It means that I instantly know when the person on the phone doesn't know me.
mattzito 12y ago
Yeah, I think it's a clever concept, but it seems almost egotistical to say, "Look, I care enough about how you pronounce my last name to embed a link in my email sig" Many people classically mispronounced my name - it's not a big deal, I move on. If we're not going to be having many conversations where you say my last name, I'm not even going to correct you.
- CocaKoala 12y ago
  I dunno; as somebody who's name gets mispronounced essentially all the time, I'm pretty sensitive about trying to pronounce other people's names properly. If they embed the pronunciation in their email, then a) I don't have to ask, and b) I can practice on my own time with a reference to make sure I have it correct. It's nice of them.
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    Yeah, I actually don't care if people mispronounce my name at all, but I really dislike mispronouncing other peoples' names, and I also really dislike putting other people in the position to struggle with the pronunciation, then if they get it wrong, I'm in the awkward position of either correcting them and causing them to feel bad about something I don't care about or (for people with whom I will be having an ongoing relationship), let them continue mispronouncing my name until they hear someone else (potentially me), pronounce it correctly (potentially making them feel even worse for all the times they made the mistake). It would certainly be nice to have a database of names and pronunciations. That said, this does not seem like an ideal solution to me, because it sorta has some of the same problems that just telling people how your name is pronounced has - makes it seem like a bigger deal than it actually is, possibly won't work anyway, etc. Name pronunciation is probably just a bad situation in general.
    - CocaKoala 12y ago
      Yeah, for sure this is probably not the be-all-end-all solution to the problem of mispronounced names; I'm guessing that it's trying to be the email equivalent of introducing yourself (and thus providing the proper pronunciation so people have it), but it's not quite the seamless marriage of sound and text that I think people are hoping for.
andremat 12y ago
Remembers me of "How do you pronounce 'Bjarne Stroustrup?'": http://www.stroustrup.com/pronounciation.wav http://www.stroustrup.com/pronounciation.wav
- commandar 12y ago
  "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux."
  - ternaryoperator 12y ago
    "Hello, this is Richard Stallman and I pronounce Linux as GNU/Linux."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mariusz79 12y ago
My problem is not with people mispronouncing my name but modifying it to something easier for them.. No you may not call me Mario, or Martin. Mispronounce it! I don't care, just don't change it to something different!
- PeterGriffin 12y ago
  Or you can adopt a short nickname everyone can say right, and put the entire problem behind you. There are more important things in this short life. A name is just a bunch of random sounds so when someone talks, you know they mean you.
  - oblio 12y ago
    His name is probably "Marius". That's about as short as it gets as a name...
    - PeterGriffin 12y ago
      It's a great name, but it has three syllables and is uncommon enough for people to wonder if they should pronounce the "s" as he himself demonstrated. There's a reason you know William Gates and William Clinton as Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. Richard Cheney knows short name is so important, he'd rather be called "Dick" rather than his full name, "Richard". Short always wins. Mark isn't bad, by the way. Marius "Mark" Capone. Yup. Great.
      - CocaKoala 12y ago
        It's pretty easy to imagine that somebody might get attached to their given name; maybe they were named for their grandparent, of whom they have a lot of fond memories. Maybe it's a connection to their family that they really cherish. Maybe they just really like the way their full name flows together. Suggesting that somebody "just change" their name to something that's only vaguely related because "it's just a collection of random syllables" seems to kind of miss the point of a name.
sophacles 12y ago
One thing this solves is the pronunciation of odd spellings of names, and to an extent, names that are foreign to the recipient (e.g. to an anglophone many eastern European and Asian names don't have an immediately decipherable pronunciation from spelling). However, one of the problems it doesn't help with, is that different languages and language families have sounds that are not used in other languages. This means people will still get your name wrong, because they don't necessarily know how to make those sounds, nor do they even know how to hear the subtle distinctions - e.g. the classic r/l confusion, or my own inability to get tones right when trying to learn mandarin words/phrases. I guess what I'm saying is I don't think anyone should expect this to suddenly make everyone pronounce their name perfectly all of a sudden.
- taejo 12y ago
  People with such names might adapt them to be pronounceable (I do: my name has an English vowel which doesn't exist in German, and I introduce myself with a German approximation when I'm speaking German). But even the pronounceable version might not have an obvious correspondence with the written name. For example Nguyen might be happy being called [wɪn] rather than [ŋʷĩəŋ], but many English speakers will say something like ['guyɪn].
stefanu 12y ago
There is one advantage in people mispronouncing your name though. In my experience, people within a group tend to converge towards one pronunciation or variation of your name. On a random encounter in public or out-of-the group environment, if someone is addressing you, you know which group he/she is from, based on the pronunciation he/she used.
momodomo 12y ago
