Do you find yourself having to say difficult names in a newscast or on-air?
Maybe you’ve encountered names in a variety of languages that you needed to pronounce in a voice over script, at a university convocation or an awards show.
While everyone has come across names that are difficult to say, not everyone is in the limelight when they need to say them.
Here are a few ideas you can use to prevent mispronouncing the names of celebrities in today’s Vox Daily.
How Do You Say…?
In this article
- How Do You Say…?
- A Tutorial on Difficult Celebrity Names
- Tips for Researching Celebrity Name Pronunciations
- Give The Following a Go
- A Perfect Example
- How Do You Research the Pronunciation of Difficult Names?
Voice actors often come across words technically challenging words, and usually, those obstacles are overcome by a quick Google search or trip to HowJSay.com. What happens though when it is a person’s name that needs figuring out?
I recently wrote an article for Backstage Magazine that mentioned an actor whose name falls prominently under the category of difficult names to pronounce. Ioan Gruffudd, a Welsh actor, comes from a part of the United Kingdom where consonants rule and vowels are scarce.
I first discovered Gruffudd’s work years ago after watching BBC series from the library where he played the title role in Horatio Hornblower. Since then, Gruffudd has enjoyed starring roles in films such as Fantastic Four and Amazing Grace. He currently stars in the ABC series, Forever.
A Tutorial on Difficult Celebrity Names
Below, see a video where Ioan Gruffudd gives a tutorial on how to say his name and then recites the names of other celebrities whose names are equally challenging to say.
Tips for Researching Celebrity Name Pronunciations
There have been many times when I’ve needed to search for the proper pronunciation of a celebrity’s name that I’m unsure of.
When you’re in the voice business, one of the last things you want to do is say something wrong, especially if you can learn the pronunciation and write it out phonetically in your script.
Give The Following a Go
The following tips should help you in the quest of successfully delivering the name of a celebrity, program or role.
Find an interview with the person on YouTube or a clip where their name is mentioned. Look for the actor’s name followed by the keyword interview. If you know they have been in something recently that has garnered some attention, use the name of the production as a keyword as well to narrow and better qualify the search results. This is a good tip for auditory learners.
Google “How do you say X person’s name?” If you learn better by reading something or seeing a name written out phonetically, you’ll want to look the actor’s name along with keywords such as phonetic, pronounce, pronunciation of, and so on. You’ll be presented with results that break the name down into manageable syllables, hopefully with direction on which syllable to emphasize.
Poll the audience. Whether you poll the audience or ask a friend, you are in effect using a lifeline here. Don’t just ask anyone, mind you, as you could end up with any number of answers. The people you pose the question to should either be a fan of the actor, a movie buff or someone who is up on current affairs. If you know the origin of the name you are trying to say, find someone who speaks the language and see how they say it.
A Perfect Example
The first two tips work well if there is an audio or video component with multiple sources confirming the correct pronunciation.
The third tip has come in handy for me when the first two fail to yield conclusive results.
Just last week, I drew upon a colleague familiar with Asian languages for the correct pronunciation of the name Kaguya as we referenced the animated feature, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, in Vox Talk episode 80. I repeated the name back many times to him and then wrote it out so that I would know how to read it aloud when the time came.
How Do You Research the Pronunciation of Difficult Names?
Share your thoughts below!
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Comments
I do all the suggested which gets me through the bulk of questionable pronunciations as they come up in auditions. But, here’s a fun idea. Why don’t the clients and copywriters include phonetic pronouncers in their scripts? It’s the professional and polite thing to do. Don’t expect your voice talent to be some kind of universal translator. We can say what you want, any way you want, but you have to provide accurate direction, and that includes pronouncers.
I definitely go to YouTube first when I have a person’s name that I don’t know how to pronounce. As you mentioned, my first search term is “[name of person] interview”, and if that doesn’t bring anything up, I do “[name of person] news” — as that might show a news story about that person. If both of those methods fail, then I go to forvo.com.
ForVO is a great site where users upload pronunciations of words and proper names. Even though they’re submitted by users, they’re usually pretty spot-on. The search results are sorted by country of the person submitting the results. If it’s a foreign name and you don’t have an English result, then one from that person’s country of origin should be good.
When I have a proper name that’s a place, rather than a person, Forvo is my first choice, then YouTube.
If both sites fail to return a good pronunciation, I turn to Google and Wikipedia. The latter often has International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notations of proper names, which can be confusing if you don’t know how to interpret those — i.e. Ioan Gruffudd has ” (Welsh pronunciation: [?jo.an ??r?f?ð] ” — but they also often include a link to listen to an audio pronunciation.
As a last resort, I’ll email the writer of the script/copy/manuscript (or whomever my contact is), giving them a simple phonetic spelling of a few ways I think the name might be pronounced, so that I know their reply will be something I will understand. Such as: “Is Ioan Gruffudd pronounced ‘EE-an GRUFF-fud’ or ‘YOH-an GRIFF-fith’?”
I do a lot of game voices, and some of them are on a really tight schedule. Some of the fantasy names can be…. tricky.
If there’s no time to ask about pronunciation, I’ll either Google it (many people use names from obscure mythology, or from different countries that they like or have some connection to) or if that yields no results, I’ll include takes with all possible pronunciations I can think of. Doesn’t help when you’re LIVE, mind you, but it’s still a good tactic to keep a client happy.