Ah yes, Menzobananazan

A surface dwelling dark elf society that’s established a sizeable banana empire in the tropics of Faerun.

toddlers have it figure it out, just call them nana and move on

I can't think of any character like that off the top of my head, but yeah, I've done that

I listened to the audio books, so I can pronounce it but I can't spell it

I read the first few Wheel of Time books, then got the audio books for the next 8 or so, and when I first made the switch, I spent a good quarter of a book having to re-learn who all of the characters were, since I'd been mentally mispronouncing so many of them.

The mining gnomes are the worst. And no I won't attempt to spell them.

I read the books 4ish times. 1st time, RJ died so I took a few years off and read it start to finish on my 2nd attempt. Another couple years pass, and I got to book 10 and couldn't do the hunt for Falie again. Stopped. My last attempt was last year. I got to book 4, and then my kid got a PS5 for christmas. I was a real gamer back in the day, and I read all day at work, so I just stopped. I don't read recreationally at all now. It's kind of like how the last thing a chef wants to do when they get home is cook.

Anyway, there's no way in hell that I'd ever pronounce the names right. Some of the more intuitive ones, maybe, but the rest? I'd probably blunder.

Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor

And then you listen to the audiobook and realize it's just a super fucked up way of spelling steve

Recently read a book about chernobyl, and this was at least 50% of the Russian names for me

svirfneblin

The worst is when you read a book or series when you're young and pronounce it in your mind one way. Then they make a movie or something and it's pronounced very different, and you end up just staying mad about it every time you hear the other version.

Eye of the World as an audiobook sounds horrible. I've always assumed Jordan brought books 1-3 to a publisher and that's how the series got published.

Get out of my fucking head.

Her-me-own

Slartibartfast

There's always money in the Menzobananazan, Michael

This is the proper pronunciation.

Tserendolgor, Prepotente, and Kamakanamakamaemaikalani

[Huge thanks to Jeff Hays]

The first time I tried to pronounce 'Hermione' outloud, I somehow ended up with 'Her-Moyn'.

"Oh you mean hermi-one?"

When you talk with someone about that book you've both read and realize that you both have a very different pronunciation of a character's name.

Bless you

I've heard that people who were born completely deaf can read much faster than hearing people, because they don't have to pronounce the words in their head in order to process them.

Heck this is me, but I added an extra -ee to the end too

I don’t know who it is or from what story, but that would be aliased as Dristo Durden in my mind.

Thom.

Is it "tom" or do I make a TH sound, so it sorta sounds like "thumb?" 🤔

TIL that I've been blazing over his name for years. In my head, he's always been Preponte (and probably always will be).

Hermes One to Hermes Actual, do you read me?

Arguably the worst book in the series is 10. I got slagged for 4 years at that point until surrendering to the audiobook. It felt like a disjointed midpoint with nowhere to go. So, feel you on just abandoning joy because quitting wasn’t an option.

You have no idea how hard it was to end up here and not there. No idea, Michael.

Pans to the Aztec Tomb

Not sure if I’ve ever related to a post this much and I’ve been on the internet since dial up.

That's not far off.

If you said it fast most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Hogfather.

Teatime.

Pronounced:

"Teh AH tim eh."

Terry took the time to type that.

The actor in the movie? (Marc Warren)

"Tee a TIME ay"

He and the movie are otherwise quite good, Michelle Dockery is excellent, but it irks me.

Coriolanus, CORIOLANUS?? illegible and like come on, the author ended the name with ANUS and was like yes that’s perfect?? My daughter read the whole book before she realized his name wasn’t Cornelius cause her brain auto corrected it to a real name

I started a comment about old Russian novels and patronyms and nicknames and got so confused by my own examples I erased it.

Borsk Fey'lya

Ysalimir

Mitth'raw'nuruodo

Timothy Zahn has Lucas's flair for naming. But he really doesn't give a damn if you can say it out loud or not. At least he's self aware enough that the last one is canonically unpronounceable to most beings of other species.

I pretty much only do audiobooks. Looking up characters from Sanderson books or DCC can be… challenging

I read through Wheel of Time twice and still don't know whether to pronounce the th in Thom. Thank you Robert Jordan

Anus as in an Romanus - belonging to. Corioli was a town

My personal favorite is when you think your brain is pronouncing a coherent guess at it until the first time you try to say it aloud and realize your folly.

I told you it wasn't important.

This is ground control to Magus Tom

Is that Rock?

Me and my friends all had different ways of pronouncing Egwene.

I've always read it as "Drizzit Doe-urden", but that second "i" is pretty much silent. Though I suspect it might be "oorden" instead of "urden", or maybe even "yourden".

I find this weirdly sad. I always tried to understand the name of the character and how it may be pronounced (I'm seriously going to include a glossary with IPA for all proper nouns if I ever produce anything for real publication). To me it's a part of the world-building and I almost recoil at just replacing it with nonsense.

I feel like the author just misspelled Ewgene trying to make it a fantasy version of Eugene.

All the elvish in the appendices couldn’t save Gary the Eagle.