Sounds like a good way to solve a corner case in speech recognition: speech to text for names. In reverse, it could also improve speech synthesis for personal robots that would speak the names of their users.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
xienze 12y ago
Mispronouncing someone's name is understandable. What gets me is people misspelling my name... after they've worked with me for years... and seen my name hundreds of times...
- robalfonso 12y ago
  I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. My last name is not hard to pronounce but if you haven't seen it you can pick 3/4 ways to spell it...but if I've worked with you for years and my email is firstinitial.lastname@ it drives me kind of crazy when I see people misspelling it.
  - icambron 12y ago
    My first name get misspelled more commonly than it's spelled correctly. I don't mind that so much from a personal relationships standpoint (it's not an intuitive spelling), but it's caused me real issues. The pharmacy had my name misspelled such that I couldn't fill proscriptions and it was really hard to fix. My ISP spelled it wrong when creating my account. The list goes on. And my name even has the "standard" spelling; I can't imagine what happens to people who don't.
    - bby 12y ago
      Cambron instead of Cameron? o_O
- x1798DE 12y ago
  I'm even very forgiving of this. In America, I feel like every name has a few different variants, especially anything that had to be transliterated from another character set (even the German name Müller comes through sometimes as Mueller and sometimes as Muller). Because they're so often some Anglicized version of some foreign name, it's hard to have an intuition about the right way to spell many names - even something simple like Goldman vs. Goldmann, Green vs. Greene. I imagine that most people store a name in their brain as how they pronounce it, plus some hint about the spelling if they've been burned before ("Hmm... I remember there's a silent j in there somewhere, but where..."). Names are tough in our wonderful melting pot, but it's a small price to pay for having every kind of ethnic food available in all our major cities (and in many of our minor ones).
mariocesar 12y ago
How HN users will pronounce my full name: Mario César Señoranis ? Some suggest that this feels pretentious to suggest the correct pronunciation, however I always research the correct pronunciation for all persons I'm presented. From my side I like it, is a courtesy, is about good manners. Not getting mad about someone mispronounce your name is courteous as research the correct pronunciation for others name
HorizonXP 12y ago
I will never expect anyone to pronounce my legal first name, Xitij.
- johngalt 12y ago
  Zih-tidge is my guess.
  - nly 12y ago
    I'd guess zeetee, silent J
  - HorizonXP 12y ago
    Close. Kshee-teej, where the 't' is a soft 't' sound, almost like in the word 'thumb'. Hard to explain since English doesn't make distinctions between how consonants can sound.
jib 12y ago
I mispronounce my own name most of the time. When I'm speaking English (which is 99% of the time I guess) I just use the English pronounciation, because it is easier, and who cares, really?
- MatthewWilkes 12y ago
  I used to do this when living abroad. I always liked it, it reminded me of how arbitrary names and borders are whenever I used it.
gsharma 12y ago
Here is something similar, but it uses text rather than voice and only has Indian names so far. http://www.howdoyousaythatagain.com/ http://www.howdoyousaythatagain.com/
lifeformed 12y ago
I like this kind of project. Small in scope, quick to understand, attention-getting. It seems like a fun thing to make.
johngalt 12y ago
Honestly this seems really pretentious. My last name is almost impossible. Even people who know me tend to just abbreviate it. Whenever I meet someone new who stumbles over my name. I just smile and say 'Don't worry about it, I said it wrong the first time too.' Then give the correct pronunciation. It's a good way to break the ice. Conversely sending someone a link on how to correctly pronounce your name just screams 'I'm impossible to get along with'.
- stevekemp 12y ago
  My wife changed her name on marriage at least partially because her surname (Finnish) is hard to pronounce for random people here in the UK. (She's a doctor so she'd has to introduce herself with it on a constant basis to patients - "Hello I'm Dr. Xxxx" - Now she has a surname that is easy to pronounce and a forename people often get wrong.)
quarterwave 12y ago
Several languages use compound nouns, proper and common. These cause pronunciation problems when the phrase is read atomically, instead of by parsing. For example, German armbunduhr is easily understood as arm+bund+uhr = clock around arm, or wrist watch. Since I speak languages that also build up compound nouns (e.g; chair = four+legs), I have no trouble recognizing the need to parse in other languages.
- koesterd 12y ago
  It's Armbanduhr, though. So it's more like Armband (wristband) and Uhr (clock). But your solution is at least equally clever! I never thought of that.
nat 12y ago
I don't think this will help as much as they hope it will. In my experience, people are generally incapable of pronouncing anything, even when it is said to their face. My name is Nat, which is about as simple a name as you could ask for. But quite often, I will introduce myself, "Hi, I'm Nat", and the response will be "Nice to meet you, Nate". My wife experiences it too (even from her mother!), so I don't think my pronunciation is the problem here. Is this kind of vowel sloppiness more common in the US? Or should I just take the hint and change my name?
- shazow 12y ago
  Or even worse: When a barista takes my name for my order, I say "Andrey." Usually they'll spell it "Andre" but whatever. Five minutes later, more often than not, they call out "Aubrey." That's reading their own handwriting. You can't explain that. :P
  - CocaKoala 12y ago
