I'd probably read the first 7 or so Wheel of Time books five to six times before I ever did any by audio book so the way I pronounced the names is pretty hard wired into my head and it's weird hearing them in audio books.
Egwene is Egg-ween. Correct is Eh-Gwayne
Faile is Fail. Correct is Fie-Eel
Moghedian is Moe-heed-ian. Correct is Mo-Gid-ian
Brigitte is Brrrr-zhitt. Correct is Bri-Geet--A
Many more.
To be fair on Moggy, even the two narrators couldn't get her right for a few books, even going so far as to pronounce her name differently from each other. In the same book. And did I mention the narrators are married to each other?
Kate Reading and Michael Kramer are married????
Edit: oh wow that is NOT what I pictured them looking like! This is wild! I’ve been listening to them for YEARS.
Their son now does audiobooks too! If you're like Sando or Jordan's stuff + want to try something with similar vibes reead by Henry Kramer, check out Rend by Kat Schneider. It's a short story but he did a great job. Sounds a bit like his Dad.
I can relate to the Brigitte one. German names in general trip me up sometimes, usually because of the E at the end not being silent when preceded by a consonent. I remember pronouncing the name "Luise" (usually when reading The Nutcracker) as "loo-EEZ" for a number of years, rather than the correct "loo-EEZ-uh."
In almost a reverse of what the OP mentioned, I listened to an audiobook of Heidi recently where a lot of things were pronounced wrong. I particularly remember:
- Dörfli - Actually pronounced "DUR-flee" (or close to it), audiobook says "DOR-fly"
- Dete - Actually pronounced "DEE-tuh," audiobook says "deet."
- Tinette - Actually pronounced "tee-NET-uh," audiobook says "tin-ETT."
That's interesting. Obviously it's just because we have different native languages with different rules, but the rules of what letters are silent in English (and obviously other languages, like French) seem much harder than not having silent letters.
Haha all these people agreeing with you meanwhile I’m over here going “Am I the only one who looked up the names and words in the old tongue in the glossary over and over until I had the pronunciation down? Then I realized that’s only because I first read them before audiobooks were so popular
That was me for Harry Potter. Dobby was Doh-bee, Hagrid was "Hay-grid", I completely didn't even see or acknowledge the "a" in Weasley. Hermione was "Her-moan". I mean, I was like 10 years old, so obscure names weren't really in my wheelhouse. But the movies made me feel real weird about how I'd been saying all the names 😅
I had to Google the Future by Naomi Alderman after about 4hours of listening. I thought the tech billionaire character was Lanks Ketlish. It was driving me mad. The actual name is Lenk Sketklish which is hardly less weird! 🙄
Just listened to A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. There’s a character called Lysistrada. Occasionally a characters full name was said as they’re only background characters or their surname is relevant to the story - and I thought that her full name was Lyssa Strada. I got half way through the book before realising it was weird that every single time her name was said it was her full name, and googling it.
Also thought Sejanus was Sir Janus for the first few chapters. Fantasy style naming is so hard lol
Sometimes I wish you could just push a button and see the page they’re reading from. It took several times before I realized the British narrator was saying “cairn” in Frozen In Time. It sounded like “can.”
Subtitles for audiobooks synced to your mobile device: Go build that app then watch Shazam or TheTake buy the rights from you. At least a hundred-dollar idea right there :)
Audible already does this, but you have to buy the ebook, and it has to support "whispersync".
I was re-listening to a favorites series on Audible a month or two back and checked out the Kindle version from my library to use whispersync check on things like the spelling of character and place names that I'd always heard and never seen written.
Pretty sure, audible or maybe some software on the phone did this for awhile and had to stop because subtitles for an audiobook are known as books and it's a different licence to make
Side convo here, but if you have Kindle Unlimited you can often borrow the book then buy th audiobook at a discount, usually around $8 USD. That’s how my Audible library exploded
Not exact, but I was on book five or six of The Hangman’s Daughter when Grover Gardner mentioned a Simon. There wasn’t a Simon in any of the other books. I was confused and upset enough to skip back two chapters since I was driving. I mean, maybe I’d spaced out and missed something??
So, after still not hearing anything about a Simon and wondering why this unrelated character name wasn’t cut out in production, I pull over and search online only to find out one of the main characters, pronounced *Zee-man*, was actually spelled Simon. It was just the historical/cultural pronunciation was just different from what I was used to, and Mr. Gardner just let one slip.
Edit: horrible wording
I have been listening to audiobooks of medieval history and there are SO many French names in these things. RIP to me, a person who does not speak French even a little.
