History Main / NoPronunciationGuide

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* SuddenNameChange: A something's name is suddenly changed without explanation.

!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16685944880.21479700 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.
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[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{Nedroid}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sword_pronounce_2.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[AltText Thanks for reading Only-Works-In-Comics comics.]]]]

->''"When in doubt, be sure to pronounce everything in the least affected manner possible, from an American perspective."''
-->-- '''Creator/AndrewHussie'''

In written works, sometimes it's not obvious how to pronounce names that are given. Sure, it's easy enough to figure out how to pronounce John Smith (usually), but seeing the name Gauthenia Vrellneick is going to confuse the heck out of anyone (probably).

This can cause issues when people try to actually discuss a character in the work, and nobody can figure out whose pronunciation is actually correct. There can be quite a bit of FanDumb resulting from this, often depending simply on the language construction of where fans live. When the work is a voiced work (anime, film, some video games), it might get worse as the (voice) actor might be pronouncing them in a way some fans see as wrong (again, depending on where they live).

Don't expect it to help any when there is finally WordOfGod on how to pronounce some of them -- it might end the discussion, or you might [[FlameWar get folks arguing]] over [[DeathOfTheAuthor whether or not the person who answers is correct anyway]]. {{Fanon}} has been known more than once to [[FanonDiscontinuity override the author's intended pronunciation.]]

The opposite of SpellMyNameWithAnS, where fans know how it's supposed to sound (since it's on video or named in a syllabary) but can't seem to agree on how it's supposed to be written down alphabetically. With the growing trend of audiobooks, this can even happen in literature. Related to TheUnpronounceable, where the names are intentionally difficult (if not downright impossible) for the mere humans to pronounce.

This is extremely common in English dubs of {{Anime}} in general, although the severity of it depends on the dub studio or even the specific voice director. This causes a certain (very loud) segment of the fandom to [[FandomEnragingMisconception completely lose their shit when it happens]]. The reasons for mispronunciations or mis-stressings (no, they are ''not'' the same thing) of Japanese words are myriad, be it the translator not giving any hints on how names are pronounced, directors not being terribly concerned about it, edits from the Japanese themselves (this one happened with ''Anime/EurekaSeven''[[note]]Where the title character's name is "officially" pronounced "Eh-oo-reh-ka".[[/note]]) or the simple fact that there are major differences between Japanese and English vowels and stress patterns such that stressing a Japanese word ''correctly'' can sometimes throw off the rhythm of a sentence or make it sound stilted to Western ears.

For a quick reference before going into detail below, some studios are worse about this than others. Creator/FUNimation's pre-2005 work stands out in this regard, as do a number of dubs from the studio formerly known as Creator/ADVFilms (especially ones directed by Stephen Foster, who has said many times he cares more about an actor's performance than their pronunciation). Outside of Texas, this phenomenon is far less common, though every studio will do it to some degree.

Generally averted in Spaniard and Latin American dubs, because the pronunciation of Japanese and Spanish aren't so different as Spanish has similar stress patterns, and due the versatility of the language, many words can be written phonetically with ease. This trope, however, comes into effect with certain pronunciations such as with syllables starting with R; in Spanish, when R starts a syllable it is pronounced strongly while in Japanese it is soft. Nevertheless this may be intentional, since an extremely correct pronunciation of Japanese would sound off compared to the rest of the dub.

It is more common in works in English and French. English in particular suffers from this a lot as it is typical to transliterate rather than transcribe -- that is, preserving the spelling from the language it's from rather than the pronunciation. In other foreign languages, it's much less common, because a word is typically pronounced exactly as it is written. This also happens a lot with English-language versions of {{anime}}.

Contrast PronouncingMyNameForYou where a pronunciation guide is provided, and PretentiousPronunciation where a "fancy" pronunciation guide is provided. For situations where the pronunciation is known, but the audience is still confused on how it's pronounced, see ViewerPronunciationConfusion. Japanese works tend to also helpfully give a kana reading (hiragana or katakana) of their texts, especially for foreign words or uncommon Japanese kanji words. Rarely you'll find a pronunciation guide in form of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet International Phonetic Alphabet]] (called "IPA" for short). Contrast also FunetikAksent where (part of) a written work is written with pronunciation in mind, complete with an intended accent.