    Yeah, names in coffeeshops is an entirely separate issue; trying to hear a name when there's a lot of background noise and a hard time limit before it becomes awkward and other customers get angry about the line being held up is pretty rough. I've actually taken to giving them my full legal first name as opposed to the nickname I usually go by, because the nickname is phonetically ambiguous and the full name isn't.
  - CodeMage 12y ago
    It can get worse than that ;) I originally come from Serbia, but I spent the last 14 years in Chile, where most people seemed to choke on my name: Vojislav. When pronounced correctly, it's "voice love", but nobody outside the territory of ex-Yugoslavia knows how to read it correctly. When it came to buying coffee and stuff like that, I had the choice of explaining my name ad nauseum or adopting an easier one. I decided to call myself "Boris", thanks to telemarketers who would recover from my name by changing it to something they could deal with ;-) Anyway, that worked quite fine for years and years, until it started failing, ironically at the Starbucks inside a mall with the highest concentration of tourists and immigrants. I would say "Boris" and two times out of five they would write down "Maurice". The cherry on top inevitable came five minutes later, when a different barista would call out "Mauricio". Fortunately, I moved before I gave in to temptation to do what a friend of mine did on a regular basis: give "Spongebob" as his name :P
vitoreiji 12y ago
It's remarkable that I still don't know if I should pronounce "names" or "name-zee".
- jmillikin 12y ago
  I assume it's nah-mez, rhyming with the name Ramez.
onedognight 12y ago
This reminds me of the old recording from Linus[0]. > "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux!" Does he still pronounce it this way? [0] http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux.wav http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux...
dctoedt 12y ago
About a year ago (or so), I added a parenthetical, (My last name is pronounced "Tate"), to my business cards and email sig block. I've had several people comment approvingly. That said, I do wish my German ancestors had changed either the spelling or the pronunciation when they came to the U.S. in the 19th century. I didn't do it myself when I was younger for fear of family disapproval, and by now my professional "brand" is under the existing spelling. Interestingly, my son, who's just starting his career, brushes off my suggestion that he change the spelling.
- philwelch 12y ago
  Toedt (Tödt?), if my German pronunciation is correct, isn't exactly "Tate" either. But it's close enough for English.
joesmo 12y ago
This assumes that, given the right pronunciation, people will be able to pronounce your name correctly. That's just not reality. I've corrected many a person many a time only to have them repeat the same pronunciation back to me as they did before I corrected them two seconds ago. Finally, I just gave up. Now I have two first names. EDIT: Also happens a lot on voicemails, seconds after they've clearly heard my first name pronounced (the last name I don't mind much as it is unusual).
lomnakkus 12y ago
Hah! I have a name which I have literally never heard a non-native speaker (of my first language) pronounce correctly. As far as I understand it, the problem isn't so much that people haven't heard you pronounce your own name, it's more to do with the fact(?) that -- unless they've been raised in a similar "sound-environment" -- they literally cannot hear the subtleties of the pronunciation (e.g. tongue/lip positioning, etc.). I've had this experience (in reverse) when trying to pronounce Chinese and Arabic which have subleties which are very foreign to my native language.
junto 12y ago
Funnily enough, as per your example "Powell"; this is impossible for Germans to get right. If you prenouce that the English way they would write it "Paul". They would prenounce "Powell" as "Pohvel".
Walkman 12y ago
This is just pure genius! I have been fighting with people for a long time pronouncing my name. Now, I just put a signature and I'm done explaining!
gravity13 12y ago
War-hole, like holes. Andy War-hole.
laurentoget 12y ago
If you are that sensitive to people pronouncing your name correctly and your name is not bob or chris, leaving the US is probably your best bet. I certainly gave up long ago.
ibrad 12y ago
My name is simple enough to be pronounced by anyone, at least that's what I thought. Then I realize in the US people had a hardtime remembering it because for them it is unusual. Now I try to pronounce it the American way just so my name isn't the center of the conversation. I get surprised when I make a mistake and tell someone the correct way of pronouncing it and they get right the first time.
adnam 12y ago
Despite this, I live in a country where my surname is impossible to pronounce correctly.
jakub_g 12y ago
Orthogonal note: when in doubt how to pronounce someone's name, you can use IVONA Text-to-Speech [1] if you know the origin, or Google Translate for pronunciation (GT often can infer the language but this can be misleading). [1] http://www.ivona.com/en/ http://www.ivona.com/en/
kyro 12y ago
Pretty clever idea. My 4-letter nickname, Kyro, gets mispronounced 10 out of 10 times. It's pronounced kero, like hero, but most pronounce it kairo. At first it was irritating, but I later realized it was a great conversation starter. "Kairo, where are you from?" "Egypt" "Haha, like Cairo! Have you been?" Happy it worked out that way...
smackfu 12y ago
I have an Irish "Mc" prefix name. There's a 50/50 chance someone will pronounce it with the wrong stress, and there is no "correct" way. Just tradition. So that's fun. I don't think this service would help though, since people think they know how to pronounce it. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73900/when-does-the-name-prefix-mc-take-stress http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73900/when-does-t...
batmansbelt 12y ago
