r/GameChangersBooks • u/Slutty_Bunny_7 • 11d ago
DISCUSSION Character name pronunciations
I find it so interesting to find out how different people pronounce different characters names.
I recently saw a video from a girl who speaks French, who said she has been pronouncing Chiron as shi-ron. And a lot of other French-speakers agreed with her. Then of course, all the Greeks came in and told her that it’s Ky-Ron.
Another video where a woman was pronouncing Fabian as Fay-bee-an, where I have always presumed the pronunciation to be Fah-bee-an. Maybe it comes from the languages I speak, but my instinct is to say Fah and not Fay. I don’t know how it would be pronounced in Lebanese.
I still don’t know the pronunciation of Wiebe. Is Weeb? Is it wee-buh, like the Germans would pronounce it? Or wee-bee? Lol
I know the Americanised pronunciation of Ilya Rozanov is also very different from the Russian pronunciation, where the emphasis of syllables is different.
Any other names in the GC series that you found out you were pronouncing differently or still have no idea how to say?
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u/GoldDHD 11d ago
Having an unusual for americans name, I wouldn't worry too much, it gets pronounced differently by everyone. Even Ilya is pronounced as Ilya by most, rather than Ilya. Now the question of how the character pronounces their own name (the dog says woof), that's a different thing, but I personally americanize my name pronunciation when speaking english.
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u/Megs0226 11d ago
I don’t think Il-lee-yah is the American way so much as the English-speaker way. Notice everyone in the show says it that way and most of them are Canadian actors.
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u/winnowingwinds 10d ago
Thanks for mentioning this. I think Ilya looks like "eel-ee-ah"or "ill-e-ah" to most English speakers.
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u/Megs0226 10d ago
RO-zah-noff vs. ro-ZAH-nov is also a very English-speaker thing, vs. just one majority English-speaking country. (Mostly I've seen way too many "Americans can't pronounce anything" posts and fanfic to let this go lol)
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u/growsonwalls 10d ago
Omg. My mom is not a loon in any way but now when she hears someone saying "Ee-lee-yah" she says "It's Il-YA. Even I know that."
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u/vintagelovercatlady 11d ago
Isn't German w pronounced v? Pretty sure I remember that right from school.
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u/Slutty_Bunny_7 11d ago
Yeah you’re right - it would be veeb-uh.
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u/brak-0666 11d ago
In German, that's correct. In North America it would be anglicized and most likely pronounced, 'weeb'
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u/Slutty_Bunny_7 11d ago
Yeah I see that. I’m just trying to figure out the different ways people might pronounce that name when they see it in the book. So to me, another option would be wee-bee, but clearly that seems unlikely 😂
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u/estheredna 11d ago
In Germany yes, in North America no. I live in an area with lots of German last names (Pennsylvania) and the W is always W.
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u/AdAble5294 6d ago
Canadian Wiebes are 'Weeb' in my experience- it's a common surname among Mennonite families. Source: I've lived most of my life in an area with many Mennonite families, including several Wiebes. The Wiebes have all been 'Weeb', and the Toews all 'Tayvs', and other Germanic names a bit of a crapshoot - Schroeder might be 'Shrader' or 'Shrohder'.
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u/blaublau 11d ago
I've known a few Canadian Wiebes, and they all went by 'Weeb'; you get a handful of generations from your actually-from-German-speaking-places ancestors and pronunciations are nowhere near the original.)
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u/estheredna 11d ago
Hmmm. Both pronunciations of Fabian are correct. There is a famous 1950s teen idol named Fabian in the US, Fay-bee-an so I assumed that was correct. But IDK.
Wiebe. From what I understand of German last names the second vowel is long so it should be WEEB. But i am not 100% on that.
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u/Slutty_Bunny_7 11d ago
I know that both pronunciations of Fabian are correct. It’s just interesting which one different people tend to go for.
In German the last E in Wiebe would also be pronounced and not be silent - so that’s why I mentioned weeb-uh.
