14 Celebrities Whose Names We Mispronounced For Years
A-listers consistently attempt to establish their names for themselves in the Entertainment industry. Whether seasoned celebrities or budding ones, many famous people have struggled with their names repeatedly being pronounced wrong.
Despite our efforts to learn about our favorite celebs, we keep saying their names wrong and have no clue about this. Fortunately, we are here to help. Here is a list of 14 stars that you get used to seeing in movies or TV Shows but may have never pronounced their names right before.
#1. Jake Gyllenhaal
Source: Scott Garfitt / East News
The star admitted that his Swedish surname is often pronounced wrong and just said correctly in his homeland or in Ikea. It’s given the phonetic nature of the Swedish language, sounding like “yeel-en-hall” instead of “kill-en-hal” as we are used to.
#2. Adele
Source: Jae C. Hong / East News
Adele is actually friendly because she never hesitates to share her thoughts and feelings in interviews and likes to organize fan meetings. In a meeting, she thanked a fan who pronounced her name properly. The singer’s name is pronounced “uh-dale” instead of “ah-dell” like most of us are used to.
#3. Taylor Lautner
Source: taylorlautner / Instagram
The Twilight star caught people’s attention to the pronunciation of his sure name. It turns out that the first syllable of his surname rhymes with “out” and sounds more like “lowt-ner” and not many people are able to say his name properly the first time.
#4. Gal Gadot
Source: Elizabeth Goodenough / East News
Gal Gadot said in an interview that most people make the mistake when saying her name. They missed the letter T, just saying “gadoh”. It must be pronounced “gah-dote”, sounding soft.
#5. Saoirse Ronan
Source: East News
The Little Women star, Saoirse Ronan appeared in her Saturday Night Live and got people’s attention with instructions on how to spell properly her Irish name. It turns out it is pronounced “sur-sha”, which means “freedom”.
#6. Alicia Silverstone
Source: PATRICK T. FALLON / East News
Not the actress herself, but her loving mother, is bothered by the mispronunciation of her name, “It doesn’t bother me though! But my sweet mama didn’t like it...so for her...get it right!”. She named her daughter Alicia at birth, but she never expected that years later people would pronounce it "Alee-Sha" instead of the intended "ali-SEE-yuh."
#7. Chrissy Teigen
Source: Patricia Schlein / East News
It seems that no one can pronounce her surname, “tie-gen” correctly without stumbling on the first syllable. She got her unusual family name from her Norwegian father.
#8. Ian Somerhalder
Source: East News
We get used to saying the star of The Vampire Diaries “some-halder”. However, it isn’t true. It turns out his last name is pronounced “summer-halder” – a slight echo of summer in it.
#9. Paul Mescal
Source: Evan Agostini / East News
The actor laughs off mispronunciations of the drink's name because his last name is similar to it. He said in an interview that his last name should be pronounced with a soft "s" and an "uh": "meh-skull."
#10. Raven-Symoné
Source: East News
Raven-Symoné finds difficulty pronouncing her full name so she decided to just keep the first part. Despite that, the part of her name is kept mispronouncing. Many people say “sim-moan” rather than “see-mon-ye.”
#11. Kesha
Her mother created the singer's stage name. She said that it originates from a Hungarian family name, which according to lexical conventions in that language, pronounces "ke-tu-cha." However, this seems too complex for a media personality, so they simplified it to "keh-shuh." It turns out that the vocalist must rectify some incorrect pronunciations that still exist.
#12. Tove Lo
Source: tovelo / Instagram
Tove Lo gets used to hearing wrong pronunciations of her name. The singer with Swedish roots taught fans how to say it correctly: “too-vay-LOO”.
#13. Brendan Fraser
Source: ROBYN BECK / East News
Because many people mispronounce his sure name, the actor told everyone how to correctly pronounce it. In a 2022 interview, Adam Sandler said him the same way you’d pronounce “Frasier” and that made him unpleased. So, came up with a rhyme to avoid the mistake in the future: “Fraser rhymes with ’razor’.”
#14. Haim
Source: haimtheband / Instagram
When the Haim sisters decided to form a rock group, they didn't give the name much thought and just chose their last name. The band's name is quite difficult to pronounce which didn’t make life any easier for fans. Some call them “haym”, some “heim”. The rock sisters have to clarify the matter and taught everyone how to pronounce their last name: “high-um.”
Have you ever pronounced correctly celebrities’ names in our list? We’d be glad to hear from you in the comments!