Hilarious. I was wondering how to pronounce Dusan this morning and couldn't find out on You Tube. http://namez.com/search?q=dusan http://namez.com/search?q=dusan
golden_apples 12y ago
This is a really nice idea. I was working on a similar project a few years, audioname.com. The trick is in networking with larger social service and building integrations so that people can share their name's pronunciation everywhere that their name is shared, which is unfortunately fragmented across the web at the moment. It would be nice to be able to highlight a name, search for it in this database, and play an audio file from a browser extension, for example. Or from an email client, or a linkedin profile, or wherever. Having to visit this site to look up a name is enough of a barrier that once the novelty wears off, I can't see it being too well used.
Udo 12y ago
It's impossible for an English speaker to pronounce my last name, whether they heard it before or not. Heck, I can't even pronounce it myself without falling back into German speech mode. But what's more important: it really doesn't matter to me how you pronounce it. Do people care about it that much?
Jemaclus 12y ago
I once went to church with a friend of mine for six weeks, because he was shy and didn't want to go to church by himself. We get there, and this woman walks up to me. Her: "What's your name? Me: "Brian" Her: "Brett! Nice to meet you, Brett. What's your last name, Brett?" Me: "(my last name)" Her: "Well, it is SO nice to meet you, Brett Psycho." I was too flabbergasted to respond properly. Even worse, we had the exact same conversation each week for the next six weeks. She couldn't even be bothered to remember my discombobulated name.
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
Names have power. Why would I want anyone to be able to summon me so easily?
AdamGrey 12y ago
Like everything, this will take a bit of time. Recording your name, attaching to your email signature and allowing people to hear it a few times, in their own comfort and on their own time, will help them to get it eventually. Once everyone will have their name recorded, it will raise the issue and get people to make an effort and realize it is important. Now, there is only nothing, so...
krupan 12y ago
I looked at the Croatian soccer team (since I lived there for a while and speak a bit of the language) and I was disappointed you have the Americanized spellings for the names. For example, it's Ivan Perišić, not Ivan Perisic :-)
ludamad 12y ago
I'm noticing some incorrect pronunciations here searching Polish names. At least one Englishy 'W' and some that sound lot more bizarre than they should due to recording issues. Any way to flag these?
a3_nm 12y ago
I agree that it is strange that we always provide the written form of a name although you cannot unambiguously determine its pronunciation from it (classical take on this: http://youtu.be/tyQvjKqXA0Y#t=0m19 http://youtu.be/tyQvjKqXA0Y#t=0m19). Still, it sounds a bit over the top to have a service dedicated to the purpose of giving links to pronunciations of names. I just provide the IPA for my name on my website, based on the unrealistic assumption that people who need to will read it.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
arafalov 12y ago
I had that as an idea for podcasts. Similar, but different I guess and now the podcasts are mostly gone. http://blog.outerthoughts.com/2011/06/say-your-name-idea-for-podcasters/ http://blog.outerthoughts.com/2011/06/say-your-name-idea-for... Article also links to couple of previous services doing similar things (back then). Let's hope this one is more successful.
nailer 12y ago
Actual feedback: clicking the signature didn't make any noise on iPad.
restalis 12y ago
I read here comments about personal experiences with mispronounced names and how this is looked upon as having little or no importance. I'm shocked. The name is the first and foremost part of one's identity. Why would it be acceptable to be corrupted for someone's convenience? It's like "...look, I don't fancy your name much, so I shall call you [...]! It's fine with you, right?" I may keep quiet in response, for not having much control over how I'm being called, but no - it is not and it should not be "fine". It's just about the first modicum of mutual respect as interlocutors. The world gets globalized, so please -- when come in contact with the folks living outside your courtyard, be prepared to accept at least some small self-change as consequence.
- goldenkey 12y ago
  If someone gets your name wrong , you correct them if you care. It's only disrespect if that person continues to mispronounce your name. And even in that case, the person may have a mental factuality defect and mean no malice. This site is ridiculous and so is your justification. Being stern about your name is such an egotistical attitude
  - restalis 12y ago
    It's only disrespect if that person continues to mispronounce your name. I agree. When I present myself, I pronounce my name. Most of the time people people just follow and it feels like a courtesy at best, but there are cases when there's this attitude of entitlement to rename you, and that you are the one that should follow. the person may have a mental factuality defect and mean no malice. I haven't suggested to be necessarily malice from the mispronouncers. It may be lack of... many things that become desirable in a globalized society. This site is ridiculous and so is your justification. Being stern about your name is such an egotistical attitude The site may be ridiculous, but the problem it tries to address feels real to me. You may not perceive it to be a problem because either you haven't a name that can be easily contorted, or because you have different values in your life. I care about my name and I only ask the same care from others, the same way I try my best to reciprocate that kind of respect when I'm being asked.
- deleted 12y ago
olive_ 12y ago
It is also good for learning pronunciations of names of the famous people. I like it.