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!!Examples:
[[index]]
* NoPronunciationGuide/{{Literature}}
* NoPronunciationGuide/VideoGames
* NoPronunciationGuide/RealLife
[[/index]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* The otherwise good dub of ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' TV had this with a few names (most notably, the heavenly computer Yggdrasil; only the movie got the pronunciation anywhere close to right). Unlike most examples, AMG mispronounced ''more'' names as the show went on. Yggdrasil is hard to pronounce anyway (the correct pronunciation is something between "igg-dra-sil" and "ugg-dra-sil", as the Scandinavian 'y' sound doesn't exist in English).
* ''Anime/{{Bakugan}}''. Is it Back-ooh-gan, or Bah-koo-gahn?[[note]] Going by standard Japanese pronunciation rules, it's the latter, since there is no "a" as in "back" sound.[[/note]]
* The new BigBad of ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is named Yhwach, and no one in the whole English-speaking fandom really knows how to pronounce that. Before receiving the proper romanization of the name from Tite Kubo (and still afterwards, sometimes), he was called Juhabach or Yuhabaha. Going by the romanization and the original Japanese, the pronunciation would seem to be something like /jhvax/, but of course, that's still [[TheUnpronounceable unpronounceable]] in English. But you can't go wrong adding vowels: try "yuh-huh-VAHK".
** Of course, it is this to a degree too in the Japanese - his name is derived from the biblical [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton Tetragrammaton]], the proper vowels for which are wholly unknown. Meaning, ''there literally is no pronunciation guide'', and even the Author-given name is in and of itself a wild guess likely mispronouncing it.
* Irene's name in ''Anime/BloodPlus'' is always pronounced "eye-REEN" (the American way) rather than "ee-REN" (the French and intended way) in the English dub. Some translations spell her name as "Iréne" to make it more clear.
* The promotional advert for ''Anime/CardfightVanguard'' on the Website/YouTube channel has the announcer pronounce Aichi's name as 'Eye-ich-ee' instead of 'eye-chi'. This also happens in the adverts for the first Trial Decks and Booster packs.
* No one in the cast of Nelvana's dub of ''Manga/CardCaptorSakura'' could ever agree on how Sakura's name should be pronounced. Some actors even pronounce it in different ways during different times. The most common ones both have the AccentUponTheWrongSyllable as either "sah-KOO-rah" or "sah-CUR-rah".
* One of the worst examples may be ''Idaten'' ("EE-dah-ten") ''Jump'', an anime series about mountain bike racing in another world. The dub had a very brief run on Creator/CartoonNetwork in the USA in the so-called 6:00 AM "deathslot". In this series, the title is regularly and constantly pronounced "eye-DAHT-en" Jump. Either the dubbers really didn't know how to pronounce it, or felt that it wouldn't appeal as much to Americans if they used the original pronunciation. It also doesn't help that [[{{Macekre}} most episodes were actually two Japanese episodes combined to make one American episode.]]
* The dub for ''VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}'' has this to the point of it being a chronic disorder, as it seems that nobody can pronounce each others' names correctly. The actors do pronounce names wrong, but at least it's ''consistently'' wrong. One can argue it's far worse when some actors get it right but others don't. Also, many of the pronunciation problems were fixed in the After Story dub.
* In the second episode of the dub of ''Anime/CodeGeassAkitoTheExiled'', the narrator pronounced the nation of Britannia as "Bri-TAY-nee-uh", while the dub of the [[Anime/CodeGeass main series]] pronounced it correctly as "Bri-TAN-ee-uh".
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'':
** Ironically, Beelzemon from ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' actually follows the syllable stress for Beelzebub noted further down the page...except most of the characters turn it into bee-AL-ze-mon instead of bee-EL-ze-mon, usually when shouting. It was confirmed not to have an A in it with the episode title ''Beelzemon's Big Day'', but both pronunciations were still used, depending on the speaker.
** It happens again in the dub of ''Anime/DigimonFusion'' -- this Data File SOMEHOW manages to [[https://youtu.be/IA3l_4WbZzk screw up the pronunciation of MegaKabuterimon,]] whilst a later Data File for Kabuterimon uses the correct pronunciation and spelling.
** The Italian dub of Tamers pronounced Beelzemon "BEEL-ze-mon", while the Fusion dub pronounces it "BELL-ze-mon".
** The English dub of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' can't seem to decide if Patamon and Gatomon's names are pronounced "PAT-uh-mon" and "GAT-oh-mon" (as they themselves pronounce their names when digivolving) or "PAHT-uh-mon" and "GAHT-oh-mon" (as other characters pronounce their names on occasion). Going off their names' etymological routes, the latter would seem more likely, as "pata" is the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of flappin wings, and "gato" is the Spanish word for "cat", both of which have the first "a" be pronounced as an "uh" sound. Similarly, are Patamon's Champion form Angemon and Gatomon's Ultimate form Angewomon pronounced "ANN-je-mon"/"ANN-je-wo-mon", "AHN-je-mon"/"AHN-je-wo-mon", or "AIN-je-mon"/"AIN-je-wo-mon"? (The Japanese romanizations of their names, "Enjemon" and "Enjeuumon", suggest the first option.)
** Usually, Vilemon's name is pronounced like the word "vile" with a "-mon" suffix at the end, but when one appeared in ''Tamers'', his name (in the English dub, at least) was pronounced "Vee-lay-mon" for some reason.
* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'':
** The Creator/FUNimation dub has had a hard time with Goku's ''Kaioken'' technique. The correct pronunciation is "kye-oh-ken" (as in, "King ''Kai'''s technique", or lit. Realm King Fist), but nearly everyone except for Peter Kelamis's Goku in the uncut Ocean dubs of movies 2 and 3 says "[[http://www.keio.ac.jp/ KEI-oh]]-ken". King Kai must've learned it from the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukichi_Fukuzawa guy on the ¥10,000 bill]].
** The Funimation Dub of ''Anime/DragonBallZKai'', however, fixed the Kaio-ken pronunciation problem.
** The English dub also has "Saiyan" being pronounced as "SAY-en", while the original Japanese pronunciation is more like "SYE-ahn". The dub's influence was so pervasive that when the guy's on Series/XPlay used the Japanese pronunciation they got letters telling them how dumb they are for not saying it the "right" way.
** The girl with the split personality, is her name Lunch or Launch? In the American dub, her name was changed to Launch, whether it's for sake of pronunciation or because her name in katakana is [[SpellMyNameWithAnS written as Ranchi]] or because the company just didn't get that her name was also a food pun alongside [[PunnyNames Yamcha, Puar, Oolong, Vegeta, Raditz, Kakarrot, Pilaf, Garlic Jr, Mango, Papaya, etc, etc]].
** The voice actor for Emperor Pilaf in the Ocean dub and early [=FUNimation=] dub of the original ''Dragon Ball'' called Pilaf's canine henchman Shu as "Shao". The [=FUNimation=] actor, Chuck Huber, corrected himself by the time he got to ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' and referred to Shu correctly from then on.
** International dubs derived from the franchise's old European French dub, including an English version, offer far too many odd pronunciations and name misinterpretations to list here. For some examples, Launch mostly became "Lunsh", Ginyu became something like "Jeenoeh", Yajirobe was sometimes Yai or Yairobe, and Pikkon became Paul Kuhen (after his Japanese name Paikuhan). Perhaps most infamously, Goku's birth name Kakarot was only used in a single episode of ''DBZ'', rendered as "Cachalote" or "Ka-sha-low". Since Cachalot or Cachalote means sperm whale in some languages, the name undoubtedly left many viewers confused.
* Erza Scarlet from ''Manga/FairyTail'' appears to be subject to this. Based on the Japanese pronunciation of her name, "EH-roo-zuh", its English equivalent would be "AIR-za". The English dubs, however, refer to her as "UHR-zah". While it may aggravate certain fans, there do exist several words beginning with "er" that are phonetically pronounced "uhr" in English and "EH-roo" in Japanese, so which version is "right" really can't be anywhere other than in the ears of the beholder. And then there's the fact that her name is written as ''Elsa'' either on one of the chapter covers or somewhere within a chapter.
* ''Anime/FateStayNight'': Lancer's real name "Cu Chulainn" was pronounced as "Coo-who-lin" in the original Japanese dub[[note]]which is how that name is normally pronounced in Japanese -- the katakana reading is クー・フーリン (Kū Fūrin -- "fu" is used in place of "hu" since there is no "hu" katakana)[[/note]] which is nowhere near the proper pronunciation. Bang Zoom Entertainment! obviously didn't bother looking up how it's supposed to be said and just changed it to "Coo-coo-lin". It's actually pronounced "Coo-cull-un". (If they'd listened to [[https://youtu.be/TjjpBb9q1PA?t=52s "Black Rose"]] by Music/ThinLizzy, they'd know this.)
* ''Manga/TheFiveStarStories'', home of such linguistic nightmares as Qukey, Kclapp, Nukkundolah Swans (which WordOfGod has apparently decreed is supposed to be pronounced Su-BAH-su), A-toll, Partolk Crytharis, Myoury Kinky, Wascha Codante & many others.
* The dub of the ''Manga/{{Genshiken}}'' OVA episodes has this. In the first episode, everyone mispronounces Ogiue's name (as "Oh-jee-way"); in the second episode, it's half-right, half-wrong; and by the final episode, her name is pronounced consistently correctly. It's pretty obvious that the director realized his mistake halfway through recording and couldn't go back and fix the earlier screw-ups.
* ''Manga/GetBackers'':
** The actors dubbing the anime had this problem, as half of them called the TeenGenius Makubex "mah-cue-bex", and the other half called him "mah-koo-bex". Usually while speaking to each other. This was incredibly annoying during the conversation between Shido and Ban that establishes Makubex's back story, but Ban has an unflattering nickname for just about everyone, so it might be in character for him to butcher it on purpose...
** They had the same problem with Ban's surname, Midou (which they pronounced "mee-dow" for most of the first half of the show).
** In a strange bit of irony, during the "13th Sunflower" episodes, the ADR director went out of his way to make sure that all the actors pronounced Creator/VincentVanGogh's name correctly (hint: it's not "Van-GO").
* There apparently weren't any guides given to the voice actresses in the English dub of ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' regarding their characters names. It's not until around episode 4 that they hit on consistent pronunciations.
* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'':
** Despite being largely considered one of the best dubs of all time, the anime still has this. Unlike English, Japanese has no distinction between L and R, so "Alucard" ("Dracula" backwards, natch) is pronounced "Aru-kah-do" and rendered "Arucard" in the subtitles. They tried to get the dubbing team to use this (wrong) pronunciation, too, but the dub studio, having common sense, refused. There are a few fans who will mispronounce the name to this day, even after ''being corrected by [[Creator/CrispinFreeman the actor who played the character.]]''
** Also, is it Pip "Bernadotte" or "Vernedead"? Is Walter's last name "Dornez", "Dollneaz", or something else entirely?
* The English dub of ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' isn't without its faults, particularly for the character of Asia Argento. For instance in the dub, Issei's father pronounced her name as "AY-zha" (English pronunciation), while she corrects him by saying that it's pronounced "AH-zyah".
* Arisu Maresato in the ''Manga/HighSchoolOfTheDead'' dub. Apparently, none of the voice actors were aware that Arisu was the Japanese spelling and pronunciation for "Alice", so her name ends up being pronounced like "ah-REE-soo".
* [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya HA-ru-hi Su-zu-MEE-ya, or Ha-RU-hi Su-ZOOOOM-mi-ya??]] The BANDAI Entertainment dub pronounces it the first way, yet there will be many many fans who lose their shit while screaming to the very ceiling about how you're wrong!
* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'':
** Is the [[KiManipulation nen]] technique that shuts aura flow off "ZET-su" or "Zets"?
** From a part of the manga that hasn't been adapted: Is Tserriednich's name pronounced "TSER-ed-nik" or "terrorsandwich"? It's tser-READ-nihh (hh being a German CH sound).
* The English dub of ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' (both series) stresses character names the English way pretty much all the time, Makie being rendered as "Ma-KI-eh" and Ayaka as "Ai-YA-ka" for example. This gets {{lampshade|Hanging}}d towards the end of ''[[GagSeries Negima!?]]''
-->'''Satomi''': Actually, I'm pretty sure the correct pronunciation is "AY-ya-ka".\\
'''Chisame''': And don't they say "MA-key-eh"?
* This applies in a strange way to ''Beyblade: Metal Fusion'', the dub of ''Anime/MetalFightBeyblade''. The main character, Ginga (Geen-gah) Hagane, both got his name respelled to "Gingka" and the pronunciation changed to "Jin-guh".
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamThe08thMSTeam'', it's a French name that is mangled. Michel is properly pronounced "MEE-shell", close to "Michelle". Everyone in the English dub pronounces it, "mi-KELL".
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': NA-ru-to, or na-ROO-toe? By this point, it's hard to tell. It's the first one, going by Japanese tendency to stress the first syllable of any given name, as oppose to the English custom of of stressing the second if the name has more than two syllables.
* The Hungarian dub of ''[[Manga/FullmetalAlchemist Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood]]'' had trouble with the names Xing, Sheska, Barry, and Slicer. Xing started out as "Ksing" (should be "shing"), Sheska as "Shetz-kuh", Barry alternated between "Berry" and "Bar-rie", but most absurdly, they kept saying the name "Slicer" as if it were a Hungarian word: "Shlee-tzerr" (why they didn't just translate it, as they had in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the first anime]], is anyone's guess). Incidentally, the voice actor who first made this blunder was also the only VA in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' who kept pronouncing jutsu as "yutzu". The dubbing of the first series wasn't without its faults either: Roy Mustang's actor at first mispronounced Hawkeye as "Hokey" and Shou as "So-u".
** And speaking of Shou, the US dub pronounces it to rhyme with "cow", when it's supposed to sound like "show".
* In at least the Castilian Spanish dub of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Asuka's name is consistently pronounced as "a-ZOO-ca", instead of its Japanese pronunciation, "Ahs-ka". In the Italian dub, her name is pronounced like this too...''kinda''. In some scenes (usually by Shinji's VA), it's bizarrely pronounced as "A-zoo-ca", which is obviously wrong.
** The announcer in the trailer for Manga Entertainment's release of ''The End of Evangelion'' mispronounces Seele as "Selluh" once and Eva/Evangelion as "Eeva" ''four times''.
* In what has to be making fun of this phenomenon, some of the HilariousOuttakes on the ''Anime/{{Noein}}'' DVD's feature Creator/YuriLowenthal (Yuu) and Creator/CrispinFreeman (Karasu) arguing about how to pronounce "Haruka".
-->'''Karasu''': ''Ha''ruka?\\
'''Yuu''': No, it's 'Ha''ru''ka', dumbass!
* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has a character named "X. Drake", where the "X" is meant to be a read as "Diez"--the Roman numeral value ''in Spanish''. The symbol has furigana indicating its pronunciation in Japanese, but is made confusing in most other languages--especially because localization renders the interpoint in "X・ドレーク" as a period, further making making it seems like an initial.
* One scanlation group for ''Manga/{{Parasyte}}'' consistently called the main character Shinji. Another called him Shinichi. Shinichi appears to be the correct one, but for fans who started out reading the scans chronicling the adventures of Shinji, it's just a bit strange to adjust to. (The same has happened with other characters as well, whose names changed even more drastically between scanlation groups, such as Kabuto/Uragami.)
* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'':
** The anime occasionally has problems pronouncing Pokémon names. When reached for comment, PokémonUSA actually confirmed that 4Kids were pronouncing Bonsly wrong (It's Bonz-ly, not Bonz-lee) in the eighth movie. Once The Pokémon Company took over the English dub of the anime, they made a point of using the former pronunciation.
** Suicune. Oh god, Suicune. It's apparently pronounced SWEE-koon. Which makes sense, given that "sui" can mean water and ''is pronounced that way in Japanese.''
** Early on, Ekans was pronounced as "EH-kans", but come ''Advanced'' (while 4Kids was still dubbing), the Pokemon said their names as [[InconsistentDub "EEK-ans".]]
** Cartoon Network's run of the last ''Diamond and Pearl'' series, ''Sinnoh League Victors'', also had the announcer somehow pronounce the word "Sinnoh" as "Sigh-no" instead of "Sin-no".
** Arceus is pronounced "Ar-say-oos" in Japanese versions and "Ark-ee-us" in English versions. According to one of the English voice actors (Tom Wayland), Arceus is pronounced "Ark-ee-us" in English because [[DidNotDoTheBloodyResearch it would otherwise sound like "arse".]]
** There is also no consensus on how Uxie's name is to be pronounced, between "OOK-see" and "YOOK-see". During a moment in the ''[[TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Pokémon Trading Card Game]]'' when Uxie was popular, one could visit a tournament and hear it pronounced both ways roughly evenly. (All official materials pronounce it "YOOK-see".)
** In the Latin American dub (which is actually a dub of the American version) Pokémon names are even more inconsistent as it seems that every actor has its own way to pronounce the names. For example, it is never clear whether the Pokemon is PEE-ka-chu (The more used pronunciation) pee-KA-chu or sometimes even pee-ka-CHU. The character [[PokemonSpeak says its own name]] all three ways, which may have led to the confusion.
** The Brazilian Portuguese dub ''always'' pronounce Pikachu as '''peek-a-shoe'''. [[SincerityMode Not joking.]] Although the voice of Pikachu is still the same as the original, ''every Pokémon trainer'' in the dub will pronounce its species that way.[[note]]It's justified when "ch" is always pronounced as "sh" in the Portuguese language, but at the time there were other anime like ''Manga/DragonBall'' that were broadcast in the same year in the country, with names like "Yamcha" pronounced correctly.[[/note]] Due to this, most people nowadays pronounce Pikachu always like that in Brazil and even the official media does this.
** The Italian dub is confused, too. After the release of ''Pokédex 3D Pro'', the official Italian pronunciations for many characters changed drastically compared to the anime. Some shifted from an Italianized pronunciation to the American one, but some of them also made the opposite. Muk changed from "Muck" to "Mook", Tyrogue changed from "TIE-rog" to "Tee-ROG", Charmeleon changed from "Char-ME-leon" to "Char-MEH-leon", Glaceon changed from "GLASS-eon" to "GLACE-on", Mienfoo changed from "MEAN-fu" to "Me-ann-FU" and Wobbuffet changed from "Wo-BAA-fet" to "Wo-BOO-fet".
* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': The English dub pronounced the titular character's name as "OO-ten-a" throughout the entire series, despite being pronounced as "Oo-TEN-a" in Japanese. In the beginning, they also mispronounced Touga's name as "TOO-ga" before quickly correcting it to "TOH-ga" after a couple episodes. Saionji's name was also mispronounced as "Say-OWN-ji" in the first 13 episodes before being corrected to "SAI-OWN-ji" following a break in dubbing. At the same time, Anthy's last name, Himemiya, was mostly corrected to "He-MEM-ee-ya" after 13 episodes of "Hee-me-MEE-a" and in one case, "Hee-me-MAI-a."
* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'':
** The Media Blasters/[=BangZoom!=] English dub for the anime uses several Japanese names for characters and fighting techniques. These are often pronounced inconsistently by the voice actors.
** [[DuelingDubs Sony's dub]] takes this further. Ignoring some random [[DubNameChange name changes,]] Japanese names are always pronounced in the most Americanized way possible. For example, "Aoshi" is consistently pronounced "Ay-oh-shee".
** The dub of the OVA, produced by ADV Films, takes a similar approach to Sony's TV dub. "Tomoe" is consistently pronounced as "Tomo", for instance.
* ''Manga/SchoolLive'': is it "live" as in "live performance," or "live" as in "we live at school?" The latter is the basic premise, but "Skool-Laive" sounds much less awkward than "Skool-Liv," so the former is how most people will read it.
* Lampshaded in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnlineAlternativeGunGaleOnline''. It is specifically mentioned that there is no specific way to pronounce Team ZEMAL, which is short for "Zen Nihon(All Japan) Machine Gun Lovers."
* Applied In-Universe in ''Anime/TamakoMarket''. While the Prince may pronounce Choi as Cho'i, the market community call her anywhere between Cho'i to Choy.
* This is the reason why ''Anime/TenchiMuyo''[='s=] Ayeka is named that way. In the Japanese version, her name is Aeka, which would be pronounced "EYE-kah". However, Pioneer worried that fans wouldn't be able to pronounce it, thus changing her name to Ayeka, which has been pronounced either "Aye-YEH-ka", "Aye-EH-ka" or even the old "EYE-kah".
** In the spinoff, ''Sasami: Magical Girls Club'', the dub's ADR director, Leah Clark assumed the original Tenchi dubs were incorrect in their pronunciation of Sasami's name because the Japanese language typically puts emphasis on the first syllable. That's why her name is mispronounced as "SAH-sa-me." In reality, the original Tenchi dubs' pronunciation of "Sa-SAH-me" correctly lines up with the Japanese pronunciation.
* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'':
** Is Gurren "goo-REHN" (said almost like "Gren"), or "goo-ren"? Whereas the former is the correct pronunciation (if the Japanese version is to be believed), the latter is used in the Bang Zoom dub.[[note]]It gets ''really'' egregious when you realize that they actually said "Gurren" correctly in their ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' dub (Hitsugaya's bankai is called Dai-Gurren Hyorinmaru).[[/note]]
** There's also Simon. The original opts for "Shimon", while the dub uses "See-MON". And, to the eternal frustration of fans, non-fans refer to him as "Sigh-mun".
* It's not uncommon for an English-speaking reader to pronounce Manga/{{Tomie}}'s name as "To-mee". The correct way to say it is "To-mi-ay".
* Averted by ''Anime/TurnAGundam'', which includes the words ''Called Turn "A" Gundam'' in its logo.
* Kaname Kuran in the ''Manga/VampireKnight'' dub. Apparently, Yuki just mispronounce his name as "Kah-nuh-meh" instead of "Kah-nuh-may" like the other characters pronounced his name in the dub.
* In ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'' materials, Dilandau's last name is Albatou, but it's never said in the show, so there's no information on how to pronounce it. The Italian dub mentions him by his full name in episode three, and they pronounce it as "Al-bah-toh".
* ''Manga/XxxHolic'' has many pronunciations. Among them: Ex Ex Ex Holic, Zholic, or Triple X Holic. Oddly, it seems the correct pronunciation is simply "holic" as the Exes are not recognized a pronounceable characters, making them essentially meaningless. The same goes for ''[[Manga/HunterXHunter Hunter-Hunter]]'', ''Kiss-Sis'', and ''[[Anime/GunXSword Gun-Sword]]''.
* Robonyan's name in ''Anime/YokaiWatch'' has different pronunciations. The first is "Robo-nyan", which is heard in the Japanese and French dubs, as well as the medals for the English. The second is "Robon-nyan", which is heard in the Disney dub. The third is "Robot-nyan", which is in the Toonami Asia dub.
* ''Anime/YuGiOhZexal'': The summoning mechanic introduced in that series, Xyz Summoning, has a very confusing pronunciation. Its pronounced 'Ick-Seez' or sometimes 'Exceed', and there are a number of fans who just go the simple route of calling it 'X-Y-Z'.
** The show's name itself is pronounced "Zex-ahl" in English, but the Japanese pronounce it "Zay-al", making the X silent (and making it closer to the English word "zeal").
* In ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'', the dub constantly pronounces Yusuke's last name (Urameshi) as "You-ra-meshi". On the other hand while Keiko's[[note]]spelled as "Kayco" in the English subtitles.[[/note]] last name is indeed "Yukimura", the dub tries to justify this by writing it as "Ukimura" in the subtitles.
** The Romanian dub does this to the show's name. The correct pronounciation is "HAH-koo-sho", but this dub pronounces it "Hah-KOO-sho", with the accent on the second syllable.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* In ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'', Wilie's name is pronounced differently depending on which English-dubbed season you're watching. In some cases, like with the dub of ''Joys of Seasons'', it's pronounced "WAI-lee"; in other cases, like in the dub of ''Flying Island: The Sky Adventure'', his name is pronounced "WILL-ee" instead.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' villain ComicBook/RasAlGhul. Properly spelled "رأس الغول‎", has been pronounced ''[[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries "Raysh Al Ghoul"]]'' and ''[[Film/BatmanBegins "Rahz Al Ghoul"]]''. The correct pronunciation[[note]]"Rah sell-rule" with russian pronounciation on the first R and french on the second one. The A is pronounced like the A in "jaw" (shorter in modern standard arabic, like a short "Ha!"). The ' symbol (called hamza) separating the A and the S is a simple glottal stop/click (it's normally used to separate two vocals, like the N in "an opera", "an apple", "an illusion" etc). This sound is dropped in dialects using the long A in "Ra's". Also, some dialects may pronounce the A in "al" as the O in "shook".[[/note]] is somewhere between the two, though the latter is a bit closer.
** Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', where Terry pronounces it "Razz" to Talia and she calmly corrects him explicitly saying "but it was pronounced Raysh". Cue more internet arguing.
** The correct Arabic is something like "Raz Al-Ghool" but WordOfGod is "Raysh Al Ghool", which could be a case of FridgeBrilliance because WordOfGod ''also'' says that it is not based exclusively on Arabic, but also Hebrew and other Semitic languages, suggesting a mixed heritage. There's also the fact that he's centuries old, and it's quite possible that there's been some degree of pronounciation shift that he's ignored.
** In ''Film/BatmanBegins'', every character uses the "Rahz" variant; the trope is even invoked [[spoiler: when an elderly socialite "introduces" Bruce to presumed-dead (to Bruce) Ra's, asking aloud, "Am I pronouncing this right?"]]
** On ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', it's variable but fairly consistent: the man himself and members of the League of Assassins say "Raysh". everyone else says "Rahz".
* The first name of the Jaime Reyes incarnation of ''ComicBook/BlueBeetle'' is pronounced the Spanish (Hi-meh) way, however it's not readily noticeable in the comics themselves. Many fans thus pronounce it "Jay-me".
* One running gag in the ''LightNovel/DirtyPair'' story "Start the Violence" is an on-going argument between the girls about the proper pronunciation of "junta". Tomboy BookDumb Kei comments "Even I know it's pronounced "hoon-ta"". While Yuri insists on using a hard "j" (according to her, an acceptable British pronunciation, but she's no Brit) for her own reasons...
* What does the name of ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' foe Kl'rt (the Super-Skrull) sound like? Klurt? Klart? Kelart? Kayelartee?
* In ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis: Legion of 3 Worlds'', it is revealed that each version of the ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' has a distinct pronunciation of the planet Winath. For the Reboot version it's "Win-Athe", for the Threeboot version it's "Win-Ath", and for the post-Infinite Crisis version it's "Wine-Ath". It has been noted that this was a joke made on the debate among fans on how the name is pronounced. The first name of Winath’s Legionnaire Ayla Ranzz (AY-La? EYE-La?) is likewise a matter of great fan dispute.
* ''ComicBook/{{Finder}}'' has the Llaverac [[TheClan clan]]. It's anyone's guess how the double-l is pronounced: fans go for either the Spanish pronunciation ("Lyaverac", with y as a consonant) or the Welsh ("[throat]ch-laverac", very roughly).
* Nightwing and Starfire's daughter in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' is named "Mar'i Grayson". It's pronounced "Mary", after her [[DeadGuyJunior deceased paternal grandmother Mary]].
* ComicBook/LexLuthor:
** Is his name pronounced Loo-thER or Loo-thOR. Unfortunately, other media have not helped as it's been pronounced both ways. Live action tends to favor ER, while animation favors OR.
* Creator/MarvelComics' ''Crystar Crystal Warrior'' once published a pronunciation guide for all its weird names.
* Mister Mxyzptlk:
** The infamous imp from the Franchise/{{Superman}} universe -- apparently pronounced MIX-yiz-PIT-lick -- could only be sent back where he came from by saying his own name backwards. Oddly enough, this one actually has two names, as there was a spelling error that was retconned into a separate entity -- originally, his name was Mxyztplk. (tp, not pt.)
** [[WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries The Paul Dini episode]] about it gave a guide. After Clark fails to pronounce it correctly, Mxy turns into a blender (to "mix") then a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Music/{{Yes}} album (titled "Yezz"), then "spit"s in Clark's face, before turning into a dog to "lick" the spittle off.
** And before anyone asks, the pronunciation guide they gave for "kltpzyxM" was "kill-TIP-zee-ZIM". Delivered by Mxy when Superman complains.
--->'''Mxyztplk:''' Aw, nuts. ''[disappears]''
** The DC Comics Encyclopedia confirms that pronunciation.
** He was a frequent villain on ''The WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' (which is only natural for an animated version; Mxy is basically a toon, after all). There his name was pronounced "MIX-zel-PLICK".
* ''ComicBook/MouseGuard'' has Celanawe. At the end of ''Winter 1152'' Those Two Guys tell the audience how it's pronounced.
* [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] from Myth/NorseMythology has Mjolnir (pronounced MYOHL-nir). Most readers, including those of Marvel Comic's Thor, mispronounce this unless they can speak Scandinavian or look it up.
** Lampshaded in the ''Film/{{Thor}}'' film, where Darcy, the AudienceSurrogate, calls it mir-mir (pronounced meer-meer) since she can't quite say it.
** Exaggerated in ''Ultimate Power'' #4:
--->'''Spider-Man:''' You're the God of Thunder, right?
--->'''Thor:''' Verily.
--->'''Spider-Man:''' So I'm guessing that hammer of yours--
--->'''Thor:''' Mjolnir
--->'''Spider-Man:''' Pardon?
--->'''Thor:''' My hammer is called Mjolnir.
--->'''Spider-Man:''' Majohlnar? Maj-jongner?
--->'''Thor:''' Mjolnir
--->'''Spider-Man:''' How do you spell that?
--->'''Thor:''' ᛗᛃᛚᛟᚾᛁᚱ
--->'''Spider-Man:''' Right. Doesn't matter.
* In ''Comicbook/NightwingRebirth'', 'Wing snarks that the "Blood Knights of Blüdhaven" are obviously out-of-towners, because it's pronounced with a long u; that's what the umlaut means. In the decade between Blüdhaven's introduction and this statement, no adaptation that mentions the city has pronounced it that way.
* Phyla-Vell. "Feela", "phila" or "piela"? It would be FIE-la, because her name is a pun on "phylum", from biology. Because her brother is Genis, pronounced like "genus". [[IncrediblyLamePun Get it?]]
* Any ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' fans who'd assumed Karolina's name was pronounced Karo-lie-na were a little surprised when [[Series/Runaways2017 the Hulu show]] used Karo-''lee''-na. (WordOfGod states that the former is correct in the comics, but due to Marvel's nature as a shared universe, it has occasionally been disregarded.)
* Depending on the adaptation and character, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'s name (Kara) is either pronounced "Care-ah" or "Ka-rah".
* Though many issues of DC's ''Who's Who'' actually ''did'' have pronunciation guides at the beginning, a number of entries where the pronunciation isn't obvious were oddly not included -- like the Khund race (is that 'h' just for show, is the 'u' long or short, etc). Even stranger, many "regular word you probably know" names ''were'' included, like "Icicle".
* Tomoe, in ''ComicBook/UsagiYojimbo'' is three syllables, To-mo-eh. Her sci-fi counterpart in Space Usagi was spelled Tomoeh, to help avert this. The same is true for Tomoe in ''Manga/RurouniKenshin''... or at least it's ''supposed'' to be. The voice actors in [[Creator/ADVFilms ADV's]] dub of the {{OVA}} pronounced it "toh-moh". The same problem came up again in the Cloverway dub of [[Anime/SailorMoon Sailor Moon S]], where it was decided Tomoe Hotaru would keep her Japanese name. Unfortunately, they used the "toh-moh" pronunciation.
* ''[[ComicBook/{{WITCH}} W.I.T.C.H.]]'': An [[https://youtu.be/kI7FpBwDmMI early ad]] for the books pronounced Taranee as "''tear'' a knee", but the [[WesternAnimation/{{Witch}} TV series]] -- the English version, anyway -- pronounced it like "tuh ''Ronnie''".
* ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'':
** Before the movie, which used "Roar-shack", there was a great deal of confusion about how you were supposed to pronounce Rorschach, although the most common pronunciation -- based on someone in the graphic novel mishearing the name as "raw shark" -- was "Roar-shahk", taking into account how that would sound with a British accent. "Roar-shahk" is also closer to his German namesake. And "Raw shark", intentionally or not, works as well in a heavy Noo Yawk accent as a generic English one.
*** The movie also identifies retired villain Moloch as "Mol-luck" as opposed to what pretty much everyone (who had never heard of [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils the demon of that name]]) thought it was before hand, "Mow-lock".
** Also, Silk Spectre's Polish surname Juspeczyk divides many (so much so that the movie only uses it written, she's referred by "Jupiter", the name her mom adapted into, instead). Correct Polish pronunciation would be "You-SPEH-chick", but in reality no such name (most probably) exists.
** Is "Ozymandias" pronounced "oz-ee-MAN-dee-us", "oz-ee-man-DEE-us", or "oz-ee-man-DYE-us"? All three can be heard from various speakers in the movie. (For the record, the first version is the best, since this is the pronunciation of the English version of the Greek name of Rameses II, the one Shelley's poem is about.)
** Is "Kovacs" pronounced "koh-vacks", "koh-vahks", or "koh-vash"? "Kovacs" is a Hungarian last name and pronounced "koh-vahch".
* ''ComicBook/XMen'':
** X-Men founder and leader Dr. Charles Xavier. In English, the name "Xavier" is traditionally pronounced "Zavier". There is a large contingent of fans who pronounce it as "Ex-avier", a pronunciation used in all of the X-Men media. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an issue of ''Ultimate X-Men'', where a foreman overseeing repairs on the mansion asks Xavier how to pronounce his name. Xavier doesn't actually answer the question.
** Back in the old days before animated series and movies, there was a small group of fans who insisted on pronouncing "Magneto" with a short "e" (as in "magnet"), and as late as the 1970s Stan Lee professed uncertainty over the proper pronunciation. However, Paul [=McCartney=] pronounced it with a long "e" (as in "neat") in the Wings number "Magneto and Titanium Man", and later adaptations followed suit.
** Xorn. Is it pronounced like 'zorn', or is it 'ex-orn', or even 'sorn'? 'Zorn' seems to be the way it's most prominently pronounced, but is it correct? Or k'sorn? Given that he is Chinese, it may well be "shorn", but if it's a non-Mandarin dialect it might be something else altogether.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Jucika}}''. It's a common Hungarian nickname pronounced as "YU-tzi-ka" (Juci meaning Judy or Julie and -ka being a dimunitive suffix), but international readers have interpreted it in all sorts of ways: "Jusika", "Yusika", "Jukika", etc, with some falsely thinking it's a variant of the English name Jessica.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/PokemonOpalAndGarnet'': CLOPIN. If you've seen [[WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDameDisney the movie containing his namesake]] or have taken French- [[HoldYourHippogriffs er, Kalosian]]- you know how it's pronounced. But if you've only read [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame the book]] or read this fanfic- and ''haven't'' taken French- then you'll most likely say it wrong. To wit, it's "kloh-PAH~(n)".
** It's even mentioned InUniverse thousands of times as a RunningGag; just to make sure that nobody gets it wrong, Clopin himself came up with a mnemonical guide that acts as a sort of WhosOnFirst: the first syllable is said with a long "o" as in "close", while the second, which contains a French nasal vowel sound- it's "-in", to be precise, is said like the word "pang", but the "-ng" is abruptly cut off. So, "close pang". Most of the time, the people and Pokemon who ''do'' hear about it won't cut it off completely and end up with "kloh-PAY" rather than "kloh-PAH~(n)". While this is still an incorrect pronunciation, it's interesting to note that in some cases, it has helped Clopin to realize just who's calling for him- as he himself said when Drac, a Flareavamp who [[TheUnpronounceable always says it as "kloh-PAY"]], was captured by [[BigBad Team Folklore]] in the chapter "Drac Attack":
---> '''Clopin''': There's only one Pokemon [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay who ever calls me "kloh-PAY".]]
** From the same fanfic: Switeuk's name. Is it "swit-yuk", "swyt-yuk" or "swit-ook"? The answer: none of them. It's "swy-TEE-ook" -- with the "ook" as in "hook". Say "swine tea hook" out loud, and you'll get it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', Anna's name is pronounced "Ah-nuh" to sound more Norwegian, though many pronounce it in the most common way (Ann-uh).
* The traditional pronunciation of the name "Ariel" is "AH-ree-ell". Everyone in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' but Sebastian calls the main character "AIR-ree-ell". Thanks to PopCulturalOsmosis, the film's pronunciation has actual become the more popular one.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie'' has various [[HumansAreCthulhu human]] [[MundaneObjectAmazement "artifacts"]] the LEGO people make up their own pronunciation for: "the Cloak of Band-A'id" (a Band-Aid), the "Sword of Exact Zero" (the blade of an X-Acto knife), the "Po'lish Remover of Na'il (nail polish remover), and one of the main threats in the film, the Kragle (a tube of Krazy Glue with some of the letters on the label worn off).
