For famous people, unusual names can be both a blessing and a curse.
If your name is too nondescript, then it can be hard to stick in people’s minds. But if it’s too unusual, then people might have difficulty saying it at all.
It’s not uncommon for celebrities to change their names, either to make their sobriquet more exciting – think John Legend for instance, who was born the rather more prosaic John Roger Stephens – or to avoid confusion with a pre-existing public figure, such as Albert Brooks, born Albert Einstein.
But for those who opt to stick with their birth moniker, getting people to say it right can still be an uphill battle.
Actors such as Joaquin Phoenix, Soairse Ronan and Ralph Fiennes seem to have won this battle, with large swathes of the public now pronouncing their names properly. Others, however, haven’t been so lucky.
Here’s a rundown of 13 celebrities whose names are often mispronounced.
Denzel Washington
Say the name “Denzel”, and everyone will immediately know who you’re talking about – such is the massive magnitude of Washington’s stardom. But, as the Training Day star revealed on The Graham Norton Show a while back, that famous first-name has been near-ubiquitously mispronounced this entire time. According to the actor, the stress ought to come on the first syllable (“DEN-zul”, rather than the widely used “Den-ZEL”).
Zoe Saldaña
Guardians of the Galaxy star Zoe Saldaña gets her family name from her Puerto Rican parents, including the Spanish eñe (the accented final “ñ”). While most people simply opt to pronounce her name as if this were a regular “n” – as in “Sal-dana”, the correct pronunciation is actually “Sal-dan-ya”.
Timothée Chalamet
Dune star Timothée Chalamet was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in February when host Jimmy Kimmel asked about the accent in his first name. “Honestly, it’s [pronounced] ‘Tim-oh-teh,’” Chalamet replied. “But I would not oblige you to say it like that and it can be Timothy or Timmy or Doug or Allen.” But “Tim-oh-teh” is, he says, what it was “supposed” to be – “my parents cursed me with that,” he joked.
Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal
During an appearance on Conan O’Brian’s talk show, Zodiac star Gyllenhaal spoke about the proper way of saying his family name. If you’ve been saying “Jill-en-hall”, that’s not quite right – the correct reading is “Yeel-en-hyal”. The actor joked that the only places where his name is consistently pronounced correctly are Sweden and Ikea.
Ariana Grande
The pop star and lead of the forthcoming Wicked movie has admitted that the ubiquitous pronunciation of her name – “Gran-day”, like a latte order – is not how it was originally supposed to be said. Speaking on Beats One, she revealed that her grandfather had pronounced their name “Gran-dee”, but her brother Frankie changed the pronunciation.
Amanda Seyfried
In 2023, Mean Girls star Amanda Seyfried casually announced to the world that we had been getting her name wrong for years. In one of a series of TikTok videos for Architectural Digest, Seyfried pronounced her name as “Sigh-fred” – not, as is often said, “Say-freed”.
Martin Scorsese
The exalted filmmaker may be one of the most visible directors in world cinema, but people still often have trouble with his name – whether that’s spelling it correctly, or saying it. While most people mispronounce the Goodfellas mastermind’s name as “Score-say-zee”, the correct pronunciation is “Score-sez-ee”.
Emily Ratajkowski
Responding to a question from Vogue contributor Liana Satenstein during New York Fashion Week, supermodel Emily Ratajkowski last year revealed the correct way of saying her last name “the Polish way”. Per Ratajkowski’s explanation, the popular “Americanised” way of saying her name (“Rat-ah-cow-ski”) is actually inaccurate; “Rat-ah-cof-skah” is the right pronunciation. (“Rat-ah-cof-ski” is also acceptable, but “if it’s feminine, it’s ‘Rat-ah-cof-skah’,” she said.)
Raven-Symoné
The star of The Cosby Show and That’s So Raven opened up in a TikTok video about the real pronunciation of her name. Rather than being said as “Si-mone”, the second half of her name is actually pronounced as a trisyllabic “See-mon-ye”. “Those who know, know,” she said. “At a very young age I was told to tell everyone that my name was Raven-Symone and it just never left my body, except when I go to French-speaking countries and I’m like, ‘Yeah, it is spelled that way and that’s how it should be pronounced.’”
Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot, star of Wonder Woman and the infamous celebrity “Imagine” video, has long baffled many viewers with the pronunciation of her name. While some people opt to leave out the final “T”, saying it as “Ga-doh”, Gadot has explained that it should really be pronounced “Ga-doht”, with a soft but distinct final consonant. “I appreciate that everyone is trying their best,” she said.
Chrissy Teigen
Celebrity influencer Chrissy Teigen’s last name is commonly pronounced “Tee-gen”. However, during a 2018 appearance on the talk show Live With Kelly and Ryan, Teigen insisted to viewers that it was in fact pronounced “Tie-gen”. “It’s been 25 years, I’m tired of correcting people,” she said.
Lindsay Lohan
Irish Wish star Lindsay Lohan had, for a few years, a name that seemed to be on the lips of every tabloid journalist the world over. But was it ever really the right name? In recent years, Lohan has been seen pronouncing her name “Lowen” – to rhyme with “Bowen”, rather than the traditionally ubiquitous “Low-han”.