122 points by obvio 12y ago

I've liked the way some people have mispronounced my name. Answering to a mispronounced name feels like wearing a wig to me; it's fun, and it makes me feel more exotic than I am.

timsayshey 12y ago

Nice, reminds me of a Brian Regan sketch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8BoYEgy1I&t=4m11s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8BoYEgy1I&t=4m11s

strozykowski 12y ago

As a bearer of an apparently hard-to-pronounce name, this looks interesting, but I don't know that I would do this.

JoshTriplett 12y ago
If it's the same name as your HN username, I don't see any obvious way to mispronounce it, other than whether the first 'o' is long or short. Is that the bit people mispronounce?
- Kluny 12y ago
  I'm guessing any pronunciation errors are caused by people misreading it and skipping letters or adding extra ones.
  - strozykowski 12y ago
    This is pretty close to what happens. It's generally phonetic, and yet there seems to be a wide variety of first pronunciations, which deviate from the phonetic by several syllables either way.
- vitd 12y ago
  My Polish friends tell me that speaking in Polish "ow" is pronounced like the English word "off" (or maybe "of"? I forget) instead of the English word "ow". So "off-ski" or "uv-ski" instead of "ow-ski", at least for some of them.
anuleczka 12y ago
Same here (Polish names unite!). I usually get embarrassed by the amount of attention mine will get. Using this tool feels like it would just add even more attention to it.
- gnosek 12y ago
  My last name is actually simple to pronounce but I usually ask to "just call me Greg", as Grzegorz is probably the epitome of unpronounceable Polish names. Still, I'm not sure if I'd ever use this tool. Seems somewhat pretentious, even if useful.
  - anuleczka 12y ago
    Maybe it's a cultural difference? I can almost see people in the States use this, but anyone in Poland would be laughed off.
    - gnosek 12y ago
      Probably. If you're Polish and you see a Polish name, you instantly know how to pronounce it. In the US It's more more hit-or-miss due to ethnical diversity and the English language itself. Come to think of it, I'd like other people to use this site, but still wouldn't use it myself. Maybe it's because so far I can't see a way to mispronounce my last name and I've essentially given up on my first name.
cezary 12y ago
Another -ski here. Sometimes there's room for varying pronunciations of the same name. I grew up pronouncing my last name the way my non-English speaking parents thought it should be pronounced in English. It wasn't until college that I realized there was an easier way to pronounce it.
reinhardt 12y ago
The ultimate challenge: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.
- minopret 12y ago
  Pronounced "author of Flow"

hluska 12y ago

My last name looks hard to pronounce so I'd technically be their target, but unfortunately, I'm not sure that I'd actually set this up. Cool idea though!!

TheLoneWolfling 12y ago

I actually like that my name is hard to pronounce (as in: I have yet to hear someone pronounce it correctly without being told). It means that I instantly know when the person on the phone doesn't know me.

mattzito 12y ago

Yeah, I think it's a clever concept, but it seems almost egotistical to say, "Look, I care enough about how you pronounce my last name to embed a link in my email sig" Many people classically mispronounced my name - it's not a big deal, I move on. If we're not going to be having many conversations where you say my last name, I'm not even going to correct you.

CocaKoala 12y ago
I dunno; as somebody who's name gets mispronounced essentially all the time, I'm pretty sensitive about trying to pronounce other people's names properly. If they embed the pronunciation in their email, then a) I don't have to ask, and b) I can practice on my own time with a reference to make sure I have it correct. It's nice of them.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  Yeah, I actually don't care if people mispronounce my name at all, but I really dislike mispronouncing other peoples' names, and I also really dislike putting other people in the position to struggle with the pronunciation, then if they get it wrong, I'm in the awkward position of either correcting them and causing them to feel bad about something I don't care about or (for people with whom I will be having an ongoing relationship), let them continue mispronouncing my name until they hear someone else (potentially me), pronounce it correctly (potentially making them feel even worse for all the times they made the mistake). It would certainly be nice to have a database of names and pronunciations. That said, this does not seem like an ideal solution to me, because it sorta has some of the same problems that just telling people how your name is pronounced has - makes it seem like a bigger deal than it actually is, possibly won't work anyway, etc. Name pronunciation is probably just a bad situation in general.
  - CocaKoala 12y ago
    Yeah, for sure this is probably not the be-all-end-all solution to the problem of mispronounced names; I'm guessing that it's trying to be the email equivalent of introducing yourself (and thus providing the proper pronunciation so people have it), but it's not quite the seamless marriage of sound and text that I think people are hoping for.

andremat 12y ago

Remembers me of "How do you pronounce 'Bjarne Stroustrup?'": http://www.stroustrup.com/pronounciation.wav http://www.stroustrup.com/pronounciation.wav

commandar 12y ago
"Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux."
- ternaryoperator 12y ago
  "Hello, this is Richard Stallman and I pronounce Linux as GNU/Linux."

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mariusz79 12y ago

My problem is not with people mispronouncing my name but modifying it to something easier for them.. No you may not call me Mario, or Martin. Mispronounce it! I don't care, just don't change it to something different!

PeterGriffin 12y ago
Or you can adopt a short nickname everyone can say right, and put the entire problem behind you. There are more important things in this short life. A name is just a bunch of random sounds so when someone talks, you know they mean you.
- oblio 12y ago
  His name is probably "Marius". That's about as short as it gets as a name...
  - PeterGriffin 12y ago
    It's a great name, but it has three syllables and is uncommon enough for people to wonder if they should pronounce the "s" as he himself demonstrated. There's a reason you know William Gates and William Clinton as Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. Richard Cheney knows short name is so important, he'd rather be called "Dick" rather than his full name, "Richard". Short always wins. Mark isn't bad, by the way. Marius "Mark" Capone. Yup. Great.
    - CocaKoala 12y ago
      It's pretty easy to imagine that somebody might get attached to their given name; maybe they were named for their grandparent, of whom they have a lot of fond memories. Maybe it's a connection to their family that they really cherish. Maybe they just really like the way their full name flows together. Suggesting that somebody "just change" their name to something that's only vaguely related because "it's just a collection of random syllables" seems to kind of miss the point of a name.

sophacles 12y ago

One thing this solves is the pronunciation of odd spellings of names, and to an extent, names that are foreign to the recipient (e.g. to an anglophone many eastern European and Asian names don't have an immediately decipherable pronunciation from spelling). However, one of the problems it doesn't help with, is that different languages and language families have sounds that are not used in other languages. This means people will still get your name wrong, because they don't necessarily know how to make those sounds, nor do they even know how to hear the subtle distinctions - e.g. the classic r/l confusion, or my own inability to get tones right when trying to learn mandarin words/phrases. I guess what I'm saying is I don't think anyone should expect this to suddenly make everyone pronounce their name perfectly all of a sudden.

