I am very Irish, and I have an extremely Irish name,” announced Saoirse Ronan as she guest-hosted Saturday Night Live last year. “It means ‘freedom’. But I’ve got a little problem: it’s spelled wrong. It’s a full typo …” Ronan then went on to sing a ditty about how her name should be pronounced. Not Circei, not Sushi, but SIR-Sha. Since her charming turn as the lead in Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s latest indie wisecrack-marathon (coming to the UK on 16 February), Saoirse has been the inconvenient name on many lips. But it certainly isn’t the first to flub underprepared interviewers. Even fellow actors can struggle when it comes to pronouncing the names of their peers. In 2014, Hollywood’s Scientology overlord and occasional actor John Travolta awkwardly introduced Let It Go hitmaker Idina Menzel to the Oscars stage via a mumbled “Adele Dazeem”. To save your blushes, we’ve compiled a rundown of the tricksiest names in Tinseltown.
Timothée Chalamet
Almost deliberately deceptive, with a first name that makes it look as if he’s trying to create purely phonetic versions of English names. The fleck above the first “E” is a clue, though; his last name follows the French, as per his father’s heritage: Tim-o-thee Shall-uh-may.
Charlize Theron
The Afrikaans pronunciation is actually “Tron”, as in “big 80s laser-bike films”, with a nice hard trill on the “R”. Yet for the sake of an easy life, South African Charlize seems to have simply gone along with the American take on her last name.
Joe Manganiello
The Magic Mike XXL actor has one of those names so long that the eyes go squiffy midway through reading it. He reports that Js routinely turn up in obscure places. Manja-nello? Manjan-Jello? The solution, though, is a simple “I” removal: Manga-nello.
Téa Leoni
A name best pronounced on the way back from the dentist – the vowels are mainly wide “E” sounds. TAY-ah LAY-oh-ni.
Zosia Mamet
The Girls actor and daughter of playwright David Mamet pronounces her first name “Zah-shah”. Just think of Zsa-Zsa Gabor naming the Persian king, and you’ve got it.
Matt Czuchry
It’s pronounced “Matt”, like the carpet.
Ralph Fiennes
Not content with confusing us by having a cousin whose name is a longer version of his own, Ralph-not-Ranulph Fiennes also has a first name that is a shibboleth of his aristocratic background. It’s pronounced “Rayf”, exhibiting the upper-class’s habitual boredom with the middle of words.
Gal Gadot
Wonder Woman is just an ordinary “Gal”, but instead of rhyming with Bardot, her Israeli surname is actually pronounced “Guh-doht”. The “T” shouldn’t be hit particularly hard, either.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Also known as Game of Thrones’ Jaime Lannister. The secretly Danish actor’s first name ends in “lie”, not “lay”. And his last ends in “Dow” as in Jones, not “dough” as in scones. Nee-ko-LY
COS-ter Wall-DOW.
Milo Ventimiglia
An open-and-shut “G”-removal job for the This Is Us actor. Everything else checks out phonetically: Venti-Mi-Lia.
Quvenzhané Wallis
The youngest ever best supporting actress Oscar nominee is a human portmanteau (“Port-Man-TOW”) – “Quven”, the first part of her name, combines the first syllables of her parents’ first names. Kuh-VEN-zhu-Nay. Think of a giant “Q” saying “no” to “revenge” in a medieval style, and bam, you’ve got it.
Domhnall Gleeson
By the standards of the nation that also produced Niamh (“Neev”), Aoife (“Ee-fa”) and Caoilfhionn (“?!*?@!?”), this is a doozy. It’s DOH-nall. “The ‘M’ is just there to confuse Americans,” as Doh-nall freely admits.
Mia Wasikowska
Vash-ee-KOV-Ska. Despite being born and raised in the Australian suburbs, the Alice in Wonderland star’s last name still follows the Polish habit of substituting”v” for “w”.
Chloë Sevigny
Over-Frenchifying her last name, as if ordering a bouillabaisse in the Dordogne, spelled social death for many a 90s hipster. It’s simply Seven-E.
