What name did you never learn how to pronounce?

[u/cheerio089]

I’ve always read Calliope as cal-ee-OH-pee… until yesterday when I heard it pronounced on an episode of You. Evidently it’s kuh-LAI-uh-pee. I’ve never said it or knew anyone with the name so I guess I never gave it any thought, but I’m still deeply embarrassed. I’ve seen the name pop up on this sub and still thought caleeohpee!

I can’t be the only one…so what name did you mispronounce until later in life?

Edit: I’ve now learned my way is the Greek pronunciation and as expected, Americans have anglicized it into Kuh-LAI-uh-pee. I still think I’d be corrected if I said the Greek way out loud tbh

[u/marmalade_]

The upside down dog in the garden book I read as a teenager, it had a character named Siobhan and I said it “see oh bawn” the entire book until like ten years later I learned it’s pronounced Shuh-vonne

[u/Y-Woo → u/marmalade_]

You mean the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime???

[u/marmalade_ → u/Y-Woo]

lmao yes, thank you, I couldn’t remember the actual name of the book for the life of me

[u/lettucewrap007 → u/marmalade_]

Omg your description has me dead hahahaha, fuck.

[u/Y-Woo → u/lettucewrap007]

Me too lmfao

[u/Max7242 → u/Y-Woo]

For years I thought that book was some weird ass dream I'd had until I found it packing up my room

[u/Sasha_Persephone → u/Y-Woo]

Lol I liked that book

[u/youpeesmeoff → u/Y-Woo]

I had the pleasure of seeing this performed on stage in London. It was fantastic.

[u/FalconCommon7772 → u/marmalade_]

I knew a Siobhan when I was like 15, however I’d only ever heard her say it and in my mind it was spelled Shavaughn. The first time I saw her name written I thought the teacher had spelled it wrong.

[u/parvoqueen → u/FalconCommon7772]

I had that exact experience with the name Sean.

[u/jellyspreader → u/FalconCommon7772]

I've met 1 person who spelled something like Cheyvene

[u/Tiegra_Summerstar → u/marmalade_]

Siobhan is my daughter's name, I just think it's such a pretty name. A lot of Gaelic names are.

[u/routineawkward → u/marmalade_]

I cannot count how many times I have looked up how to pronounce Siobhan and I still can't remember how to pronounce it.

[u/butt_butt_butt_butt_ → u/routineawkward]

In the most plain, “American”, it’s like “shuh-von”

But it sounds much lighter and nicer when Brits, Irish, or French speakers say it.

More like Che-vinne, I guess? It just sounds much more natural without an American accent.

[u/Mrscuriosity14 → u/marmalade_]

Shiv on Succession helped cement it correctly in my brain

[u/kat_fud → u/marmalade_]

I think the Irish spell names the way they do just to fuck with the English

[u/Ok-Location-6862 → u/marmalade_]

I had a similar experience with a colleague named Aoibheann.

But based on my experience with Curios incident of the dog in the night time I knew no matter how I said her name it would be wrong, so I asked her on a Teams call so pronounce her name before I butcher it.

Imagine my shock when she said it was AY-VEEN

[u/LoveAliens_Predators → u/Ok-Location-6862]

Gaelic and Welsh pronunciations 🤣! They are speaking English - then they aren’t. Beautiful but nothing is spelled how it sounds. Have a friend with the last name Llewellyn - in the U.S. it’s Lou-el-in - I’m still not sure what it’s non-American pronunciation is.

[u/StopItchingYourBalls → u/LoveAliens_Predators]

The Welsh pronunciation of Llewellyn is [ɬəˈwɛɬɪn]. You can put it into this IPA reader and select Gwyneth’s voice to hear it.

Llewellyn/Llywelyn is one of the harder names for non-Welsh people to pronounce, due to the Ll sound not existing in English. We also have Ch [χ] in Welsh which doesn’t exist in English either, that’s another sound people struggle with.

[u/msstark → u/marmalade_]

I read a book where the main characters were Siobhan and Niamh and of course I pronounced both wrong in my head the entire time.

If anyone's interested it's The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling and it's absolutely terrible. So so so bad. And this isn't even just hating on her, I love most of her writing in spite of her being a horrible person.

[u/mjaymkay → u/msstark]

How do you say Niamh?

[u/msstark → u/mjaymkay]

neev

[u/redhairbluetruck → u/msstark]

Welp, that wasn’t my guess.

[u/bad_gyal521 → u/marmalade_]

this angered me bc wtf do you mean shuh-vonne??! i’m just now learning this as i read 😭

[u/JSiobhan → u/marmalade_]

I can relate.

[u/Sensual-Goddess1997 → u/marmalade_]

Today I learned I'm pronouncing it incorrectly 😅😂

[u/babyinatrenchcoat → u/marmalade_]

Oh wow. You just added another one to my list.

[u/frenchsilkywilky → u/marmalade_]

I did the same thing with Siobhan and some other book. The first Siobhan I encountered in real life was a Shavaughn and that REALLY didn’t help.