taejo 12y ago
People with such names might adapt them to be pronounceable (I do: my name has an English vowel which doesn't exist in German, and I introduce myself with a German approximation when I'm speaking German). But even the pronounceable version might not have an obvious correspondence with the written name. For example Nguyen might be happy being called [wɪn] rather than [ŋʷĩəŋ], but many English speakers will say something like ['guyɪn].

stefanu 12y ago

There is one advantage in people mispronouncing your name though. In my experience, people within a group tend to converge towards one pronunciation or variation of your name. On a random encounter in public or out-of-the group environment, if someone is addressing you, you know which group he/she is from, based on the pronunciation he/she used.

momodomo 12y ago

Sounds like a good way to solve a corner case in speech recognition: speech to text for names. In reverse, it could also improve speech synthesis for personal robots that would speak the names of their users.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

xienze 12y ago

Mispronouncing someone's name is understandable. What gets me is people misspelling my name... after they've worked with me for years... and seen my name hundreds of times...

robalfonso 12y ago
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. My last name is not hard to pronounce but if you haven't seen it you can pick 3/4 ways to spell it...but if I've worked with you for years and my email is firstinitial.lastname@ it drives me kind of crazy when I see people misspelling it.
- icambron 12y ago
  My first name get misspelled more commonly than it's spelled correctly. I don't mind that so much from a personal relationships standpoint (it's not an intuitive spelling), but it's caused me real issues. The pharmacy had my name misspelled such that I couldn't fill proscriptions and it was really hard to fix. My ISP spelled it wrong when creating my account. The list goes on. And my name even has the "standard" spelling; I can't imagine what happens to people who don't.
  - bby 12y ago
    Cambron instead of Cameron? o_O
x1798DE 12y ago
I'm even very forgiving of this. In America, I feel like every name has a few different variants, especially anything that had to be transliterated from another character set (even the German name Müller comes through sometimes as Mueller and sometimes as Muller). Because they're so often some Anglicized version of some foreign name, it's hard to have an intuition about the right way to spell many names - even something simple like Goldman vs. Goldmann, Green vs. Greene. I imagine that most people store a name in their brain as how they pronounce it, plus some hint about the spelling if they've been burned before ("Hmm... I remember there's a silent j in there somewhere, but where..."). Names are tough in our wonderful melting pot, but it's a small price to pay for having every kind of ethnic food available in all our major cities (and in many of our minor ones).

mariocesar 12y ago

How HN users will pronounce my full name: Mario César Señoranis ? Some suggest that this feels pretentious to suggest the correct pronunciation, however I always research the correct pronunciation for all persons I'm presented. From my side I like it, is a courtesy, is about good manners. Not getting mad about someone mispronounce your name is courteous as research the correct pronunciation for others name

HorizonXP 12y ago

I will never expect anyone to pronounce my legal first name, Xitij.

johngalt 12y ago
Zih-tidge is my guess.
- nly 12y ago
  I'd guess zeetee, silent J
- HorizonXP 12y ago
  Close. Kshee-teej, where the 't' is a soft 't' sound, almost like in the word 'thumb'. Hard to explain since English doesn't make distinctions between how consonants can sound.

jib 12y ago

I mispronounce my own name most of the time. When I'm speaking English (which is 99% of the time I guess) I just use the English pronounciation, because it is easier, and who cares, really?

MatthewWilkes 12y ago
I used to do this when living abroad. I always liked it, it reminded me of how arbitrary names and borders are whenever I used it.

gsharma 12y ago

Here is something similar, but it uses text rather than voice and only has Indian names so far. http://www.howdoyousaythatagain.com/ http://www.howdoyousaythatagain.com/

lifeformed 12y ago

I like this kind of project. Small in scope, quick to understand, attention-getting. It seems like a fun thing to make.

johngalt 12y ago

Honestly this seems really pretentious. My last name is almost impossible. Even people who know me tend to just abbreviate it. Whenever I meet someone new who stumbles over my name. I just smile and say 'Don't worry about it, I said it wrong the first time too.' Then give the correct pronunciation. It's a good way to break the ice. Conversely sending someone a link on how to correctly pronounce your name just screams 'I'm impossible to get along with'.

stevekemp 12y ago
My wife changed her name on marriage at least partially because her surname (Finnish) is hard to pronounce for random people here in the UK. (She's a doctor so she'd has to introduce herself with it on a constant basis to patients - "Hello I'm Dr. Xxxx" - Now she has a surname that is easy to pronounce and a forename people often get wrong.)

quarterwave 12y ago

Several languages use compound nouns, proper and common. These cause pronunciation problems when the phrase is read atomically, instead of by parsing. For example, German armbunduhr is easily understood as arm+bund+uhr = clock around arm, or wrist watch. Since I speak languages that also build up compound nouns (e.g; chair = four+legs), I have no trouble recognizing the need to parse in other languages.

koesterd 12y ago
It's Armbanduhr, though. So it's more like Armband (wristband) and Uhr (clock). But your solution is at least equally clever! I never thought of that.