* Done in ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet''. Wreck-It Ralph, being a video game character made in the 80s and the arcade he's in having ''just'' caught up with technology, mispronounces various modern terms. For instance, he mangles the term "wi-fi" twice before VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog tells him the correct pronunciation (in his own snarky way, of course).
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'':
** Averted. Just to make sure no one would get it wrong, the logo for the film includes a pronunciation guide under the title (rat-a-too-ee) One ad campaign also used a RebusBubble style, rendering the title as (Remy's head)-a-2-e.
** Which lead to a moment in a Swedish commercial for said movie. The movie's title was "translated" to ''Råttatouille'' (a portmanteau of ''råtta'' ("rat") and ''ratatouille''). Ergo, the pronunciation was changed to say "rot-a-too-ee". But the commercial seemed to make a conscious effort to have it as "rot-a-toy".
** The Finnish translation was basically exactly the same, only that involved using an "o" instead of an "å".
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuers'', the way the dragonfly Evinrude's name is pronounced depends on the character. Ellie Mae says it with a long "e" sound as "Ee-vinrude," while Miss Bianca and a few others uses the short "e" sound as "Eh-vinrude." Even Bernard keeps switching between "Eh-vinrude" and "Ee-vinrude".
* The first Hungarian dubbing of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'' turned "Cybertron" into "Kájbertron", pronounced "Kigh-ber-trohn", for whatever reason. The correct Hungarian translation for "cyber-" is actually "kiber-", pronounced "Kih-ber". Whereas the second dub kept alternating the pronunciation of the word "Decepticon" between "Dee-sep-ti-kon" and "Deh-sep-ti-kon" (this also came up in the dub of ''Anime/TransformersArmada''). Most amusingly, a lot of times they made Starscream sound like "Szarsz-krém", loosely "Shit-cream" in English.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': While fleeing from the BrainwashedAndCrazy jaguar Manchas, Judy radios in her location as "Vine and Tejunga," pronouncing the "j" with the soft-G sound. Nick makes a short but civil correction: "Tejunga" with the H sound for the "j."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension'', everyone pronounces villain John Bigbooté's name as "Big Bootie", and the U.S. Secretary of Defense calls him "Big Boot", but he [[InsistentTerminology continues to insist]] that it should be pronounced "Big Boo-TAY". [[spoiler:It proves to be his downfall, as Lord John Whorfin is sick of his shit.]]
* ''Film/{{Constantine}}'' falls victim to this. The main character's name is supposed to be pronounced "Constant-TYNE" but instead is pronounced "Constant-TEEN". However, later media that have him uses "Constant-TEEN" as the pronunciation so, make that what you will.
* Used InUniverse in ''Film/TheDouble'', where the man who calls Simon to inform him of [[spoiler:his mother's death]] has trouble pronouncing “cerebral”. [[spoiler:As in, [[BlackComedy the cerebral accident which killed her.]]]]
* In the film of Creator/AgathaChristie's ''[[Literature/HerculePoirot Evil Under The Sun]]'', a rather boorish Brit pronounces Poirot (pwah-ROW) as POY-row. It's easy to imagine this as a jab at people with this issue in real life.
* Guiron from ''Film/{{Gamera}}''. It's been pronounced about as many ways as you can imagine, but the one accepted by most people sounds like Gear-on. Now try "Gyaos". Based on the Japanese spelling, it should be "goo-ee-roh-n" and "geeah-oh-s".
* ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo]]'' uses anglicized pronunciations of Swedish names, in conjunction with [[TranslationConvention everyone speaking English]]. Given that there are actual Swedes in the cast, this seems to be intentional.
* ''[[Film/TheGodfather Godfather]]'' trilogy, in-universe example: "Cor-lee-own" or "Cor-lee-own-ee"?
* Dr. Niko Tatopoulos in the 1998 American ''Film/{{Godzilla|1998}}'' film ends up being called "TheWormGuy" for this reason. (The character is named for Patrick Tatopoulos, who worked special effects on the film and [[TruthInTelevision had the same problem]].)
* In ''Film/TheLastAirbender'', a great many pronunciations are inexplicably changed from [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the original series]]. Thus, Aang [Ay-ng] is pronounced Ah-ng, Iroh [Eye-roh] becomes Ee-roh, Avatar is alternately Ah-vah-tahr, Uh-vuh-tahr, and the correct version, Sokka [sounds like "sock"] is consistently called Soe-ka, and Agni Kai is now Agni Kee. The pronunciation of 'Avatar' is particularly annoying; the character's names ''were'' made up, if based on real-world languages, so saying it differently isn't that bad. But 'Avatar' is a real word, originally coming from Hinduism and now travelling into the mainstream. Why change it? [[Creator/MNightShyamalan According to the director]], all of the pronunciations in the film were the correct way of saying the names. Aang and Iroh are an actual Chinese name and Japanese name respectively , and the pronunciations used in the movie are, in fact, the correct ones, while the "Kai" in "Agni Kai" comes from a Japanese word meaning "duel", which is pronounced as "Kye", not "Kee".
* Also InUniverse in ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark''. Roland, the GreatWhiteHunter in operational command of the [=InGen=] team, has trouble pronouncing dinosaur names like ''Pachycephalosaurus''.
--> '''Roland:''' Pachy...Pachy...oh, hell. The fat head with the bald spot. Friar Tuck.
* In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'', Kevin [=McNally=] was the first actor to refer to the Kraken and all the other actors followed his pronunciation. The writers, who had been pronouncing it differently up to that point, were amused and a scene was later added to the film in which the characters debate the correct pronunciation.
* In ''Film/ThePumaman'', Kobras (Creator/DonaldPleasence) uses the British pronunciation "Pyew-ma" while everyone else pronounces it as "Poo-ma", which [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]] poked fun at throughout their viewing.
-->'''Kobras:''' You cannot escape me, Pyewma Man!
-->'''Crow:''' ''Poo-ma'' Man!
-->'''Mike:''' Oh, is that right, ''Dyonald''?
* In an interview on the DVD bonus features, the director and lead actors of ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'' speculate that one of the reasons for the film's poor box office success was the title: "One for Shimsaw... Sheeshank... Shawsheck -- that redemption movie."
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' has quite a few examples:
** The rebel general who refers to Princess "Lay-ah" as Princess "Lee-ah".
** Creator/BillyDeeWilliams is prone to this, using "CHEW-back-ah" instead of "Chew-BAHK-ah".
** Williams also insists that Han Solo's first name rhymes with "can" instead of "Khan", the more accepted pronunciation, which is particularly egregious since their characters are supposed to be OLD FRIENDS. This is even referenced in ''{{Film/Solo}}'' when Lando intentionally pronounces Han's name wrong to rile him up and says he doesn't care what the correct pronunciation is.
** You're lucky if two secondary characters in the prequels pronounce the name of a planet the same way even once ("Core-ah-sahnt" versus "Cour-ah-sahnt", "Na-BOO" versus "NAH-boo").
** And a few times, Padmé is pronounced as "PAHD-may" rather than "PAD-may". The latter and most commonly used pronunciation is a little bit closer to the Sanskrit word the name derives from. Others (such as [[WebVideo/RedLetterMedia Mr. Plinkett]]), have a tendency to pronounce it as "PAD-uh-may".
* ''Film/StreetFighter'': Most of the actors (except Creator/RaulJulia and Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme) had trouble with Ryu's name, pronouncing it "RYE-you" instead of "REE-you".
* The pronunciation of ''Film/SynecdocheNewYork,'' despite being a witty pun, isn't exactly the best title for a movie. [[note]]It's not "sign-ECK-dosh" or "sigh-NAYCK-docky", but "sih-NECK-doh-kee".[[/note]]
* A running gag in ''Film/ThatThingYouDo'': earnest rocker Jimmy Mattingly, intent on a band name with a cool double meaning built in, insists his group bill themselves as "The Oneders". Everyone from fans to announcers, however, calls them the "Oh-needers". The record exec who signs them to their first contract finally puts a stop to the madness, announcing that from now on they'll just be "The Wonders". (Jimmy's next group is called The Heardsmen, which, while equally cringeworthy, at least doesn't have a pronunciation problem.)
* ''Film/WithnailAndI'': Most first-time viewers of the film are surprised to discover that it's pronounced "WITH-null". Writer/director Bruce Robinson took the name from a local eccentric who lived near his childhood home: Jonathan Withna'''l'''l. He was reportedly so hopeless at spelling that he misspelled his own name on occasion. Hence, Withna'''i'''l.
* Lampshaded in ''Film/YoungFrankenstein'', where the characters get into an argument about Frankenstein ([[spoiler:initially]] pronounced "fronk-en-STEEN") and Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore"). Also subverted, in that Frederick Frankenstein deliberately pronounces his name strangely to distance himself from his infamous grandfather. [[spoiler:It doesn't last.]] And Igor's apparently just trolling him. (He also insists on calling him "Froderick" instead of Frederick).
** [[GeniusBonus Even funnier]], the correct Germanic pronunciation of 'Frankenstein' is technically "Fronk-en-Shtine", which is actually closer to Frederick's delibereate mispronuniciation than the generally-accepted Anglicized one.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Red Skies'', a 2002 PilotMovie set in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, features a Chinese female police officer who teams up with an FBI task-force. The surname of the chief villain is Zhou, and the cast's pronunciation varies from perfect (the female lead is Chinese actor Vivian Wu) to all-over-the-place. Given the background, this is completely realistic, and actually adds to characterisation.
* Throughout the premier miniseries of ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'', Lt. Felix Gaeta has his name mangled by several characters, some pronouncing it "Gay-taa" while others calling him "Guy-taa". By the time the series proper begins everyone pronounces his name the correct way: "Gay-taa".
* There's no consensus in ''Series/BattleBots'' as to how to pronounce the name of the robot called Sharkoprion. The commentators call it "shar-KOP-pree-on", whereas Faruq Tareed, who introduces the bots before they fight, calls it "SHARK-oh-PREE-un".
* In Soolin's first episode in ''Series/BlakesSeven'', her boyfriend Dorian pronounces her name as a Deep South-style "Sue Lynn". Everybody else, including her, pronounces it as one word with the stress on the first syllable.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** When a new monster appeared whose name pronunciation wasn't obvious, whoever first said the name on-screen got to decide the proper pronunciation and everyone else had to follow suit.
** Especially jarring in "School Hard", when Spike speaks it for the first time, rendering something closer to Ahn-jeh-LUS.
** That explains why they insist on [=AnGELus=] rather than [=ANgelus=].
** Lampshaded at least once, of course. "Maybe it's Mmmmmm-Fashnik, like 'mmmmm cookies!'"
--->'''Spike:''' Oh, balls. You didn't say the thing was a Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik.\\
'''Xander:''' Because I can't ''say'' Glarkgkl...
* ''Series/Charmed1998'': Leo frequently falls victim to this whenever he has to pronounce a name from mythology:
** The Valkyrie queen Freyja gets pronounced 'fray-jah', when every other character says 'frey-ah'.
** Hippolyta gets pronounced 'hippo-leeta' instead of 'hip-ol-ita'.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks "The Daleks"]], the actors are still split pretty evenly between how to pronounce the "a" in "Dalek" — some characters (Ian, some of the Thals, the Doctor) say it like the "a" in "cat" and others (like the Daleks themselves) say it like the "a" in "father" (the pronunciation the show eventually standardised).
** Actors in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E5TheDaemons "The Dæmons"]] don't seem to be in agreement as to whether the word is pronounced "DAY-mons" or "DEE-mons".
** The director of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E1TheTimeWarrior "The Time Warrior"]] wanted the potato-headed warrior race to be called "SON-tarans", but Kevin Lindsay, the actor playing Linx, insisted on referring to them as "son-TAR-ans". According to Elisabeth Sladen, this was eventually resolved when Lindsay announced, "It's son-TAR-an, and since I'm from the fucking place, I should know." This eventually received a bit of gentle mocking in the new series story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Stratagem"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], when Donna insists on calling them "SON-tarans", with the Doctor repeatedly having to correct her.
** Gallifrey:
*** The Fourth Doctor had an unusual habit, unique amongst all the Doctors, of pronouncing the name of his own home planet "Gallifrey" as "Galli-free". Perhaps a mistake? Perhaps the religiously-orientated actor interpreting it as a reference to "Galilee"? Other characters and Doctors all say "Galli-fray". This was fondly remarked upon enough to get a MythologyGag in the audio drama "[[IntentionallyAwkwardTitle Dr. Who and the Pirates]]", in which the Sixth Doctor [[PainfulRhyme forces a rhyme in a song]] by using the "Gallifree" pronunciation for that one line alone.
*** Leela starts saying "Gallifree" as well.
*** Drax, a Time Lord in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E6TheArmageddonFactor "The Armageddon Factor"]], also consistently says "Gallifree".
*** Tom Baker's character in [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]] says "Galli-fray" rather than the Fourth Doctor's trademark "Gallifree". [[FanWank This is significant, possibly]].
*** In ''Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?'', Susan (played, like everyone else in the cast, by TheOtherDarrin) uses the "Gallifree" pronunciation, says "Menoptera" with three syllables ("men-op-tra") and pronounces "Yetaxa" "yet-AX-a" instead of the pronounciation used in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs "The Aztecs"]] itself ("yi-TASHA").
** In syndication in the US, narration sections were added by Howard da Silva, who had not seen the stories or been given any briefing, leading to some garbled interpretations of names, such as "Darvrose" for "Davros".
** If your only exposure to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace "The Ark in Space"]] was the novelisation (as it was for many fans), you would be forgiven for thinking "Wirrn" was pronounced to rhyme with "burn". It's actually pronounced to rhyme with "(Helen) Mirren".
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]], every character pronounces Solon's name "Sollon" except for Morbius, who says "SO-lon". (The Doctor also calls him "SO-lon" in one instance at the beginning of Part 4.)
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E6TheSeedsOfDoom "The Seeds of Doom"]] features a Krynoid. Pronounced "Krinnoid", not "Cry-noid".
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E4TheFaceOfEvil "The Face of Evil"]] introduces Leela, a character who fights with [[PoisonedWeapons toxic Janis thorns]]. These were originally pronounced "[=JANiss=]" until Tom Baker commented that "Janice Thorn" sounded {{Narm}}fully like "the name of an out-of-work SoapOpera actress", and suggested the pronunciation 'Jane-us' instead (which added a bit of a FauxSymbolism frisson as well).
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E4NightmareOfEden "Nightmare of Eden"]] features a ship called the ''Hecate''. Nobody seems sure if that makes it the "Hec-ayte" or the "Hec-a-tee".
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E9Hide Hide]]", Creator/MattSmith pronounces "Metebelis" as "[=MeTEbelis=]". Creator/JohnPertwee, who referred to the planet in several stories, including his brief visit in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E5TheGreenDeath The Green Death]] and its after-effects in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders Planet of the Spiders]]" consistently called it "[=MeteBEElis=]".
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** CanonForeigner Talisa Maegyr introduces herself as "Ta-liss-ah" but every other time she's referred to as "Ta-lee-sah".
** The Tyrell family are constantly running into this with charcters switching between "Tih-rell" and "Tie-rell" even within the same scene. The change is often based on how much emphasis is being place on the name; "Tie-rell" is used if the name is being emphasised while "Tih-rell" is used if the name is not being emphasised.
* ''Series/TheGoodies'' episode "Bunfight at the OK Tea Room" has an OverlyLongGag about the pronunciation of the word "scone". The joke is that both the long-O and short-O pronunciations are correct, and which one is favoured depends on the region.
* Intentional example in the ''Series/GoodnessGraciousMe'' sketch "Going Out For an English", where the Indian patrons of an English restaurant look at the waiter's name badge, and decide "James" is pronounced either "JAM-ess". When corrected on the number of syllables they stick with "Jams" instead.
* As with the titular character's 2005 film, ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' goes with the pronunciation of John Constant-TEEN instead of -TYNE.
* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': The pink cow-like creatures known as the Snowths (who provide backup for Mahna Mahna). Since the creatures' names are never made audible, fans have been confused as to the correct pronunciation; some pronounce it the way it is spelled, "Snow-th", however, because the creatures' names are supposed to be derived from the words "Snout" and "mouth" (and they are cow-like), some fans pronounce it as, "Sn-OW-th".
* ''Series/MythQuest'': When Alex and Cleo investigate a Welsh myth, Alex has plenty of trouble with the Welsh spellings. In a later episode, he struggles with Aztec names as well.
* [[PerkyGoth Abby Sciuto]] from ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' has a last name that's almost impossible to pronounce without hearing it spoken first. This becomes a plot point when she visits a pharmaceutical lab that gets taken over by criminals and one of them correctly says her name despite her not saying it in front of him. It helps her realize that her new acquaintance (whom she introduced herself to earlier) is in on the attack.
** Contrast this with Israeli former Mossad operative Ziva David, whose name is rarely mispronounced, even by characters who have never met her, despite her name being pronounced in Hebrew as "DAH-veed" rather than the anglicized "DAY-vid." Some of this can probably be chalked up to being the daughter of the director of Mossad and having quite a [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast badass reputation herself]], but it still comes off as unrealistic for a woman who lives in the US.
* The connecting wall round in the quiz show ''Series/OnlyConnect'' often features clues that could be read one of two (or more) ways, so when asking for the connections, the host will [[ObfuscatingStupidity feign ignorance]] of the correct pronunication to avoid giving too much away.
* There's a hilarious example of this in the ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' episode "The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim":
-->'''Deliveryman with parrot:''' Mornin', sir, I've got a parrot for Mr. Poy-rot.\\
'''Poirot:''' "Pwah-ROW". It is pronounced "pwah-ROW".\\
'''Deliveryman:''' Oh, I beg your pardon, guvnor. I've got a pwah-row for Mr. Poyrot. ''(hands Poirot the cage)''

