Comments on: Random Poll: Do you pronounce your last name the way it’s spelled or the way it’s supposed to sound?

By: Jinho

Jinho — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:12:53 +0000

I don’t understand:
JUN
It’s rather easy to say.
But can anybody say it?
No.
June, Jung, Yun, Yung….Yoon? How do they get Yoon? Or anything with a Y for that matter?
And my first name.
It is a Korean name as well. It is rather easy. I am not saying that just because I am Korean and can pronnounce it properly, but when I look from another educated person’s point of view, it IS easy!
I always manage to get crazy renditions of my name every semester and year when new classes begin.
I honestly don’t understand.
It’s as if the whole non-Asian population thinks that there is some magic involved with pronouncing Asian names. I understand if it was more complicated such as a Korean or Chinese name with X’s for example, but mine is JUN!
How hard can that be?
Apparently extremely.

By: ninaharuno

ninaharuno — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:05:19 +0000

Wow, you have the last name 'Ngo' too? I have that last name, and it's always so irritating having to remind people on how to say your own last name. They say things like 'no' or 'nose' or even 'nuh-go' too. So far, only my best friend can say my last name but it took her two years.

By: VivianN

VivianN — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:55:24 +0000

Jeez, you have no idea how annoying it is to hear people say “win” or “nuh/gwin.” My last name is Nguyen, I very common one I guess. It's not pronounced that way. And then I was looking through some random forum at some random website, and this guy said there's to many -ng at vietnamese names like Ngo or Nguyen. S/He's like, -ng is pronounced weh and that makes Nguyen, “wehn.” FAIL! I guess the reason why people can't say vietnamese names are because there's accents or stressed or something like that. Nguyen has a -ee kind of sound into it. Weeng sort of. -ee is stressed? My grammar is so bad and yet, I'm passing my English classes – _ – I stopped fixing people's mistakes since first grade. Let the principal think she's pronouncing right. I bet you she still think she is.

By: strayfarce

strayfarce — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:37:57 +0000

I always asked someone if I was pronouncing a non-common name correctly just to make sure I was being respectful of their family name. What always gets me (but I always let it go) is that anytime someone asks how to spell my name they always say “with an e or an ie?” It's neither. Tracy, just Y. I mean, that's the common spelling. At least it always was when I was growing up.

By: moye

moye — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:38:30 +0000

That's just like my first name (the whole eh vs. yeh vs. ee thing)

By: komodo

komodo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:09:13 +0000

Well my father changed his Indonesian last name to a common Muslim last name “Usman” But still, I had the problem of mispronouncing my own last name for more than 10 years of my early life…mostly because I took in what my American teachers or any other adult said. The correct pronounciation is “Oos-mon” (or something like that). But I kept hearing and saying “Us-Maan.” But then when I started pronouncing my surname correctly, everyone misheard me and thought I said, “Guzman” (which is a Hispanic/Latin) last name. I get laughs over how my people try to pronounce my dad's first name…it sounds Japanese..and is pronounced the way it's spelled (heavy on the vowels sound..as if you're using Spanish alphabet)…but I don't know why folks mess it up and add extra letters and syllables.

By: RamenGrrl

RamenGrrl — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:34:22 +0000

so we have more common japanese family names in our clan, like nishimoto, yamamoto (that's on both sides–no relation) but we also have less common ones that are harder to pronounce. my favorite is all vowels. my mom's. eek. she was so glad to marry into a family with an “easier” japanese surname. of course, everyone spells it wrong and forget saying it! but at least it looks similar to how it's pronounced.

By: ErnieAtLYD

ErnieAtLYD — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:31:14 +0000

Hah. So, my last name is “HSIUNG.” (Pinyin: Xiong, although I usually tell people “Shung.”) I have gotten the following: Hut-Cy Young, Cy Young, Hissy-ung, Shoe, and my personal favorite – SHWING.

To quote John Lin: High School kids can be so cruel.

By: RayU

RayU — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:15:36 +0000

My Japanese last name starts with “ue”, that always trips up people. The most common mangle is making the “e” the long “ee”. On the phone, when I give my last name I immediately continue in the same breath “… that is spelled 'u', 'e'…”

My last name also has 'r', which I pronounce the English way, but I will pronounce it the Japanese flapped 'r' way as needed.

It was some time into elementary school before I learned the Cantonese pronunciation of my middle name. Only a handful of years ago I learned the Mandarin equivalent of the characters.

By: dave41989

dave41989 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:44:43 +0000

Wow. I always thought I was the only one with this problem with the mispronunciation of my last name; but yet again, I live in a town where most names are from European descent.

My last name is vietnamese and is 'Ngo.' I always corrected everyone on the way it was pronounced until third grade. My teacher asked if it was pronounced “Nuh-go” and I replied that it was, just because I was too lazy to correct her and everyone else that would have asked me that question in the future. Since then, every person has called me “Nuh-go.”