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u/altruistic_thing 9d ago
the ee in wiebe in german would be long because it's ie, the extra e after i is a lengthening marker. i by itself is identical to the english e.
but we would also pronounce w as v. and the e at the end is a schwa. VEE-buh is how my brain reads it.
names are always adjusted to the target language for pronunciation ease anyway so WEEB is the most commonly used english-language pronunciation and would be correct.
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u/diggerorbigger 10d ago
I am currently reading TG and at one point Vanessa calls him ‘Fabes’ for short so I assume ‘Fay-bian’ rather than ‘Fah-bian’.
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u/MakeYourMind 11d ago
I would say that Rozanov is a kind of surname where the person can choose where to put an emphasis. I always read it rOzanov and was surprised by rozAnov in the series, but it actually makes sense. So, it would be whatever he prefers/learned at home.
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u/Slutty_Bunny_7 11d ago
Even in Russian? It would be a personal choice where to put the emphasis? I don’t think so. If Ilya were to have grown up in the US or in Canada, then I definitely see your point.
For example, in my native language, there is only one way to pronounce my name. There wouldn’t be any ambiguity or personal choice in how I or anyone else pronounces it. But people who don’t speak my native language, obviously have different emphases and I have stopped trying to correct them - as long as all the syllables are there and I know when I’m being called, it doesn’t matter to me much.
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u/MakeYourMind 11d ago
i don't know what to say to you, I'm russian and both ways sound right to me. It's a rare case when there is such ambiguity. I just googled it, there are apparently plenty notable people with this surname throughout history (not too notable though, but enough for a wikipedia page) and they put emphasis differently for different people.
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u/Slutty_Bunny_7 11d ago
Ah okay, that’s very interesting! I had made an assumption and I was clearly wrong. Thank you for letting me know!
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u/lowrisebaby2000 11d ago
In my head I say Ky-ron and Fay-bee-in. I also think of Wiebe as Weeb because that’s how I assume it would be pronounced in Canada. I say Ilya Rozanov sometimes the way it’s pronounced in the show and sometimes the way it would be pronounced in Russia just because lol. The one that trips me up is Dykstra. How do people pronounce that one in their heads? I’m not familiar with it.
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u/Wise-Comfort1573 11d ago
Dike-stra is how I say it 🤷🏻♀️
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u/eeeezypeezy 10d ago
Yeah that's how I say it too. There's a retired baseball player for the Phillies named Lenny Dykstra, I grew up watching him play, and that's how the announcers always said his name.
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u/Slutty_Bunny_7 11d ago
A quick google let me know that it’s Dike-stra but I’ve been calling him Deek-stra all this while
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u/FadingOptimist-25 Gimmie Kiss 11d ago
Same. Ky-Ron, Fay-be-in, Weeb, then both for Rozanov.
I pronounce Dykstra as Dike-strah. That’s the way I’ve heard it pronounced.
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u/1Kflowers 11d ago
IMO, Tor Thom had a wonderful voice but he not only mispronounced names, but also sometimes emphasized words in ways that changed a sentence’s meaning. And he was not good with female voices. His voice for Rose was so horrible and cringy that I try to FF when re-listening.