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'': In the episode "Lions and Blizzards", from the original ''Mighty Morphin'' series (season 1), when Rita creates the monster known as Goatan, the lion-goat, Alpha 5 describes him as her 'evil Chimera monster'. However, Alpha mispronounces the word 'Chimera' as 'shih-MAY-ruh' when he says this. In the first part of the two-part episode "Heir Apparent", from ''Mystic Force'' (season 14), Imperious summons the Chimera (a monster composed of the souls of all of the monsters ever defeated by Leanbow, the father of the Red Ranger, Nick Russell [Bowen]). When Imperious does this, he pronounces 'Chimera' correctly ('kye-ME-ruh').

* ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'': One woman mispronounces the brand name "Tidy Cats" ([[https://youtu.be/9_4CPy9eT3Q video]]).
* A rather perplexing example in ''La Caméra Explore le Temps'', as the name itself isn't very complicated; but one of the witnesses in the "Courrier de Lyon" case has his name pronounced as "Chérau" by the court president and "Chérou" by the usher, while he introduces himself as "Chéron".
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' had a skit in 1992 starring Nicholas Cage, where he and his pregnant wife Julia Sweeney were discussing baby names. He would shut down every suggestion she had by claiming kids would make fun of their son's name: Joseph would become Joe Blow, William would be Willie Wonka, and "no Peter, no Dick, no Rod!" Finally, they receive a telegram, and the deliverer (played by Rob Schneider) reads it out to them: "Congratulations to Asswipe and Emily on your new bundle of joy! Love, Bob and Jennifer." Nic leans in and says, "It's pronounced Oz-wee-pay."
* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
** The series had problems with the pronunciation of the main enemies, the Goa'uld, that seemed integrated into the characters. More carefully-spoken characters like Teal'c would pronounce it "go-AH-oold". O'Neill, on the other hand, pronounced it "GOULD".
** Each SG-1 team member seemed to have their own way of pronouncing the name, each of them unique but internally consistent: Teal'c had his Chris-Judge-is-overpronouncing style, O'Neill had his flat Northern Middle-American. Michael Shanks had the compromise with "Go-Uld" and Amanda Tapping's Canadian-by-way-of-England gave us something like to "Go-Old". The best is Don Davis (from Missouri) playing Hammond ([[RunningGag of Texas]]) drawling out "Gewld". This was actually [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the series, when they corrected an official document which spelled it as "Gould".
** Also, the alien Tok'ra and Asgard consistently pronounce it as "Gah-oold". Perhaps intentionally, as a slur. Especially since the word literally means "god" in their language. Who wants to keep calling their enemies "gods"?
** This briefly became TruthInTelevision when the [[GameMaster geeks]] at the National Defense University in Washington ran a wargame. Wanting exotic-sounding names, they seized on the Goa'uld and the Ja'ffa as rival pirate clans in a fictional Gulf state. Thus, for a few days, US military personnel were struggling with (and inventing their own wild pronunciations for) the names of two fictional alien races.
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' was similarly inconsistent with the name "Daedalus". There are a number of acceptable pronunciations in RealLife for this name, but 'ded-a-lis' isn't one of them.
** The Kelownans originally called them the "Guld", but only because they were looking at old manuscripts. Teal'c corrected them.
** An early episode has Kowalski possessed by a Goa'uld symbiote. For some reason, he pronounces "Jaffa" as "Yaffa". No one else does this.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** Everyone, including the character himself, alternates between pronouncing his name "Quark" (the way it's spelt) and "Quork" and some weird mixture of both.
** In her one episode on this show, Vash's name is pronounced to rhyme with "cash" almost as often as it is to rhyme with "posh," as it was always pronounced on ''The Next Generation.'' At one point it's pronounced differently in two consecutive lines.
* In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' and ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', is Spock's father's name pronounced "Sar-eck", or "Sare-eck"? It's used both ways, yet I'm very sure it's supposed to be the first.
** In ''TOS'', the now iconic Klingons ("Cling-ons") are sometimes pronounced "Cling-ins" or "Cling-gons."
** Can you figure out how to say [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Guinan]] without hearing it? (It's Guy-nun. Like Ruislip. What do you mean that doesn't help?) Although "Guinan" is a real name, so the writers don't get the blame for that one.
* In ''Series/{{Suburgatory}}'' Dalia's name was usually pronounced ''Day''-lia in season one, but it changed to ''Dah''-lia in season two. Most of the time.
* During the improvisations over the closing credits of the original, British version of ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'', contestants got a lot of mileage out of the name of video editor Mykola Pawluk.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/AphexTwin's ''Drukqs''. "Drucks"? "Druck-yoos"? And that's not even getting into the track titles.
* Music/{{Autechre}} are kings of this trope, down to their name ("aw-TEK-er" being the commonly accepted pronounciation.) Most song titles range anywhere from "Perlence" and "Cipater" to "Cep puiqMX" and "Cfern".
* The first time Music/AvrilLavigne appeared on MTV's Total Request Live, the first thing host Carson Daly did was ask her how her name is pronounced. It's "AV-rill Luh-VEEN". Daly had previously been calling her "Uh-VRIL Luh-VEEN".
* The band "!!!". To add to the confusion, it's apparently supposed to be pronounced "chk chk chk".
* ''Music/Blink182'' is supposed to be pronounced "Blink One Eighty Two" but fans commonly say "Blink One Eight Two".
* Many a fan of Music/{{Can}} has pondered over just how the hell you pronounce the names of the albums Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi. (It's "TAH-go MAH-go" and "EGG-uh BUM-yuh-see.")
* The name of the Finnish heavy metal band Music/ChildrenOfBodom is a shibboleth. The band is from Espoo, Finland. An Espoo native would pronounce it "boo-dum", while everyone else will pronounce it "bow-dom" or "boddom". The name refers to Lake Bodom and the unresolved murders of 1963.
* The ''VideoGame/{{beatmania}} IIDX'' song [[https://youtu.be/S3-OmH__1rU "AA"]] has no official pronunciation. It's been pronounced as "A-A", "double A" and "double A's", among other things. To further the confusion, ''IIDX'' and ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' sort it under 'A', but a remix of it named "AA [=BlackY=] Mix" appears in ''VideoGame/SoundVoltex'', which sorts it under the kana ダ, presumably for its FanNickname ダブルエース ("Double Ace").
* No one is really sure if the "bow" in Music/DavidBowie is pronounced like the bow of a ship, or like a bow-tie. Even the man himself [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg&t=135 has lost track of it]] and to complicate things further, he acknowledges its original Scottish pronunciation of "boo-ie".
* Vocaloid producer Music/DECO27's name is pronounced "Deco-Nina", not "Deco-Two-Seven" or "Deco-Twenty Seven".
* Heavy Metal Umlauts are almost always wrong, but that doesn't stop people trying to pronounce them anyway, especially if they speak a language that actually uses umlauts. Motley Crue concerts in Germany often have fans chanting "Moo-ert-lee Croo-eh" The heavy metal band Trojan made a faux pas in Sweden by applying umlaut over the 'o' on their concert T-shirts. The swedish word ''tröjan'' means simply "the shirt". Applying the umlaut over the a ("Trojän") would pretty well approximate its real pronunciation. Averted by Finnish hero metal band ''Teräsbetoni'', where the umlaut is NOT gratuitous. The name means "reinforced concrete" in Finnish.
* The Japanese band "7!!", which is pronounced "seven oops." The pronunciation is usually pointed out or even used in place of the real name, because Google doesn't know how to search for "7!!".
* Averted in Music/LynyrdSkynyrd's debut album, ''(pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd)''. That's the name of the album.
* ''Magma'' sing in their own invented language, so it's anyone's guess as to the pronunciation of the words, to give an especially extreme example, "Scxyss."
* Music/SpikeJones and Homer & Jethro titled their TakeThat against ''Theatre/{{Pagliacci}}'' phonetically, as "Pal Yat Chee" or "Pal-Yat-Chee". The casual fan of either who might agree with their take on {{Opera}} is thereby more likely to pronounce the opera's name right.
* The ''VideoGame/PopNMusic'' song (and IIDX transplant) [[https://youtu.be/Ks6iT5DKnyk "?????".]] Yes, Fs with hooks, as in the musical notation. Is it pronounced "five F", "five forte" (or "five forté" -- see below), "pentaforte", "Five Hammer" (actually the credited artist), "Hard P?" (actually the genre, and its name in the song list in PNM), "fortisisisisimo", or just "[[MemeticMutation FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFU-]]"?
* “Jai Ho,” the song at the end of Film/SlumdogMillionaire, was originally sung in Hindi, until Music/PussycatDolls did an English language cover of it, but kept A.R Rahman vocals in chorus. However they all pronounce the “Jai” differently, leaving everyone very confused as to which is correct. Is it Jay, or Ja?
* Rammstein use their name in a handful of songs and it's definitely pronounced Rahm-Shtine. That doesn't stop American [=DJ=]s from prouncing it Ram-Steen.
* Invoked by Jübl, the band formed by ex-members of Music/ARKane, who have expressly stated that you can pronounce their name whatever way you like.
* The British band Music/{{Sade}} pronounced "Sha-DAY", is often mispronounced "Sah-day" or "Shar-day".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* The personal name of God in Literature/TheBible. Only the consonants -- yod-he-vav-he (YHWH) are known but not the vowels. The most common guesses among modern believers are "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" (the latter of which Hebrew linguists universally agree was ''not'' the original pronunciation)[[note]] There's no "J" sound in Ancient Hebrew, for one [[/note]], but there is no indication as to the true spelling or pronunciation. To add to the confusion, some Greek magical texts spell it "iota-alpha-omega", pronounced "ya-oh".
* Myth/CelticMythology:
** The [[PublicDomainArtifact legendary sword]] ''Claíomh Solais'' shows up in videogames a lot, where it confuses the hell out of anyone who doesn't speak Irish. The correct pronunciation is "CLEE-(u)v SULL-is".
** Also, Cú Chulainn. The first word is pronounced "Koo", and the second is the Irish form of "Cullen" (though with the ''c'' modified into ''ch'', giving it a guttural "kh" sound). In particular, most Japanese media transliterates it as "Kuu Hurin". ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' gets somewhat more creative with "Kyukurein".
* How do you pronounce the name that translates as the Lord of the Flies? BEEL-zuh-bub, be-EL-zeh-bub, or BELL-zee-bub? be-EL-zeh-bub is probably the best, as the word derives from the word Ba'al, meaning Lord in several Semitic languages. It's pronounced with two syllables, with a glottal stop in the middle. And it's how Music/{{Queen}} pronounced it in "Music/BohemianRhapsody", and they are the highest earthly authority.
* The very name of Thor himself. Scandinavians pronounce his name as ''toor'' (sometimes even with the "r" being silent). Anglophones tend to pronounce him as "thorr".
** In this case the Anglophones are closer to correct, as his name in the Viking Age was ''Þórr'' with a special letter thorn that specifically means "the TH sound".
* Annwn, the Welsh afterlife, tends to confuse most English speakers due to the w (it's "Ann-OON"). The Cwn Annwn (basically like [[{{Hellhound}} hellhounds,]] but not usually evil follow the same pattern (it's pronounced "Koon-Ann-OOn".)
** Pwyll is another name from Welsh Mythology that tends to confuse people. It's pronounced exactly like "pool"
* Myth/GreekMythology: The name of the Hecatoncheires (literally [[MultiArmedAndDangerous "Hundred-handed ones"]]) tends to confuse a lot of people (it's "HECK-uh-TON-Ker-Ez"). It's not much easier to spell, either. Creator/XanderMobus got it wrong in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', pronouncing it as "HECK-uh-ton-KYE-rus".
** The god Phanes suffers from this to a lesser extent. While a lot of people just pronounce it like "feigns", the correct way it more like "Feign-Ease" in English, but "fan-ess" in Greek.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* ''Podcast/ChapoTrapHouse'':
** The podcasters are significantly more well-read than they have had the opportunity to actually say the words in their vocabulary, and one will garble the pronunciation of some word or another nearly OnceAnEpisode, with the others immediately dunking on them for it. This is stereotypically Will, who once worked in the literature industry, and does all of the linking material, but Felix has also stumbled on words like "caveat".
** The hosts frequently screw up the names of various figures they cover on the podcast, and have commented a few times that the political class of America doesn't have normal names.
* ''Podcast/GaysInCapes'': Joaquin is pronounced jock-win, not wau-keen, as the spelling might suggest. Despite being a character in a podcast, a surprising number of people get it wrong.
* Episode four of ''Podcast/MysteryShow'' has a variation, where the lack of punctuation on the titular Vanity Plate ("ILUV911") causes endless confusion as to what it means. 9-11? 911? 91.1?
* ''Podcast/MythsAndLegends'' host Jason Weiser tends to butcher the pronunciation of various monsters and characters, and he doesn't hesitate to lampshade it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Roleplay]]
* ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAgeOldportBlues'' has a character called Fesxis. It was eventually clarified behind-the-scenes to be pronounced 'fek-zis'.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' fan RPG ''[[http://pokemonturquoise.com/index.php Turquoise]]'' is text-based, and the fan-region has such wonderful names as Shrdlu, Krtuso, Szlazan, Acoatyle, Etaoin, Jarovesu, Xybryle...and this trope.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* In ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'', in mythology the River Lethe is pronounced 'lee-thee' or 'leeth', while here it's pronounced 'leth.'
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'':
