F or 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 par.