nat 12y ago

I don't think this will help as much as they hope it will. In my experience, people are generally incapable of pronouncing anything, even when it is said to their face. My name is Nat, which is about as simple a name as you could ask for. But quite often, I will introduce myself, "Hi, I'm Nat", and the response will be "Nice to meet you, Nate". My wife experiences it too (even from her mother!), so I don't think my pronunciation is the problem here. Is this kind of vowel sloppiness more common in the US? Or should I just take the hint and change my name?

shazow 12y ago
Or even worse: When a barista takes my name for my order, I say "Andrey." Usually they'll spell it "Andre" but whatever. Five minutes later, more often than not, they call out "Aubrey." That's reading their own handwriting. You can't explain that. :P
- CocaKoala 12y ago
  Yeah, names in coffeeshops is an entirely separate issue; trying to hear a name when there's a lot of background noise and a hard time limit before it becomes awkward and other customers get angry about the line being held up is pretty rough. I've actually taken to giving them my full legal first name as opposed to the nickname I usually go by, because the nickname is phonetically ambiguous and the full name isn't.
- CodeMage 12y ago
  It can get worse than that ;) I originally come from Serbia, but I spent the last 14 years in Chile, where most people seemed to choke on my name: Vojislav. When pronounced correctly, it's "voice love", but nobody outside the territory of ex-Yugoslavia knows how to read it correctly. When it came to buying coffee and stuff like that, I had the choice of explaining my name ad nauseum or adopting an easier one. I decided to call myself "Boris", thanks to telemarketers who would recover from my name by changing it to something they could deal with ;-) Anyway, that worked quite fine for years and years, until it started failing, ironically at the Starbucks inside a mall with the highest concentration of tourists and immigrants. I would say "Boris" and two times out of five they would write down "Maurice". The cherry on top inevitable came five minutes later, when a different barista would call out "Mauricio". Fortunately, I moved before I gave in to temptation to do what a friend of mine did on a regular basis: give "Spongebob" as his name :P

vitoreiji 12y ago

It's remarkable that I still don't know if I should pronounce "names" or "name-zee".

jmillikin 12y ago
I assume it's nah-mez, rhyming with the name Ramez.

onedognight 12y ago

This reminds me of the old recording from Linus[0]. > "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux!" Does he still pronounce it this way? [0] http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux.wav http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux...

dctoedt 12y ago

About a year ago (or so), I added a parenthetical, (My last name is pronounced "Tate"), to my business cards and email sig block. I've had several people comment approvingly. That said, I do wish my German ancestors had changed either the spelling or the pronunciation when they came to the U.S. in the 19th century. I didn't do it myself when I was younger for fear of family disapproval, and by now my professional "brand" is under the existing spelling. Interestingly, my son, who's just starting his career, brushes off my suggestion that he change the spelling.

philwelch 12y ago
Toedt (Tödt?), if my German pronunciation is correct, isn't exactly "Tate" either. But it's close enough for English.

joesmo 12y ago

This assumes that, given the right pronunciation, people will be able to pronounce your name correctly. That's just not reality. I've corrected many a person many a time only to have them repeat the same pronunciation back to me as they did before I corrected them two seconds ago. Finally, I just gave up. Now I have two first names. EDIT: Also happens a lot on voicemails, seconds after they've clearly heard my first name pronounced (the last name I don't mind much as it is unusual).

lomnakkus 12y ago

Hah! I have a name which I have literally never heard a non-native speaker (of my first language) pronounce correctly. As far as I understand it, the problem isn't so much that people haven't heard you pronounce your own name, it's more to do with the fact(?) that -- unless they've been raised in a similar "sound-environment" -- they literally cannot hear the subtleties of the pronunciation (e.g. tongue/lip positioning, etc.). I've had this experience (in reverse) when trying to pronounce Chinese and Arabic which have subleties which are very foreign to my native language.

junto 12y ago

Funnily enough, as per your example "Powell"; this is impossible for Germans to get right. If you prenouce that the English way they would write it "Paul". They would prenounce "Powell" as "Pohvel".

Walkman 12y ago

This is just pure genius! I have been fighting with people for a long time pronouncing my name. Now, I just put a signature and I'm done explaining!

gravity13 12y ago

War-hole, like holes. Andy War-hole.

laurentoget 12y ago

If you are that sensitive to people pronouncing your name correctly and your name is not bob or chris, leaving the US is probably your best bet. I certainly gave up long ago.

ibrad 12y ago

My name is simple enough to be pronounced by anyone, at least that's what I thought. Then I realize in the US people had a hardtime remembering it because for them it is unusual. Now I try to pronounce it the American way just so my name isn't the center of the conversation. I get surprised when I make a mistake and tell someone the correct way of pronouncing it and they get right the first time.

adnam 12y ago

Despite this, I live in a country where my surname is impossible to pronounce correctly.

jakub_g 12y ago

Orthogonal note: when in doubt how to pronounce someone's name, you can use IVONA Text-to-Speech [1] if you know the origin, or Google Translate for pronunciation (GT often can infer the language but this can be misleading). [1] http://www.ivona.com/en/ http://www.ivona.com/en/

kyro 12y ago

Pretty clever idea. My 4-letter nickname, Kyro, gets mispronounced 10 out of 10 times. It's pronounced kero, like hero, but most pronounce it kairo. At first it was irritating, but I later realized it was a great conversation starter. "Kairo, where are you from?" "Egypt" "Haha, like Cairo! Have you been?" Happy it worked out that way...