** This was the case with most names until [[WordOfGod the writer]] started handing out the correct pronunciations to fans. Encyclopedias also had guides on how on pronounce names, but other forms of media (like video games or movies, even the writer ''himself'' in his podcast) still had them confused. The most infamous case is that of Lewa: is it "Ley-wuh", "Leh-wuh", perhaps "Lee-wuh", or "Loo-ah"? Officially it's "Ley-wuh", and employees at LEGO used to make a point of correcting people who mispronounced it. Yet, the [[Toys/{{Bionicle 2015}} franchise reboot]] still went on to call him "Lee-wuh". Other names beginning with "Le-" also have this issue.
** Further, the Inika are variably called "ee-Nigh-kuh" and "ee-Nee-kuh", and the names of Onua and Onewa or Krekka and Krika are often mixed up. The second movie differentiated between Onua and Onewa by pronouncing the latter as "Oh-ne-wah", while an early European promo CD used "oh-Ney-wah". Sadly, another promo CD pronounced it as "Onua".
** Names like Kraata, Gaaki, Kiina or Avohkii are also pronounced with double-vowels in some media and with long vowels in others.
** Kopeke's pronounced as "ko-Peek", but many fans go by the pronunciation they had heard in their heads ("ko-Pe-ke) before the official one was made clear. Jaller has it the other way around: his name was spelled as "Jala" at first, and "Jaller" is supposed to be said the same way, but some fans pronounce his new spelling with an "-er" at the end.
** Some dubs of the first movie pronounce Pewku ("Poo-koo") as "Pev-koo" because many languages make little to no distinction between 'v' and 'w'.
** Guurahk is predominantly pronounced as "Goo-rahk" by fans and the narrator on his promo CD, although "Ger-rahk" is the official way of saying it. Some sources also interpret it as "Jer-rahk".
** Raanu is called both "Raah-nu" and "ra-Noo" in the fourth movie. Likewise, Ackar is called "Ack-are" and "uh-Kahr" in different scenes.
** Mata Nui's name is straightforward ("Mah-tah Noo-i", with emphasis mostly placed on the name's first part), but in the first film, Makuta calls him "mah-tah Noo-Eee", stressing the last syllable. In the fourth, it sometimes becomes "Met-a Noo-i".
* ''Toys/{{Bionicle 2015}}'''s Korgot. Some fans pronounce her name as "Kor-got", others make the '-t' silent and call her "Kor-goe".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has the Huitzilopochtli Assault Tank, named after the Aztec god of war. It's known both in and out of universe as the Huey.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** The Dark Elf race, the Drow. Officially, it can be pronounced one of two ways -- rhyming with "cow" and rhyming with "know", and both are considered correct. Doesn't stop people from arguing that only their pronunciation is correct.
** The Finnish translations of R. A. Salvatore and Elaine Cunningham seem to have decided to use declensions of the word "drow" that imply the end "w" is supposed to be pronounced as a consonant, which they must know would never appear in anything written in English.
** It may be worth noting, however, that [[OlderThanTheyThink the Scottish folklore the Drow originated in]] used the "cow" pronunciation.
** One of the Drizzt books has a rhyming dwarf who rhymes "drow" with "row".
** On the topic of ''DND'', the creator himself, Gary Gygax. It's pronounced GHEE-gacks. Even ''the official site'' got this wrong. Then so did an episode of WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} he himself appeared in. And [[https://youtu.be/sQ0raag8TD8 so did the man himself]], although he mentions that in Switzerland they use GHEE-gacks.
** WordOfGod, in response to a question in ''Magazine/{{Dragon}} Magazine'' is that "flind" is pronounced to rhyme with "wind". Isn't that helpful?
** Keith Baker, creator of the Eberron campaign setting, responds to all pronunciation questions about the world's innumerable hard-to-pronounce names is that all pronunciations are correct in one of the world's dialects.
** Fans of ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'s'' Strahd von Zarovich had to wait for the audiobook of ''I, Strahd'' to find out whether they'd been pronouncing the vampire darklord's first name wrong.
** The [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Demon Lord]] Baphomet's palace is called The Lyktion. Is it "Lick-tee-on"? "Like-tee-on?" "Lick-shun"? "Like-shun"? Something else all together? It's likely LUEK-tee-on, with the Y pronounced as a German U with umlaut, as the Greek root for "wolf", ''lyk-'', has its Y pronounced that way.
** There's a race of AlwaysChaoticEvil manta ray monsters called Ixitxatchitl, which tends to confuse the hell out of most players. Some time after 3rd edition they started actually putting a prononciation guide (it's "IKS-it-zatch-itul")
** There's a spell called geas which curses someone with increasing stat penalties unless they do what the caster says. While most players pronounce it like "geese" or something like "GEE-az", it's a real (if somewhat archaic) Irish word, and is pronounced like "gesh".
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has everyone's favorite middle-management fate ninjas, the Sidereal Exalts. In the best White Wolf tradition, the preferred fan pronunciation (sid-EHR-ee-al) has largely trumped Webster (sigh-DEER-ee-al), even among those who know better. The fan pronunciation is more accurate to the Latin word ''sideris'', meaning "star", from which "sidereal" is derived.
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': Sekki, Pronunciation's Guide, a defunct feature of the website which corrects mispronunciations of Magic's glut of terms. That feature ended before they could settle the pronunciation of Garruk. It's common to hear players pronounce it as either GAIR-rek with the emphasis on the first syllable or guh-ROOK with emphasis on the second. In a cutscene for one of the video games, Nicol Bolas pronounces it guh-ruhk with emphasis on ''neither'' syllable. Mark Rosewater later confirmed that Garruk rhymes with Eric.
** ''WebVideo/TolarianCommunityCollege'' makes note of the pronunciation confusion in [[https://youtu.be/cMBM4UNa9MI this video]] while also adding in a [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine "Plain, Simple Garak"]] joke.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'': "Reading Railroad" is commonly called the REED-ing Railroad, but it's actually the REDD-ing Railroad, which served Atlantic City until 1976 (and was named after the city in Pennsylvania and, by extension, the town in England).
* ''TabletopGame/{{Nobilis}}'': Excrucians tend to have names based on medieval and Gothic words, and so it can be a bit hard to figure out how you're supposed to pronounce them.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Used deliberately in one module: the adventurers are in an [[EvilSorcerer evil sorcerer's]] mansion and at one point find a bound demon whose name (CTHEPALTANGOULGI) is written on the wall in big letters. Saying the demon's name weakens or stuns it with pain, but only if the person saying it pronounces it right. The books say the Players can either try to say it aloud or roll a linguistics check to see if they get it right. (the pronounciation the book gives is "kuh-thep-all-tan-GOOL-ghee")
* ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'':
** One was the vampire clan Tzimisce, which was so awkward that not only did nobody know how to pronounce it, nobody could even get into flame wars about it because it was just that confusing. Eventually, White Wolf released a revised edition of the game that included a pronunciation -- fittingly, one almost nobody had thought of (zhi-mee-see).
** On the other hand, there has been no clarification on the clan Tremere -- while most pronounce it "treh-MEER", there are some who insist it's "TREH-meh-ray". And then there are those of us that insist on "TREH-mare". One edition did specify "treh-MEER". Some fans thought that the [[CanisLatinicus Latin]] was too doggy even for them, and continued to pronounce it "TREH-meh-reh". ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'', which was fully voiced, used 'Treh-MEER'. Though, despite having one as part of a subplot, "Tzimisce" only appears on a health meter and player dialogue options. "Tzimisces" ''is'' a Greek word, ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tzimisces a name, specifically]]), by way of Armenian.
** There's also a debate over the pronunciation of Clan Brujah. (Broo-JAH vs. Broo-HA) The word is Spanish (meaning "witch") so the latter is most likely correct.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
** Tzeentch. Given that it's a god, it only seems appropriate that there's an endless number of pronunciations used by the fanbase. 'Zeench' is the most common, the 't' being silent. 'Tuh-zeench' and 'zeen-tish' are other possibilities. ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' showed the first pronunciation being used.
** As for 'Tau', the argument is about whether it rhymes with 'cow' or with 'core'. Assuming the Tau pronounce it the same way the Greeks did, it rhymes with "cow", and given the Asian influences in their design, it might be intended as a "space" spelling of "tao". ''VideoGame/FireWarrior'' went with the "rhymes with 'cow'" version, and they've stuck with it ever since.
** Depending on who you ask, Tyranid is either pronounced 'tie-ranid' or 'tee-ranid'. They were named after the planet Tyran Primus, whose name was derived from 'tyrant', so it depends on whether you choose to look at the modern English or the original Greek pronunciation.
** The C'tan are called [[LouisCypher 'Suh-tan']] half the time and 'Kuh-tan' the other half.
** [[ShrugOfGod Official sources were uninformative]] when asked how to pronounce "lasgun".
** Roboute Guilliman. For ''decades'', the lack of any distinctive pronunciation guide gave rise to a downright bewildering array of potential pronunciations. 1d4chan poked fun at this by offering some alternatives (Rowboat Girlyman, Rawbutt Jellyman, Robot Gulliver, etc). Hilariously, even Games Workshop couldn't get it straight for a while -- [THQ's] ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine'' video game gave one of the first out-loud pronunciations and went with "Ro-BOOT GWEEL-iman", but Games Workshop has since switched to "Ro-BOOT-ay GILL-uh-man", which they seem to be sticking with.
** Averted for the Von Carsteins in the Warhammer RPG spin-off, with a note about the mysterious origins of the name and resultant in-universe confusion as to the proper pronunciation concluding:
--->For the family itself, there is no confusion whatsoever: the A is short as in “cart”, the R is slightly rolled, the S has a hint of the Kislevian Zh, and the last syllable rhymes with “wine”. This is a matter of deep family pride, and it is not unknown for Von Carsteins to flay the tongues of those who make the last syllable rhyme with “seen".
* Some die hard ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' players insist the pronunciation of Metis (werewolf on werewolf offspring) is 'MET-is' despite 'MAY-tee' being a term for mixed race, used throughout the Americas for centuries. Creator/WhiteWolf hates language. Then again, there's also a RealLife example of the first pronunciation, a minor pagan deity, also Greek. MET-isse and MAY-tee are both correct when referring to the mixed races. In French Canada, MAY-tee (Métis) is masculine, and MET-is (Metisse) is feminine.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* With eighty-plus people to keep track of, the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series probably has some of this.
** This gets especially bad in ''Apollo Justice'', with names like Lamiroir, Klavier Gavin and Machi Tobaye [[note]]The last of them, at least, is thankfully directly taken from the Japanese name, which ''does'' work as a guide due to the way Japanese writing works[[/note]]. The difficulty of pronouncing the latter's name gets [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when the Judge can't pronounce it.
** There's an interesting variation in "Psyche-Locks" which usually whenever spoken aloud in a LetsPlay or as in ''WebAnimation/TurnaboutStorm'' (with one exception right at the end) are inevitably called "Psych-locks", without the "e" sound (which most people by the time they can play the games know "Psyche" is said "Sike-E", even if they don't know that Psyche is the Greek goddess of the [[MeaningfulName soul]]).
* A bit confusing in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', when Shirou complains about how Rider is pronouncing his name because it reminds him of how Saber said it. But... it's spelled the same every time. The difference is apparently Sheer-oh (how Saber mispronounces it) and Sheer-oh-oo (correct version) or something. They're using a short vowel and getting the pitch pattern wrong. Roughly, they're saying SHI-roh, when the name is more like shi-ROW.
* ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'':
** Used in-story when main character Shiki (written 志貴) notes that, yeah, one way to pronounce another character's name (written 四季) would also be "Shiki". As a result, the two characters have the same name pronunciation. This doesn't translate well at all, so the English translation went with writing the latter SHIKI's name in all-caps to differentiate them.
** Not to mention [[TheUnpronouncable Nrvnqsr Chaos]]... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast It's pronounced 'Nero' by the way.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/TheDementedCartoonMovie'' has characters pronouncing "Qrrbrbirlbel" in different ways, perhaps due to their [[TooDumbToLive frequently-fatal stupidity]].
* ''WebAnimation/DorklyOriginals'' pokes fun at the lack of pronunciation guide in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' in [[http://www.dorkly.com/video/35974/final-fantasy-vii this video]].
* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': ???'s name is pronounced 'Question, question, question', not 'Question mark, question mark, question mark'.
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'':
** Lie Ren provided a bit of confusion to fans, not helped at all by Nora calling him "Len" in one episode.
** There's also Weiss Schnee, whose name is of German origin but not pronounced as such. The series pronounces it as "W-ice" not "V-ice". (Creator/MontyOum stated that Germany doesn't exist on Remnant, so why would the name be pronounced in the German manner?)
* ''WebAnimation/SuperMarioBrosZ'': In the rebooted series, the name of Metallix (the upgraded version of Metal Sonic, serving as the BigBad of the first season) has no official pronunciation, leading to people pronouncing his name as "Meta-Licks". When [[WordOfGod Alvin-Earthworm]] noticed, he went on to clarify that the name is actually meant to be pronounced similar to "metallics", complete with [[https://twitter.com/AlvinSmbz/status/1392907968291688448 posting a clip of vocoded Sonic audio saying out the intended pronunciation.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''{{Webcomic/Drowtales}}'', being about elves, involves a lot of long names. Listening to the animations shows there is no consistent pronunciation.
* Dan Shive, creator of ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' has gotten enough of a message on how pronounce the Japanese names of some of his characters that he explains them in the FAQ. Fans were still mostly left in the air on how to pronounce "Sciuridae" until [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2008-02-22 this strip]] provided the unlikely "Skwur-uh-dey". This is slightly bizarre as Sciuridae (See-ur-uh-die or See-ur-uh-dee) is the scientific family for true squirrels, and they could have easily just looked it up. Lampshaded: only a few strips after giving the pronunciation, the school's principal goes by the scientific name and is corrected.
* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' has Ysengrin. WordOfGod says it's "Is-en-grin". but it's more often interpreted as "Yiss-en-grin" or some other phonetic thing, since the correct pronunciation isn't easy to find.
** And a minor character named "Cvet". Is it pronounced "Svet" or "Kvet"?
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'':