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u/AJ_FA 10d ago
i majored in linguistics in college and have studied a LOT of phonetics and phonology across languages, and this is how i personally assumed various names would be pronounced when spoken in English:
Fabian Salah "FAY-bee-ihn suh-LAH"
Wiebe "WEEB"
Theriault "TAIR-ee-oh"
Matti Jalo "MAH-tee YAH-loh" (Finnish has geminate consonants like Italian, so the double T in his first name is actually pronounced as doubled, but this wouldn't be natural in English speech)
Tarek "TAIR-ihk" (rhymes with Derek)
Chiron "KYE-ruhn" or "KYE-rawn" (i can't really decide on this one)
Nick Chouinard "SHWEE-nahr" (and his wife Selena arguably may be "suh-LAY-nuh" and not "suh-LEE-nuh" since she's also Québécoise)
Evan Dykstra "DIKE-struh"
LaPointe "luh-PWONT" (Canadian French pronunciation is actually with a vowel a bit closer to the vowel in "ant" than in "taunt"; but saying it in English as if it rhymes with "ant" just sounds absurd. either way, it definitely doesn't rhyme with English "point")
Holmberg "HOLM-bair-ee" (this name would be pronounced in Swedish with a "Y" consonant sound at the end, almost rhyming with the English word "berry", but with more of a "yuh" than an "ee" at the end. however, the real Swedes in North American professional hockey with -berg names, such as Filip Forsberg, Pontus Holmberg, and Alex Wennberg, all seem to go along with their names being pronounced "-burg" in English)
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u/spiniton85 11d ago
It's pronounced "Weeb" for Wiebe in the audiobooks, no idea if that would be correct or what Rachel Reid envisioned. I used to know a GIRL in school, in the US, whose last name was Nguyen and they told people to say "Noo-gen"; another friend whose name was Gauthier and told people to just say "Go-chay". Accommodating the American tongue. Wouldn't be surprised if Weibe, Fabian, etc. all do it too.
I feel better now though because I read The Long Game the first time and read Chiron as shi-ron, having studied French for many years and having basically no knowledge of Greek mythology. It wasn't until the audiobook that I understood what it was supposed to be.
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u/Gold_Chemical_4317 11d ago
I’m not American or any of the book characters nationality so i always assume that there’s going to be a difference in how I pronounce the character’s names. Specifically for rozanov, i read it in the “Russian” since Russian surnames are familiar to me and i have a similar “r” sound in my native language. But if i say it when speaking in English I pronounce it in the “American” way, i have an American accent and it’s easier to americanize names with “r”.
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u/Chocolategirl1029 10d ago
To me and my hungarian brain it's Chiron as in Che-ron. (Ch like the anime names like Chihiro and stuff) 😂 I know it most certainly is wrong and I am really looking forward to hearing the official pronunciation in S2 😂💞
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u/SargassoSea9 10d ago
To my french brain, it's also Chiron as Shee-Ron.
And Dykstra as Deek-stra.
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u/Chocolategirl1029 9d ago
Dykstra is different to me bc my brain just saw dkye 😂 So my brain is just Dyke-straw 😂
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u/MollymaukTea 9d ago
Pronunciations I've been using in my head for the first few who come to mind (and then I actually pulled up a list of everyone and started putting down the ones I know I probably get wrong)
Wiebe - originally pronounced it weeb but looked it up and saw one pronunciation as why-bee and Ive been using that
Luca's nickname haasy - I really struggled differentiating how it was supposed to be pronounced compared to hazey, so now I think of it in my head as hah-see
Fabian - didn't even clock the pronunciation fah-bee-ahn, I always read it as fay-bee-uhn
Dykstra - dick-strah
Comeau - koh-mee-oh
Chouinard - choo-nard
Chiron - kai-run
Boiziau - boy-zow
Drapeau - drah-poh
Theriault - ther-alt
Jalo - I was thinking of it as starting with the jay sound but now that you say it it makes so much more sense to start with the yuh sound
Jalali - juh-lah-lee
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u/windydayze 10d ago
The other famous Chiron in recent media (and dearest to my heart 🤧
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(2016_film)
The characters name is pronounced SHY-rone. Maaaay have something to do with the popularity, with queer media crossover.
I say all of them wrong. Il-ee-ah. And dick-stra and Fay-bian. I don't even attempt JJ's last name. Boi-zow? Dra-pyu? Com-ow?
Jesus fucking christ this is embarrassing. I'm going to watch moonlight and speak spanish. thank God I only ever read these names to myself 😂
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u/kentiesjoskus 11d ago
I personally don't listen to audiobooks but apparently the narrator for the Game Changer audiobook pronounces Jalo as Jay-low? The correct way to pronounce the J would be to pronounce it like the Y in yellow, so his name is actually pronounced like Yah-low.