HOLLYWOOD — While promoting his new movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a straight-faced Jake Gyllenhaal recently asserted that the correct pronunciation of his last name was, in fact, "Yil-En-HOO-Le-Hay."
It was in jest, perhaps inspired by that destined-to-be-a-classic Betty White "Census" sketch on Saturday Night Live a few weeks back (the one where "Smith" was pronounced "Blarrrrfingar"), but it nevertheless got us thinking.
There was once a time when people with tricky family names were refitted with marquee-ready monikers such as Kirk Douglas (formerly Issur Danielovitch) or Joan Fontaine (nee Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland) or Michael Caine (Maurice Micklewhite).
Today, unless you happen to go by the name of Lady Gaga (born, allegedly, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), most folks prefer to go with what they were given.
That's fine by us entertainment scribes, who only need to double-check spellings, but it's trickier for broadcast journalists who often don't have time to verify whether the actual pronunciation would be GILL-en-hall or JILL-en-hall.
It's JILL-en-hall, by the way.
So, as a valuable public service, we present the first instalment in an occasional series, we like to call Say That Name!
First up: Transformers and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps star Shia LaBeouf.
You'd be correct in assuming SHY-Ah for the first name.
But the surname is pronounced La-BUFF rather than La-BOOF.
Alrighty, how about Bones lead David Boreanaz?
That would be Bor-ee-AH-nuz.
As for Emmy Award-winning Law & Order: SVU co-star, Mariska Hargitay, the preferred pronunciation is Muh-RISH-kuh HARG-uh-tay; while over on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Vincent D'Onofrio will tell you it's Duh-NOFF-ree-oh.
Duh-NO-free-oh's a no-no.
Names of Welsh derivation prove particularly challenging.
Just ask Ralph Fiennes (Rafe Fines), Fantastic Four's Ioan Gruffudd (YO-an GRIFF-ith) or even Catherine Zeta-Jones (it's ZEE-ta, rhyming with Velveeta).
Even seemingly simpler names can be deceiving.
Like Cate Blanchett, which the habitual Oscar nominee pronounces BLANCH-it, not Blan-SHETT.
There are other name mispronunciations that arise from a desire to put a French accent on them.
Such would be the case where Reese Witherspoon's ex, Ryan Phillippe would be concerned.
It's not Fill-LEEP, but, FILL-a-pea.
And then you've got Charlize Theron, who's of South African rather than Gallic extraction, meaning it's Shar-LEEZ THAIR-en, not Ther-OWN.
Or Anne Heche, whose last name is pronounced neither Hesh nor Aysh but Haytch.
Most people know by now that Ashton Kutcher's surname rhymes with butcher and not toucher; but many are still butchering Kim Basinger's name, which is actually closer to BASE-injure as opposed to Bay Singer or Bass Singer.
Each year the awards season brings a whole new slew of tongue-trippers, from Blood Diamond's Djimon Hounsou (rhymes with Simon Ron Sue) to House of Sand and Fog's Shohreh Aghdashloo (SHOW-reh Awg-DAWSH-loo) to Dirty Pretty Things' Chiwetel Ejiofor (CHOO-eh-tell EDGE-ee-o-for) — and, no, he doesn't encourage friends to call him Chewy, for short.
Oh — and, for the record, as far as yours truly is concerned, all those consonants huddled together may at first seem intimidating, but the Rechtshaffen family has always pronounced it as follows: Blarrrrfingar.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
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