** Several of the trolls, though not all of them. Their names are based on names or words from mythology and non-Western cultures, meaning that there usually is a correct pronunciation but you can't count on the fans being aware of it. Feferi gets the worst of it, particularly with her last name of "Peixes", and her first name having many different ways to pronounce (fe-FAIRY; fef-ERRIE, fef-EERIE...). Terezi too, whose name can be pronounced in at least five different ways depending on what you do with the vowels. [[WordOfSaintPaul According to the user who suggested her name]], the correct pronunciation is "ter-REE-see" (similar to "Theresa" or, [[BlindSeer appropriately enough]], [[Theatre/OedipusTheKing "Tiresias"]]), consistent with the etymology ("scale" in Azeri). Pretty much no one else says it that way, except for people who don't speak English.
** There's also "uh-RAY-dee-uh" vs "uh-RAH-dee-uh" for Aradia (to complicate matters even further, WordOfGod is that it's "uh-RAD-ee-uh", which is actually rather rarely used among fans), and the 398257289375 different pronunciations of Calliope. Despite the fact that Calliope ''is an actual figure from Myth/ClassicalMythology'' (pronounced "kuh-LIE-oh-pee", for anyone curious). And a relatively non-obscure one, at that.
** An in-universe example with "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur Caledfwlch]]", which neither Dave nor Davesprite is sure how to pronounce (it's "ka-led-vul-hh").
** [[DramaticReading Let's Read Homestuck]] naturally ran into this problem head-on when they got around to the trolls. They went with "uh-RAH-dee-uh" for "Aradia", the common pronunciation "teh-REH-zee" for "Terezi", and "FEF-er-ee" for "Feferi". What confused a lot of fans was their pronunciation of Feferi's last name, "Peixes": they [[ShownTheirWork did the research]] and pronounced it "PAY-shehs". This is because "peixes" is the Portuguese word meaning "fish", and that is how it is pronounced in that language.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'', early on it wasn't uncommon for fans to mispronounce the name of one of the main background characters, Bino. His name is pronounced with a long I, like his older brother, Fido. But fans typically mispronounced it with a short I, like the anti-gas medication Beano. This was lampshaded and enforced in the arc "Wolf's Clothing", when after an incident where Bino was conned into committing crimes by one of the wolves, "Four-Finger Discount" Jack, [[https://www.housepetscomic.com/comic/2015/03/30/pound-puppy/ he was being bailed out]] of the pound.
-->'''Pound Clerk:''' Bean-o?\\
'''Bino:''' That's '''BINE--'''\\
'''Pound Clerk:''' Your bail's been paid\\
'''Bino:''' --oh
* ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'': [[MeaningfulRename Cheryl]] is clearly meant to [[SobriquetSexSwitch share the first syllable with Charon]] while in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryl is pronounced share-il, so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon %%i think this a bit more context but is a pretty good example
* Averted in ''Webcomic/{{Miamaska}}'', [[NaiveNewcomer Amity Vii]] sounds out all the strange names she comes across [[http://miamaska.tidalcomics.com/index.php?strip_id=32 for the audience]].
* Both Inverted and Played Straight in ''WebComic/TheNoordegraafFiles''. The main offender, (the comic's resident NatureSpirit),[[MsFanservice Akila]], has at least 5 ways her name could be pronounced based on the spelling. The correct form is "Ak-ah-la" (with the "ah" pronounced like the "a" in "father"). "Ak-ih-la" (as in "ship") is also acceptable, while "Ak-ay-la" and "Ak-ee-la" are not. Luckily, a pronunciation is given.
** The comic is pretty good at providing pronunciations, such as a character named Edythe (Eh-dith), or the titular hero's last name "Noordegraaf" (Nor-dee-graph). However, a few cases, such as names like "Tethys" and "Yggdrasil" are not clarified.
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'':
** Luckily, [[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?4992-Could-The-Giant-give-us-a-pronounce-guide there's a guide from the author]], which is definitely handy for Sabine, Elan and Vaarsuvius.
** On one of the calendars, Elan tries to make a pun on "sahuagin", and Roy points out it doesn't work in print because no one knows how to say "sahuagin".
** When the group [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0837.html travels to the Windy Canyon]], they didn't prepare any spells to combat the fierce winds because Durkon misinterpreted the name as being "windy" as in "a winding path". Vaarsuvius points out that the two words, while spelled the same, are ''pronounced'' completely differently, and they've only ever heard the name spoken aloud, so how could Durkon possibly have made that mistake?
* Eikre from ''Webcomic/RPGWorld'' was named by literally randomly hitting keys, as a parody of unpronounceable names. Whenever he was asked (via chat/email) how it was pronounced, he always just typed out "It's pronounced 'Eikre'"
* The demon K'Z'K from ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''. All we know is that, if you don't want your soul devoured, do ''not'' pronounce it "Kizke." Absolutely no vowels of any sort. The obvious guess would be that you pronounce k, then z, then k, either with or without stops in between. Oh, and he will devour your soul anyway.
* ''Webcomic/{{Springiette}}'' has given many people the headache of not knowing how to say it right. Turns out there isn't really a [[http://www.springiette.net/strips/164 correct way]].
* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'' has this problem as well in the english speaking fandom. Especially with the pronunciation of Lahel/Rachel, Headon and Zahard/Jahad. As one can see, SpellMyNameWithAnS applies as well, due to the Korean alphabet having several romanizations.
* The creator of ''Webcomic/AnecdoteOfError'' took steps to defy this trope, by posting [[https://www.deviantart.com/morganicfoods/art/Pronunciation-Guide-803193628 the correct pronunciations of every word]] in her story's ConLang, in IPA no less. [[ZigZaggingTrope Despite this]], several of her romanization choices are rather odd, so a reader who missed the pronunciation guide or finds it difficult to read would be very unlikely to guess that the main character’s surname is pronounced “THO-nel”, for instance.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Until [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-stupid-youtube-comments-are-older-than-internet/ this]] article was published on ''Website/{{Cracked}}'', there was no official confirmation that columnist Soren Bowie's surname was pronounced "BOO-ee". Looking at the comment section, it seems it was quite a shock to a lot of fans that it wasn't "BOW-ee", as in Music/DavidBowie.
* Inverted by Website/{{Neopets}}... which actually ''does'' have a [[http://www.neopets.com/pronounce.phtml pronunciation guide]]!
* In the Literature/PeacockKingTrilogy, most names are not quite pronounced as one would expect. Examples: Ebrellin-i Xaillyndesse, lampshaded with Camdheighn and Elricht Dealag'seala, who are promptly renamed Camden and Elric Briarseal.
* From ''Blog/ThingsMrWelchIsNoLongerAllowedToDoInAnRPG'':
-->''561. I can't play a deep gnome just to make the rest of the party have to pronounce Svirfneblin.''\\
''716. I cannot play a race the GM can't pronounce.''\\
''2226. The concept of vowels are not alien to dwarves.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* ''WebVideo/{{Caddicarus}}'' doesn't know how to pronounce ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}}'', so he hangs a lampshade on it in his review by titling the video "I Can't Pronounce This Game" and cycling among different pronunciations throughout.
* Defied by [=Cicabeot1=], on her [=YouTube=] channel description it includes the pronunciation "si-cah-bee-oh-tee-1".
* Happens briefly in ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'', when the players first meet Clarota. Creator/MatthewMercer's super-creepy [[spoiler: mindflayer]] accent leads to them having trouble hearing the name. They decide to call him Clarence, which Clarota [[EmbarrassingNickname immediately rejects]]. During Matt's occasional PurpleProse, he also mispronounces words -- including "sigil" (which he says with a hard "g", as opposed to a soft "g"); "cacophonous" ("cacaphonous"); and chitinous (using a "ch" sound instead of a hard k).
* LetsPlay/DaithiDeNogla's name is actually pronounced "DA-hee day NO-glah". The fact that his Irish accent [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent is slightly unusual, especially for other Irish people]], makes it a little more confusing.
* ''WebVideo/HonestTrailers'' have fun with this in their "AndStarring..." section where, if they encounter an actor whose name is difficult to pronounce, they'd forego making puns about the character's name and/or roles, and instead just deliberately ''mis''pronounce their real names a couple of times before giving up.
* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'':
** Comes up in the review of ''WesternAnimation/BebesKids'', where everyone starts to debate how to pronounce Tone Loc's name.
** In one of the Fuck-Up videos, he talks about his frequent difficulty pronouncing characters' names, saying that there are probably too many examples to list. Proof that even when you have the movie itself as a pronunciation guide, you can't always get things right.
* Felix Kjellberg, also known as ''LetsPlay/PewDiePie'', is constantly having his last name mispronounced as "Keelberg", "Kelberg" or "kuh-jel-berg". It's actually pronounced "SHELL-berg" with the 'e'in the second syllable being pronunced like the vowel in the word 'man', and with a soft 'g' (making a 'yuh' sound) at the end.
* ''WebVideo/VaguelyRecallingJoJo'': When they try to recall their time in Calcutta, the Narrator and Enya Geil cannot pronounce Calcutta, so they say that they were somewhere in India.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** For some reason, the character Mai has her named pronounced like "May". Given the Asian-influenced setting, you'd think it would either be pronounced like "My" or spelled "Mei".
** The name "Kya" is pronounced differently in different incarnations of the series. In the original pilot to ''Avatar The Last Airbender'', Katara's name is "Kya" and it's pronounced as "Ki-ah". In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' Katara's daughter is named Kya, pronounced "Ki", after Katara's mother.
** In the backstory, there's a character named Szeto (a former incarnation of the Avatar) whose name has never been said onscreen. It could be pronounced "Sheto", "Seto", "Zeto", "Suzeto" or "Jeto", but no one knows. The name comes from a real Cantonese family name, which itself has multiple pronunciations[[note]]Though the closest ''family name'' pronunciation would be roughly "See-toe" while disregarding tones[[/note]].
* A reference to this trope amongst comic book fans comes up in ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries''. Two comic fans Fred and Richard get into an argument over a (real life) super-villain named Globby. Richard opts for "Glue-bee" while Fred calls him "Glob-bee".
* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': Invoked by Numbuh Two in "Operation: R.O.B.B.E.R.S." He constantly feels the need to point out "victuals" spelling is different from its pronunciation, "vittles".
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' has the yandere girl [=.GIFfany=]. When first meeting Soos, [=.GIFfany=] pronounces her name with a hard "G" (/ˈɡɪffəniː/), not a soft "G" (/ˈdʒɪfəniː/), and the name is pronounced between these two multiple times throughout the episode. Soos even brings up the question of how the name is meant to be said. This is in reference to the long-standing debate on the pronunciation of ".gif."
* In ''WesternAnimation/IvanhoeTheKingsKnight'', Bois-Guilbert is pronounced without the "T" being silent as it should have been.
* According to the WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} short ''The Art of Skiing'', the correct pronunciation of "skiing" is "sheeing." The same insistence showed up on an episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', prompting the rejoinder, "Yeah, well, you're full of ''skit''."
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Rainbow Dash, yet again the Hungarian one, keeps pronouncing Thunderbolts as "Thann-der-baltz". The character itself can either be correctly "Dash" or "Dessh".
** In Brazil, Sunset Shimmer's name rhymed with "heimer" instead of "simmer".
** In-universe for Rarity, as she insists on pronouncing her name Raa-atie. Everyone else pronounces it Rere-atie. Oddly, this is never commented on.
** On the English-speaking side of the fandom, there was some brief confusion regarding the background pony Lyra (who was never identified by name in the show, but was given a name in the toyline) over whether her name was pronounced "LIE-ra" or "LEER-uh". The former pronunciation was much more common and was eventually confirmed to be canon in the 5th season episode "Slice of Life".
** In the Italian dub of "A Dog and Pony Show", Spike keeps pronouncing Sapphire Shores's name as "Saf-FEER Shores", while everyone else uses the correct pronounciation.
* ''WesternAnimation/PiratesPassage'' lampshades this with the Moehner's. Jim explains it is pronounced "Meaner" but looks like "Moaner."
* Alfe in ''WesternAnimation/TheProblemSolverz''. The name is two syllables, pronounced "Al-fay", and all of the characters in the show pronounce it that way. However, in writing, especially to those unfamiliar with the show, the name looks like it should be pronounced like "Alfie" or just "Alf".
* Ren of ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' has the last name "Hoek". Stimpy and other characters will usually pronounce it as "Ho-eck", but it has also been pronounced on the show "Ho-ack" and "Hork". In the pilot "Big House Blues", the narrator at the beginning pronounced it "Hoke", and Ren angrily corrected him.
* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' has an unusual English-to-English example. In the episode "Pickle Rick", a one-shot character is only addressed by two people: one who pronounces his name "JAG-you-are", and one who pronounces his name "JAG-wire". It is only revealed at the end that the character's name is in fact [[spoiler:Jaguar]]. According to WordOfGod, they had no idea why the voice actors could not pronounce this name, but it was easier to just ThrowItIn.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'': In the Hungarian dub, Ricochet is constantly referred to as "Ricochette", with "ch" as in "chicken" and an audible "t" at the end.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS2E04MugatoGumato Mugato, Gumato]]": In-universe, there are multiple different ways to pronounce "mugato". Shaxs can't even keep it consistent from sentence to sentence. This is a reference to how the creatures' debut episode had their name pronounced as "mugato" but gave it as "gumato" in the credits.
* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'':
** In the dub, in the same language, has some difficulty keeping the names straight. Ratchet is "Wretch-eat", Soundwave became "Ssaahnd-wave", Bulkhead is "Baalk-hed", Bumblebee is "Bahm-boel-bee", and Cliffjumper is either "Klif(f)-jahm-pehr" or "Klif(f)-jum-purr".
** As evidenced by the awkward way Unicron's name is spoken -- "Youh-nick-ron", as opposed to the way it's been pronounced evreywhere else: "Oo-nick-ron" -- maybe there ''is'' a guide that tries to provide phonetic pronunciations, but is bad at it. Note that other dubs almost always [[DubNameChange translated the names]], so the actors would be used to saying those, not their English originals.
** These are just mildly annoying, and only Prime's and Megatron's actors seem to have trouble with the names -- Megs even mispronounced Laserbeak as Laserback, who's actually a different character. Smokescreen saying "construction" instead of Conctructi''con'' is another legitimate blooper.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'':
** The 2008 Italian redub features multiple pronounciation issues, with Ratchet being called "Rat Chet" multiple times, and in a pair of episodes Dirge's name is pronounced with a hard "G".
** The original dub, while [[DubNameChange renaming many characters]], had a little issue with one of the few names that were unchanged: Arcee was often called [[GenderBlenderName "Archie"]].
[[/folder]]