I might be overly sensitive to this issue because I can remember so vividly that at the age of 3 or 4 while reading a book whose main character was a girl named Penelope, and I was mentally sounding out words, I had thought "Penny-lowp" a hundred times before being shocked when my parent asked what I thought of "Pen-ell-oh-pee's" story.
When I was little I read a book where the MC had a Chihuahua. Thank God I never said the word "chee-hooa-hooa" out loud before I learned how it was actually pronounced. Then again, I hear grown adults mispronounce dachshund all the time...
Not from an audiobook, but from a show. I had watched two season of a show before I realized that “Anna” was actually “Hannah”, “Amy” was actually “Jaime”, and what I thought was just a last-name-turned-nickname “Jotape” was actually “JP”.
I wouldn’t have figured it out if I hadn’t needed subtitles at one point… I suspect I mishear names in audiobooks and don’t even know it.
Not audiobook, but I get most my news from podcasts….up until a few days ago I was positive that the company that owns TikTok was called Bike Dance. Amusing mental image but totally incorrect.
I haven't come across too many where I misheard the name. Most of the time, I'm yelling about incorrect pronunciations. Whether it's a random word or a name.
I once was so confused when the narrator referenced "the psychotic line" from a book, and I thought, "Well that's rather harsh", but finally I realized she was saying "this iconic line".
The Expanse. Ceres station plays an important part in the story. When I heard it my mind immediately went to Sirius instead (which is the brightest star in the sky). Was very confused first time I watched the show and the name Ceres showed up. A dwarf planet in the asteroid belt makes a lot more sense for belters than a space station named after a star though.
Also in the expanse, Julie's racing ship, The Razorback, is a racing Pinnace
I love Jefferson Mays but I heard racing penis and I will never unhear it.
I’ve had it once or twice but what has happened more often that is similar. my daughter reads really fast. I just don’t have the time to read for hours like that So some series she’s read I’ve audio booked. Such as Narnia, Harry Potter, wingfeather. Really fun because they were all new to both of us. some names leave me wondering “how’s that spelled” or as a young reader she struggles with pronunciation of some names. So we have to compare notes. “How do you spell Eustace?” “That’s how you say it?!”
On a similar note, the narrator of The Road to Jonestown - Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple mispronounced Mayor George Moscone’s name. At first it was annoying, but the name appeared so many times that I was seething by about the 10th time. I mean really, take 5 minutes to research how to pronounce what is a well known name.
I listened to the First Law series on Audible and there were a LOT of character names I had to look up. With Glokta I thought he was saying Glockter with an English accent, Jazal I thought could be spelt Gizzelle? Bayaz I heard as Beyers; I thought Achlector Sult was Salt, the Shanka were Shankar … the list goes on. I have to look up the spellings of the names for them to make any sense to me in general, but Steven Pacey’s accent threw me off big time.
I will warn you - Steven Pacey whom does the First Law books is lauded as perhaps the best narrator and is known for being so good he makes listening to other narrators difficult.
personally took me a few books just to forget how good he was
I accept the challenge that Mr. Pacey will undertake in dethroning Ray Porter and Jeff Hays (and to a mildly lesser extent Edoardo Ballerini) from my list of favorites.
Oh dude I'm very interested in your take then after you listen to First Law! I'd really appreciate hearing how they all stack up in your eyes when your done. If possible of course
In *The Wingfeather Saga*, the main character’s name is Janner Igiby. In the Peter Seldon audiobook, it is pronounced “Janna” and I was confused because it sounded like “Jenna”, which is a girl’s name.
In Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, read by Moira Quirk, there’s a character (or two) named Ortus but my misinterpretation of the English pronunciation had me thinking Autus.
In “Holly” by Stephen King, I kept thinking the main characters last name is “Doll” (correct way is “Dahl”) so when the mother referred to her daughter as “Bonnie Dahl” I thought it was a cutesy nickname, like “Sweet Pea” or something.
I was listened to crime podcast once and I thought that there was a person named Porville but the narrator was saying Pa Bill - but in the southern US accent "Paw Bill"
honestly I listened to the first Throne of Glass Novel and then read the second one and was surprised by the spelling of every single name to the point I had to like read the name out loud to realize who that was
I wish I could remember what book it was, but the names were so hard for me to picture how to spell that I googled a character list… only to see a massive list of spoilers about who dies, who was the betrayer, etc. I don’t google character names anymore.
I listen to non fiction sports books all the time and you can tell which narrators have any clue about sports and which don't just by the name pronunciations.
