Celebrity Names We’ve Been Mispronouncing For a Long Timetoofab.comon March 12, 2022 at 3:20 pm
“It doesn’t bother me, but my sweet mama didn’t like it!”
It turns out that fans may have been incorrectly pronouncing the names of their favorite stars…for a majority of their career! It all starts when the media uses a mispronunciation and over time, everyone else begins to pick up on it too. By then, it’s almost too late for the celeb to correct everyone — and sometimes they just choose to roll with it.
Stars like Lindsay Lohan and Taylor Lautner have long accepted that their names haven’t been pronounced quite right. But thanks to TikTok and some high-profile interviews, these celebrities are finally getting a second chance at getting their first and last names right!
Read on to find out how to say these names correctly…
When Lindsay Lohan recently joined TikTok, she made a big revelation. It turns out that fans have been pronouncing her last name incorrectly for most of her life. Instead of putting emphasis on the “H” in Lohan, people should be pronouncing it more like a “W.”
“Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone also used TikTok to let everyone know they’ve been saying her name wrong. Joining in on a trend about name pronunciation, Alicia clarified that her first name sounds like “Uh-lee-see-uh,” not “Uh-lee-sha.”
“It doesn’t bother me, but my sweet mama didn’t like it! So for her… get it right!” Alicia wrote in the comments section.
3. Rihanna
American fans have long been mispronouncing Rihanna’s name but she seems to have let it slide for the most part. The issue was brought to light in a Vogue video in which the musician introduced herself as “Rih-anna” — even though many have been pronouncing it “Re-ah-na.” It turns out she cleared things up a long time ago, as seen in a 2012 interview in which she shared the correct pronunciation of her name.
It took 20 seasons of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” for Khloé Kardashian to set the record straight on how her name is really pronounced. While being interviewed by Andy Cohen, both Khloé and her mom Kris Jenner confirmed that the accent mark does give the name a different pronunciation than what’s typically said.
“It’s Klo-ay. Khloé is the name. There is a little accent over the name. And so, I went and interviewed the Kardashians at Khloé’s house. I walked in, I go, ‘Khloé?’ and the other women go, ‘Excuse me?’ And Kris said, ‘Yeah, that’s actually really how it’s pronounced,'” Andy shared on the “The Tonight Show.”
Timothée Chalamet also has an accent mark in his name that changes its pronunciation but he says he’s never bothered asking people to correctly say it as he believes it comes off “pretentious.”
“The real pronunciation is Timo-tay. But I can’t ask people to call me that; it just seems really pretentious. My dad is from France, so it’s a French spelling, but it seems like too much of an obligation to ask people to call me that,” Timothée told V Man.
Taylor Lautner has been saying his name correctly for years, but somehow fans and media began saying his name differently along the way. The dilemma went viral when the actor recently introduced himself on TikTok, where he pronounced his last name “lout-ner” instead of “lot-ner.”
Ariana Grande says she actually grew up pronouncing her last name differently than she does currently and regrets changing the way she says it. She explained that her grandfather had always said their name “Grand-ee” but her brother Frankie later suggested they return to the Italian pronunciation of “Grahn-day.”
“My grandpa said Grand-ee…Grand-ee kind of the Americanized version of it, made it more chill…I grew up saying Grand-ee — and I think of [my grandpa] and I wish I said Grand-ee more,” Ariana said.
i was today years old when i found out how to actually pronounce Ariana Grande’s name 🤥 pic.twitter.com/24caB2aoiP
— Rosie (@0hkatie) September 13, 2018
Shortly after Ariana’s explanation of her last name went viral, Chrissy Teigen chimed in to let everyone know that her last name had also been mispronounced for years. While fans believed her last name was said “Tee-gen,” it’s actually “Tie-gen.”
“gave up a long time ago. last name is tie-gen not tee-gen…I don’t correct people, ever. They can call me Janet and I won’t. Wrong order? I’ll eat it. Taxi going to the wrong airport? I’ll change my flight,” Chrissy jokingly tweeted.
9. Hasan Minhaj
Hasan Minhaj’s full name has long been mispronounced by the media and fans. He finally set the record straight during an appearance on “The Ellen Show,” where his parents were in the front row. Hasan corrected Ellen’s pronunciation of his name from “Ha-saan Min-aaj” to “Has-en Min-haj.”
“Look, when I first started doing comedy, people were like you should change your name. And I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna change my name.’ If you can pronounce Ansel Elgort, you can pronounce Hasan Minhaj,” Hasan joked.
What’s my name? Timothée Chalamet. pic.twitter.com/M4JvVTEz9O
— Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) April 4, 2019
10. Jake Gyllenhaal
Nobody has been pronouncing Jake Gyllenhaal’s last name correctly — not even Jake! The actor has been asked about his Swedish name and on several occasions, he’s pronounced it differently. In one of his most recent explanations he said it’s actually said “Yillen-hay-luh,” but it’s reserved mostly for when he’s in Sweden.
“The only two places that that is pronounced correctly…is in Sweden and Ikea,” Jake quipped on “Conan.”
11. Peter Krause
Peter Krause grew up pronouncing his last name a little differently than fans say it now. He explained that as a kid, his name was said “Krow-zee,” which led to some teasing. When he was an adult, he decided to return to the original German/Polish pronunciation of the name, which had been “anglicized” when his family first arrived in America.
“I grew up being called Peter ‘Krow-zee’ so my sister and I became ‘lousy Krause.’ In Minnesota, there are long O’s and long E’s so when I was in New York going to school I thought, ‘I want to change my name.’ So I kind of went back to how it would be pronounced in Germany or Poland which is ‘Krow-za,'” Peter said on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
12. Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes has often encountered issues with the pronunciation of his name as it’s spelled differently than it’s said. Instead of the “ph” in his name making an “f” sound, his first name is actually pronounced “Rayf,” based on an old British tradition. He says he’s considered changing it but believes it’s now “too late,” so he’s sticking with it.
“Sometimes I wish I had fixed it! There is a tradition in the UK of pronouncing Ralph as ‘Rayf,’ one of those old peculiar English things where something is pronounced completely different than it’s spelled. But I believe my father named me after his step-grandfather…and I wanted to honor my parents giving me this name in keeping up the spelling but I have come, on occasion, to regret it,” Ralph told The Hollywood Reporter.
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