----
[[spoiler:[[TheStinger You pronounce ]][[BrickJoke it as "/sɔɹd/".]]]]
----

** Before the movie, which used "Roar-shack", there was a great deal of confusion about how you were supposed to pronounce Rorschach, although the most common pronunciation -- based on someone in the graphic novel mishearing the name as "raw shark" -- was "Roar-shock", taking into account how that would sound with a British accent. "Roar-shock" is also closer to his German namesake. And "Raw shark", intentionally or not, works as well in a heavy Noo Yawk accent as a generic English one.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' has quite a few examples, notably the rebel general who refers to Princess "Lay-ah" as Princess "Lee-ah". Creator/BillyDeeWilliams is prone to this, using "CHEW-back-ah" instead of "Chew-BOCK-ah". Williams also insists that Han Solo's first name rhymes with "can" instead of "con" the more accepted pronunciation, which is particularly egregious since their characters are supposed to be OLD FRIENDS. This is even referenced in ''{{Film/Solo}}'' when Lando intentionally pronounces Han's name wrong to rile him up and says he doesn't care what the correct pronunciation is. And you're lucky if two secondary characters in the prequels pronounce the name of a planet the same way even once ("Core-ah-sahnt" versus "Cour-ah-sahnt", "Na-BOO" versus "NAH-boo"). And a few times, "PAD-may" sounds more like "POD-may" or "PAHD-may". The first and most commonly used pronunciation is a little bit closer to the Sanskrit word the name derives from.
** Others (such as [[WebVideo/RedLetterMedia Mr. Plinkett]]), have a tendency to pronounce it as "PAD-uh-may".

* Heavy Metal Umlauts are almost always wrong, but that doesn't stop people trying to pronounce them anyway, especially if they speak a language that actually uses umlauts. Motley Crue concerts in Germany often have fans chanting "Moo-ert-lee Croo-eh" The heavy metal band Trojan made a faux pas in Sweden by applying umlaut over the 'o' on their concert T-shirts. The swedish word ''tröjan'' means simply "the shirt". Applying the umlaut over the a ("Trojän") would pretty well approximate its real pronunciation. Averted by Finnish hero metal band ''Teräsbetoni'', where the umlaut is NOT gratuituous. The name means "reinforced concrete" in Finnish.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', Anna's name is pronounced "Ah-nuh" to sound more Norwegian, though many (including WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic) pronounce it in the most common way (Ann-uh).
* The traditional pronunciation of the name "Ariel" is "AH-ree-ell". Everyone in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'' but Sebastian calls the main character "AIR-ree-ell". Thanks to PopCulturalOsmosis, the film's pronunciation has actual become the more popular one.

* In the Hungarian dubbing of ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', Ricochet is constantly referred to as "Ricochette", with "ch" as in "chicken" and an audible "t" at the end.
* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'''s dub, in the same language, has some difficulty keeping the names straight. Ratchet is "Wretch-eat", Soundwave became "Ssaahnd-wave", Bulkhead is "Baalk-hed", Bumblebee is "Bahm-boel-bee", and Cliffjumper is either "Klif(f)-jahm-pehr" or "Klif(f)-jum-purr".

* The 2008 Italian redub of ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' features multiple pronounciation issues, with Ratchet being called "Rat Chet" multiple times, and in a pair of episodes Dirge's name is pronounced with a hard "G".

** As for 'Tau', the argument is about whether it rhymes with 'cow' or with 'core'. Assuming the Tau pronounce it the same way the Greeks did, it's actually "taw". ''VideoGame/FireWarrior'' went with the "ryhmes with 'cow'" version, and they've stuck with it ever since.

* The personal name of God in Literature/TheBible. Only the consonants -- yod-he-vav-he (YHWH) are known but not the vowels. The most common guesses among modern believers are "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" (the latter of which Hebrew linguists universally agree was ''not'' the original pronunciation)[[note]] There's no "J" sound in Ancient Hebrew, for one [[/note]], but there is no indication as to the true spelling or pronunciation.

* ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'': [[MeaningfulRename Cheryl]] is clearly meant to [[SobriquetSexSwitch share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryl is pronounced share-il[[/note]], so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon %%i think this a bit more context but is a pretty good example

** In the backstory, there's a character named Szeto (a former incarnation of the Avatar) whose name has never been said onscreen. It could be pronounced "Sheto", "Seto", "Zeto", "Suzeto" or "Jeto", but no one knows. The name comes from a real Cantonese last name, which itself has multiple pronunciations.

** [[UpToEleven Taken up to eleven]] in ''Ultimate Power'' #4:

** The English dub of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' can't seem to decide if Patamon and Gatomon's names are pronounced "PAT-uh-mon" and "GAT-oh-mon" (as they themselves pronounce their names when digivolving) or "PAHT-uh-mon" and "GAHT-oh-mon" (as other characters pronounce their names on occasion). Similarly, is Patamon's Champion form Angemon pronounced "ANN-je-mon", "AHN-je-mon", or "AIN-je-mon"? (The Japanese romanization of his name, "Enjemon", suggests it's supposed to be the first one.)

Contrast PronouncingMyNameForYou where a pronunciation guide is provided, and PretentiousPronunciation where a "fancy" pronunciation guide is provided. Japanese works tend to also helpfully give a kana reading (hiragana or katakana) of their texts, especially for foreign words or uncommon Japanese kanji words. Rarely you'll find a pronunciation guide in form of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet International Phonetic Alphabet]] (called "IPA" for short). Contrast also FunetikAksent where (part of) a written work is written with pronunciation in mind, complete with an intended accent.

This is extremely common in English dubs of {{Anime}} in general, although the severity of it depends on the dub studio or even the specific voice director. This causes a certain (very loud) segment of the fandom to [[FandomEnragingMisconception completely lose their shit when it happens]]. The reasons for mispronunciations or mis-stressings (no, they are ''not'' the same thing) of Japanese words are myriad, ranging from the translator not giving any hints on how names are pronounced, directors not being terribly concerned about it, edits from the Japanese themselves (this one happened with ''Anime/EurekaSeven''[[note]]Where the title character's name is "officially" pronounced "Eh-oo-reh-ka".[[/note]]), to the simple fact that there are major differences between Japanese and English vowels and stress patterns such that stressing a Japanese word ''correctly'' can sometimes throw off the rhythm of a sentence or make it sound stilted to Western ears.

* ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'': [[MeaningfulRename Cheryl]] is clearly meant to [[SobriquetSexSwitch share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]], so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon %%i think this a bit more context but is a pretty good example

* ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'': Cheryl is clearly meant to [[SobriquetSexSwitch share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]], so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon %%i think this a bit more context but is a pretty good example

* ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'': Cheryl is clearly meant to [[SobriquetSexSwitch share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]], so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon

* ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'': [[SobriquetSexSwitch Cheryl is clearly meant to share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]], so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon

* in ''Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl'' [[SobriquetSexSwitch Cheryl is clearly meant to share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]] so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon

* in [[Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl]] [[SobriquetSexSwitch Cheryl is clearly meant to share the first syllable with Charon]][[note]]in RealLife Charon is pronounced Care-on while Cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]] so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon

* in [[Webcomic/IWantToBeACuteAnimeGirl]] [[SobriquetSexSwitch Cheryl is clearly meant to share the first syllable with Charon]] however in RealLife they don't [[note]]Charon is pronounced Care-on while cheryll is pronounced share-il[[/note]] so far the fan dubs pronounce Cheryl correctly while changing the pronunciation of Charon