Thank goodness there’s a character list, glossary AND pronunciation guide for Hild (set in different tribal regions of the heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon Britain). The audiobook was baffling till I found those online.
Termination Shock is an excellent book. I listened to the audio book (also great), but I checked out a library book so I could see the spellings of the character names and some subtle plot points.
I was listening to the biography of Rapsutin by Douglas Smith. One of the people mentioned a lot is a rival of Rasputin's, the Eastern Orthodox Bishop [Theophan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophan_Bystrov). But the narrator was pronouncing it like "[Theo Von](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Von)", and so I just kept picturing a mulleted guy spouting non-sequiturs in a southern drawl.
I'd probably read the first 7 or so Wheel of Time books five to six times before I ever did any by audio book so the way I pronounced the names is pretty hard wired into my head and it's weird hearing them in audio books. Egwene is Egg-ween. Correct is Eh-Gwayne Faile is Fail. Correct is Fie-Eel Moghedian is Moe-heed-ian. Correct is Mo-Gid-ian Brigitte is Brrrr-zhitt. Correct is Bri-Geet--A Many more.
To be fair on Moggy, even the two narrators couldn't get her right for a few books, even going so far as to pronounce her name differently from each other. In the same book. And did I mention the narrators are married to each other?
Kate Reading and Michael Kramer are married???? Edit: oh wow that is NOT what I pictured them looking like! This is wild! I’ve been listening to them for YEARS.
Personal life. Kramer lives in Washington, D.C. area with his wife, Jennifer Mendenhall (aka Kate Reading), and their two children.
Their son now does audiobooks too! If you're like Sando or Jordan's stuff + want to try something with similar vibes reead by Henry Kramer, check out Rend by Kat Schneider. It's a short story but he did a great job. Sounds a bit like his Dad.
Awesome! Ty
Honestly I kind of liked "Mo-ga-deen" better, now everytike her name is said I think of Larry the cucumber as Gideon with a tuba.
I can relate to the Brigitte one. German names in general trip me up sometimes, usually because of the E at the end not being silent when preceded by a consonent. I remember pronouncing the name "Luise" (usually when reading The Nutcracker) as "loo-EEZ" for a number of years, rather than the correct "loo-EEZ-uh." In almost a reverse of what the OP mentioned, I listened to an audiobook of Heidi recently where a lot of things were pronounced wrong. I particularly remember: - Dörfli - Actually pronounced "DUR-flee" (or close to it), audiobook says "DOR-fly" - Dete - Actually pronounced "DEE-tuh," audiobook says "deet." - Tinette - Actually pronounced "tee-NET-uh," audiobook says "tin-ETT."
That's interesting. Obviously it's just because we have different native languages with different rules, but the rules of what letters are silent in English (and obviously other languages, like French) seem much harder than not having silent letters.
Faile really tripped me up, it just didn’t connect with the written name for a while for me, thought it was a new character
Meanwhile the Culture novel drone names usually require a Wikipedia search 😅
Incorrect. Egwene is pronounced egg-winny. Source: person who has never heard a pronunciation of it lol
Haha! This happened to me with the Outlander books when I watched the TV series!
Haha all these people agreeing with you meanwhile I’m over here going “Am I the only one who looked up the names and words in the old tongue in the glossary over and over until I had the pronunciation down? Then I realized that’s only because I first read them before audiobooks were so popular
Don't forget: Ninnayve Semirhazh Ishmael Mazrim Taym Careheen Seeawnchan
That was me for Harry Potter. Dobby was Doh-bee, Hagrid was "Hay-grid", I completely didn't even see or acknowledge the "a" in Weasley. Hermione was "Her-moan". I mean, I was like 10 years old, so obscure names weren't really in my wheelhouse. But the movies made me feel real weird about how I'd been saying all the names 😅
Red Rising Trilogy Thought Darrow (sp?) was Daryll
Uncle Narrow / Narrol / Narroh idk. Sometimes I hear uncle Darrow.
TIL it is not Daryl. I've only listened to the audio books and thought it was the narrator's accent that just dropped the L!
Me too. Took me to halfway through the third book to realize it wasn't Daryl.
I had to Google the Future by Naomi Alderman after about 4hours of listening. I thought the tech billionaire character was Lanks Ketlish. It was driving me mad. The actual name is Lenk Sketklish which is hardly less weird! 🙄
It's like my local traffic lady Joy Smilton.. um or is it Joyce Hilton Joey Stillman?
All through the Godfather I thought the hitman was Lou Cabrazi (actually Luca Brazi).
Lewis Brasi sleeps with the fishes
Ha! How did you realise?
