Celebrity names can be difficult to pronounce if you’ve only read them in news articles or movie and television credits.
And this difficulty has now been confirmed by new research showing that the surnames of Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan are among the most mispronounced words of the year.
The British Institute of Literary Reporters (BIVR) and the language learning app Babbel compiled a list of names and words that are most frequently pronounced incorrectly.
Rwandan-Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa, star of Doctor Who on BBC One, also joined Irish actors on the list.
BIVR, the leading organization for subtitling professionals, put together the ranking by identifying words that news readers, politicians and public figures have consistently had difficulty pronouncing.
Mescal, star of Gladiator II, said in an interview last year that the frequent mispronunciation of his surname was due to the popularity of the similarly named Mexican liquor ‘mezcal’.
He told the Hollywood Reporter: ‘People get confused about how to pronounce my name because of the mezcal drink.
‘Everyone does it. I pronounce it MESS-kul and if I were launching a tequila line then I would call it “MESS-kul mez-cal.”
New research shows the surnames of Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan (pictured) are among the most mispronounced words of the year
Rwandan-Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa, star of Doctor Who on BBC One, also joined Irish actors on the list.
Mescal, star of Gladiator II, said in an interview last year that the frequent mispronunciation of his surname was due to the popularity of the similarly named Mexican liquor ‘mezcal’.
Joining Mescal on the list was Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who won a Bafta for his performance in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin.
The actor pronounces his surname ‘key-OH-gin’, with a hard ‘g’, distinguishing it from other Irish variations where the ‘g’ is usually silent.
The “key challenge” when pronouncing the actor’s last name “is in the transition from ‘g’ to ‘n,’ says linguistics and cultural expert Noël Wolf.
she said The telegraph: ‘Unlike other Irish variations where the “g” can be dropped, Barry’s name clearly includes it. The vowel sound here is a very soft “i”, which can sometimes be confused with a very soft “u”.
Keoghan made headlines this year for his relationship with singer Sabrina Carpenter, whose chart-topping song Espresso was praised for its correct pronunciation of the caffeinated drink.
Carpenter, who was reported to have split from the Saltburn star on Wednesday, earned praise for clearly pronouncing the word ‘es-PRESS-oh’ on the track.
Despite this, the word still has its own place on the list of subtitlers, due to the common mispronunciation of the word as ‘EX-press-oh’.
One of the celebrities on the list even admitted to mispronouncing her own name.
Sabrina Carpenter earned praise for clearly pronouncing the word ‘es-PRESS-oh’ in her hit song of the same name.
Gatwa clarified that his name is correctly pronounced ‘N-shoo-tee’ and explained: “It’s like an n (pause) shoo-tee.”
Earlier this year, Sex Education star Gatwa revealed that his mother had to correct him at the age of 26 to make sure he was saying his name “correctly.”
The 32-year-old clarified that his name is correctly pronounced ‘N-shoo-tee’, explaining: “It’s like an n (pause) shoo-tee.”
In the same interview, the actor confessed that he had previously told his fans that his name should be pronounced ‘Shootee’ as in ‘shoots like a shooting star and then an E at the end.’
But it was his own mother who reprimanded him for his mistake and called him on the phone to say: ‘What are you talking about? That’s not how you say your name. That’s not how you say it!’
‘I was like, ‘oh! Oh right, thanks for telling me mom. At 26,’” Ghani said.
In the world of sport, Manchester City and Croatia national team defender Josko Gvardiol are also on the list, having published a video explaining how to pronounce his name (‘YOSH-ko GVAR-dee-ol’).
Other notable entries included a smokeless tobacco product from Sweden called Snus (pronounced ‘SNOOZ’), which should be pronounced ‘with a long ‘o’ and a soft ‘s’, slightly resembling a ‘z’.
Another Swedish word that the British public struggled to pronounce was “flygskam”, which means “shame of flying” and is pronounced “FLEEG-skam”.
The term rose to prominence thanks to Greta Thunberg’s advocacy and gained renewed attention after Sweden announced it would scrap the aviation tax.
Another linguistic challenge for news readers in the UK was saying the name of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic mascot, Phryge, pronounced “FREE-je”.
Commentators struggled to name the animated red triangles, inspired by the Phrygian cap, a symbol of freedom.
The BIVR is responsible for captioning and subtitling events in real time, on television and in court.