smackfu 12y ago

I have an Irish "Mc" prefix name. There's a 50/50 chance someone will pronounce it with the wrong stress, and there is no "correct" way. Just tradition. So that's fun. I don't think this service would help though, since people think they know how to pronounce it. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73900/when-does-the-name-prefix-mc-take-stress http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73900/when-does-t...

batmansbelt 12y ago

Hilarious. I was wondering how to pronounce Dusan this morning and couldn't find out on You Tube. http://namez.com/search?q=dusan http://namez.com/search?q=dusan

golden_apples 12y ago

This is a really nice idea. I was working on a similar project a few years, audioname.com. The trick is in networking with larger social service and building integrations so that people can share their name's pronunciation everywhere that their name is shared, which is unfortunately fragmented across the web at the moment. It would be nice to be able to highlight a name, search for it in this database, and play an audio file from a browser extension, for example. Or from an email client, or a linkedin profile, or wherever. Having to visit this site to look up a name is enough of a barrier that once the novelty wears off, I can't see it being too well used.

Udo 12y ago

It's impossible for an English speaker to pronounce my last name, whether they heard it before or not. Heck, I can't even pronounce it myself without falling back into German speech mode. But what's more important: it really doesn't matter to me how you pronounce it. Do people care about it that much?

Jemaclus 12y ago

I once went to church with a friend of mine for six weeks, because he was shy and didn't want to go to church by himself. We get there, and this woman walks up to me. Her: "What's your name? Me: "Brian" Her: "Brett! Nice to meet you, Brett. What's your last name, Brett?" Me: "(my last name)" Her: "Well, it is SO nice to meet you, Brett Psycho." I was too flabbergasted to respond properly. Even worse, we had the exact same conversation each week for the next six weeks. She couldn't even be bothered to remember my discombobulated name.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

Names have power. Why would I want anyone to be able to summon me so easily?

AdamGrey 12y ago

Like everything, this will take a bit of time. Recording your name, attaching to your email signature and allowing people to hear it a few times, in their own comfort and on their own time, will help them to get it eventually. Once everyone will have their name recorded, it will raise the issue and get people to make an effort and realize it is important. Now, there is only nothing, so...

krupan 12y ago

I looked at the Croatian soccer team (since I lived there for a while and speak a bit of the language) and I was disappointed you have the Americanized spellings for the names. For example, it's Ivan Perišić, not Ivan Perisic :-)

ludamad 12y ago

I'm noticing some incorrect pronunciations here searching Polish names. At least one Englishy 'W' and some that sound lot more bizarre than they should due to recording issues. Any way to flag these?

a3_nm 12y ago

I agree that it is strange that we always provide the written form of a name although you cannot unambiguously determine its pronunciation from it (classical take on this: http://youtu.be/tyQvjKqXA0Y#t=0m19 http://youtu.be/tyQvjKqXA0Y#t=0m19). Still, it sounds a bit over the top to have a service dedicated to the purpose of giving links to pronunciations of names. I just provide the IPA for my name on my website, based on the unrealistic assumption that people who need to will read it.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

arafalov 12y ago

I had that as an idea for podcasts. Similar, but different I guess and now the podcasts are mostly gone. http://blog.outerthoughts.com/2011/06/say-your-name-idea-for-podcasters/ http://blog.outerthoughts.com/2011/06/say-your-name-idea-for... Article also links to couple of previous services doing similar things (back then). Let's hope this one is more successful.

nailer 12y ago

Actual feedback: clicking the signature didn't make any noise on iPad.

restalis 12y ago

I read here comments about personal experiences with mispronounced names and how this is looked upon as having little or no importance. I'm shocked. The name is the first and foremost part of one's identity. Why would it be acceptable to be corrupted for someone's convenience? It's like "...look, I don't fancy your name much, so I shall call you [...]! It's fine with you, right?" I may keep quiet in response, for not having much control over how I'm being called, but no - it is not and it should not be "fine". It's just about the first modicum of mutual respect as interlocutors. The world gets globalized, so please -- when come in contact with the folks living outside your courtyard, be prepared to accept at least some small self-change as consequence.

goldenkey 12y ago
If someone gets your name wrong , you correct them if you care. It's only disrespect if that person continues to mispronounce your name. And even in that case, the person may have a mental factuality defect and mean no malice. This site is ridiculous and so is your justification. Being stern about your name is such an egotistical attitude
- restalis 12y ago
  It's only disrespect if that person continues to mispronounce your name. I agree. When I present myself, I pronounce my name. Most of the time people people just follow and it feels like a courtesy at best, but there are cases when there's this attitude of entitlement to rename you, and that you are the one that should follow. the person may have a mental factuality defect and mean no malice. I haven't suggested to be necessarily malice from the mispronouncers. It may be lack of... many things that become desirable in a globalized society. This site is ridiculous and so is your justification. Being stern about your name is such an egotistical attitude The site may be ridiculous, but the problem it tries to address feels real to me. You may not perceive it to be a problem because either you haven't a name that can be easily contorted, or because you have different values in your life. I care about my name and I only ask the same care from others, the same way I try my best to reciprocate that kind of respect when I'm being asked.
deleted 12y ago

olive_ 12y ago

It is also good for learning pronunciations of names of the famous people. I like it.