Not everyone is blessed with an instantly recognizable name. Some of us have been correcting people’s pronunciation of our names since the first attendance roll call in kindergarten. And this list proves that no one is safe from having their name mispronounced — and that includes some of the most famous figures in history. Avoid these pronunciation blunders during your next trip to the museum.
(Note: The pronunciations provided below are given using phonetic spellings for English speakers, but dictionaries often use IPA pronunciations, which provide consistent guidance across languages and accents.)
Leonardo da Vinci
Pronunciation: lay-uh-NARD-oh duh-VIN-chee
Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci is best known for creating two of the most famous paintings of all time, the “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper.” So, how does one of the world’s most renowned artists get his name botched? It comes down to the difference in American English and Italian vowel pronunciations. In Italian, “e” is often pronounced as “eh” or “ay” (and “i” has more of an “ee” sound). This means that in Leonardo’s native language, the first syllable of his name is pronounced “lay,” not “lee” (as we say it in American English).
Vincent Van Gogh
Pronunciation: VIN-suhnt van KHOKH
People all around the world pronounce the “Starry Night” painter’s name incorrectly. Americans say “Van Go,” the French say “Van Gog,” and the British say “Van Gof” — but in the Netherlands (where Van Gogh was from), they pronounce it as “Van Khokh.” The Dutch “g” is a guttural sound that is pronounced similarly to the “ch” in the Scottish word for “lake,” loch, which uses a sound made in the back of the throat. While this pronunciation is unfamiliar to most of the world, it is the traditional way according to Van Gogh experts.
Dr. Seuss
Pronunciation: SOYS or SOICE
Perhaps author Theodor Seuss Geisel should have written a children’s book of rhymes to help pronounce his pen name (which was also his Bavarian mother’s maiden name). Readers almost always pronounce Dr. Seuss’ name as “Soos,” which rhymes with “goose,” but it should be pronounced as “Soys,” which rhymes with “voice.” This comes down to the origin of the name “Seuss,” which is German and should be pronounced using traditional German sounds. It seems that the author never corrected the masses, but people who were close to him knew the real pronunciation. A former college classmate wrote about the mix-up in Dartmouth’s alumni magazine: “You’re wrong as the deuce / And you shouldn’t rejoice / If you’re calling him Seuss. / He pronounces it Soice.”
Julius Caesar
Pronunciation: YOO-lee-oos KAI-sar
It’s perfectly acceptable to pronounce the name of this famed Roman general as “JOO-lee-uhs SEE-zr,” but when he was alive, the Roman (Classical Latin) pronunciation would have sounded very different. Old Latin slowly transformed into Classical Latin through the first century BCE (during the time of Julius Caesar’s reign in 46 BCE), causing “Caesar” to sound very different. In Classical Latin, the “c” would have taken on a hard “k” sound, and the diphthong “ae” sounded like “eye,” resulting in the pronunciation “KAI-sar” — a far cry from the modern “SEE-zar.” As for his first name, Classical Latin did not have a distinct “j” sound, so the letter typically took on a slight “y” sound, resulting in a name pronounced as “YOO-lee-oos.”
Edvard Munch
Pronunciation: ed-VARD MONK
This Norwegian painter, known for “The Scream,” has one of the most mispronounced names in English. It is not “Munch,” like taking a bite of an apple, but “Monk,” like someone who lives in a monastery. The faux pas is caused by Norwegian and English vowel pronunciation differences. In Norwegian, when a “u” comes before an “n,” it takes on a short sound, which in American English comes out closer to the “o” sound in the word “monk.” Additionally, “c” is not a true Norwegian letter (it is only part of their alphabet because of foreign loanwords), which results in the “k” sound at the end of “Munch,” as seen in the names “Christian” or “Chloe.”
Joseph Pulitzer
Pronunciation: JO-sef PULL-itzer
The coveted Pulitzer Prize for achievements in journalism, literature, and music composition is named after Hungarian American publisher Joseph Pulitzer. But Pulitzer’s name has a different fate than others on this list: The most obvious pronunciation is actually the correct one. It is said just as it is spelled — “PULL-itzer” — but oftentimes, even historians and linguists get it wrong by using the incorrect “PEW-lit-zer.” Where this mispronunciation myth began is anyone’s guess, but just ahead of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize announcement, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, wife of the late Joseph Pulitzer Jr., set the record straight: “My husband said that his father told people to say ‘Pull it sir.’”
Feature image credit: INTREEGUE Photography/ Shutterstock