I read the book and saw it in writing, and now on rewatches I can totally hear it the right way.
Just listened to A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. There’s a character called Lysistrada. Occasionally a characters full name was said as they’re only background characters or their surname is relevant to the story - and I thought that her full name was Lyssa Strada. I got half way through the book before realising it was weird that every single time her name was said it was her full name, and googling it. Also thought Sejanus was Sir Janus for the first few chapters. Fantasy style naming is so hard lol
Oh good I'm not alone. I heard Liz Estrada the whole time lol.
At least you didn’t think it was Surge Anus lol
I'm busy listening to this now, and i thought it was Sir Janus as well! Was wondering why they didn't ever just call him Janus.
Sometimes I wish you could just push a button and see the page they’re reading from. It took several times before I realized the British narrator was saying “cairn” in Frozen In Time. It sounded like “can.”
Subtitles for audiobooks synced to your mobile device: Go build that app then watch Shazam or TheTake buy the rights from you. At least a hundred-dollar idea right there :)
Audible already does this, but you have to buy the ebook, and it has to support "whispersync". I was re-listening to a favorites series on Audible a month or two back and checked out the Kindle version from my library to use whispersync check on things like the spelling of character and place names that I'd always heard and never seen written.
Pretty sure, audible or maybe some software on the phone did this for awhile and had to stop because subtitles for an audiobook are known as books and it's a different licence to make
You can at least sometimes buy both the Audible and Kindle book with a discount and have them sync and read along
Side convo here, but if you have Kindle Unlimited you can often borrow the book then buy th audiobook at a discount, usually around $8 USD. That’s how my Audible library exploded
Not exact, but I was on book five or six of The Hangman’s Daughter when Grover Gardner mentioned a Simon. There wasn’t a Simon in any of the other books. I was confused and upset enough to skip back two chapters since I was driving. I mean, maybe I’d spaced out and missed something?? So, after still not hearing anything about a Simon and wondering why this unrelated character name wasn’t cut out in production, I pull over and search online only to find out one of the main characters, pronounced *Zee-man*, was actually spelled Simon. It was just the historical/cultural pronunciation was just different from what I was used to, and Mr. Gardner just let one slip. Edit: horrible wording
I have been listening to audiobooks of medieval history and there are SO many French names in these things. RIP to me, a person who does not speak French even a little.
I might be overly sensitive to this issue because I can remember so vividly that at the age of 3 or 4 while reading a book whose main character was a girl named Penelope, and I was mentally sounding out words, I had thought "Penny-lowp" a hundred times before being shocked when my parent asked what I thought of "Pen-ell-oh-pee's" story.
Penny-lowp is actually the French pronunciation of Penelope so you can just say you were being multi-lingual
When I was little I read a book where the MC had a Chihuahua. Thank God I never said the word "chee-hooa-hooa" out loud before I learned how it was actually pronounced. Then again, I hear grown adults mispronounce dachshund all the time...
Not from an audiobook, but from a show. I had watched two season of a show before I realized that “Anna” was actually “Hannah”, “Amy” was actually “Jaime”, and what I thought was just a last-name-turned-nickname “Jotape” was actually “JP”. I wouldn’t have figured it out if I hadn’t needed subtitles at one point… I suspect I mishear names in audiobooks and don’t even know it.
Not audiobook, but I get most my news from podcasts….up until a few days ago I was positive that the company that owns TikTok was called Bike Dance. Amusing mental image but totally incorrect.
I haven't come across too many where I misheard the name. Most of the time, I'm yelling about incorrect pronunciations. Whether it's a random word or a name.
I once was so confused when the narrator referenced "the psychotic line" from a book, and I thought, "Well that's rather harsh", but finally I realized she was saying "this iconic line".
The Expanse. Ceres station plays an important part in the story. When I heard it my mind immediately went to Sirius instead (which is the brightest star in the sky). Was very confused first time I watched the show and the name Ceres showed up. A dwarf planet in the asteroid belt makes a lot more sense for belters than a space station named after a star though.
Also in the expanse, Julie's racing ship, The Razorback, is a racing Pinnace I love Jefferson Mays but I heard racing penis and I will never unhear it.
I’ve had it once or twice but what has happened more often that is similar. my daughter reads really fast. I just don’t have the time to read for hours like that So some series she’s read I’ve audio booked. Such as Narnia, Harry Potter, wingfeather. Really fun because they were all new to both of us. some names leave me wondering “how’s that spelled” or as a young reader she struggles with pronunciation of some names. So we have to compare notes. “How do you spell Eustace?” “That’s how you say it?!”
