A person’s own name is the sweetest sound in their native language, but turns out these stars rarely hear theirs.
While some celebs like Emma Stone and Warren Beatty purposefully go by slightly changed names professionally, other stars have assimilated to the wrong pronunciation so seamlessly, you might not even know it’s incorrect.
“My name is not actually pronounced Denzel,” Denzel Washington clarified during a September appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “My name is pronounced Denzel.”
However, the mispronunciation is something The Equalizer star actually encourages, since it began with his mother Lennis Washington, who used the unique pronunciation to distinguish between him and his father, Denzel Washington Sr.
“My mother would say, ‘Denzel?’ and we’d both show up,” he recalled. “So she said, ‘From now on, you’re Denzel.’ That’s how we got it pronounced Denzel.”
Similarly, Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce use an incorrect version of their last name— “Kel-see”—stemming from their dad Ed Kelce. After all, the precise surname is actually “Kels.”