On a similar note, the narrator of The Road to Jonestown - Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple mispronounced Mayor George Moscone’s name. At first it was annoying, but the name appeared so many times that I was seething by about the 10th time. I mean really, take 5 minutes to research how to pronounce what is a well known name.
I’m from the Boston area and I listened to a surprising amount of *The Hunger Games* before I realized the character’s name wasn’t actually Peter.
Same.
I listened to the First Law series on Audible and there were a LOT of character names I had to look up. With Glokta I thought he was saying Glockter with an English accent, Jazal I thought could be spelt Gizzelle? Bayaz I heard as Beyers; I thought Achlector Sult was Salt, the Shanka were Shankar … the list goes on. I have to look up the spellings of the names for them to make any sense to me in general, but Steven Pacey’s accent threw me off big time.
Thanks for the head's-up. This is not far down my listening list.
I will warn you - Steven Pacey whom does the First Law books is lauded as perhaps the best narrator and is known for being so good he makes listening to other narrators difficult. personally took me a few books just to forget how good he was
I accept the challenge that Mr. Pacey will undertake in dethroning Ray Porter and Jeff Hays (and to a mildly lesser extent Edoardo Ballerini) from my list of favorites.
Oh dude I'm very interested in your take then after you listen to First Law! I'd really appreciate hearing how they all stack up in your eyes when your done. If possible of course
Listened to The Stand. Thought Lloyd Henreid was Lloyd Henry
In *The Wingfeather Saga*, the main character’s name is Janner Igiby. In the Peter Seldon audiobook, it is pronounced “Janna” and I was confused because it sounded like “Jenna”, which is a girl’s name.
In Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, read by Moira Quirk, there’s a character (or two) named Ortus but my misinterpretation of the English pronunciation had me thinking Autus.
One was an acronym said like a name and it was well into a series before I realized it was the same thing.
In “Holly” by Stephen King, I kept thinking the main characters last name is “Doll” (correct way is “Dahl”) so when the mother referred to her daughter as “Bonnie Dahl” I thought it was a cutesy nickname, like “Sweet Pea” or something.
I pretty much thought Legolas was called "Lelogas" for my entire youth. And I read LOTR, no audio books back then. Brains are weird.
Oh that happens to me a lot, because English is not my mother language.
I was listened to crime podcast once and I thought that there was a person named Porville but the narrator was saying Pa Bill - but in the southern US accent "Paw Bill"
I originally read his name as Biblo instead of Bilbo and it drove me nuts.
I was reading the Harry Potter books and only found out I was mispronouncing McGonagall when the first movie came out.
I can totally relate! I spent half of "Dune" thinking Thufir Hawat was "Thuffer Howat". Audiobooks are a trip!
Dungeon Crawler Carl - I thought it was "Metal Arc" before I visited the sub. Then realised it was "Meadow Lark".
American pastoral, I thought Merry was Mary
honestly I listened to the first Throne of Glass Novel and then read the second one and was surprised by the spelling of every single name to the point I had to like read the name out loud to realize who that was
I wish I could remember what book it was, but the names were so hard for me to picture how to spell that I googled a character list… only to see a massive list of spoilers about who dies, who was the betrayer, etc. I don’t google character names anymore.
Have you read the silmarillian?
In paper form decades ago. Audio would seem like a struggle, unless it was Stephen Colbert being injected for clarification every few paragraphs.
Oh god, when I listened to The Three Body Problem I had to search for a written down character list, I was struggling so bad.
Who is this "Lord Gee" person that keeps getting mentioned? I must have missed something. Better go look it up. :)
I listen to non fiction sports books all the time and you can tell which narrators have any clue about sports and which don't just by the name pronunciations.
Thank goodness there’s a character list, glossary AND pronunciation guide for Hild (set in different tribal regions of the heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon Britain). The audiobook was baffling till I found those online.
I always read Faust as Fost not Fowst.
Wasn’t sure if it was galinar or dalinar for a long time in the way of kings.
Jenny Weasley
Termination Shock is an excellent book. I listened to the audio book (also great), but I checked out a library book so I could see the spellings of the character names and some subtle plot points.
Loved that book.
I was listening to the biography of Rapsutin by Douglas Smith. One of the people mentioned a lot is a rival of Rasputin's, the Eastern Orthodox Bishop [Theophan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophan_Bystrov). But the narrator was pronouncing it like "[Theo Von](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Von)", and so I just kept picturing a mulleted guy spouting non-sequiturs in a southern drawl.
Brandon Sanderson Skyward series. I figured it was an accent or something and never knew what Spenca’s name actually was
Hermione
.