It’s a fact of life that no matter how common your name is, it’s more than likely you’ve had it mispronounced at some point.
Certain monikers are more difficult to get than others, depending on where you’re from in the world, but it turns out that one of the most common boy’s names in the UK and Ireland is the ‘most mispronounced’ across the globe.
That’s according to experts at WordFinderX, who analysed data from Forvo to determine which names people struggle with the most, with one popular choice coming out on top.
As we previously reported, the Irish name Sean is the name that most people around the world have difficulty pronouncing – even though it’s hugely popular not only over in Ireland, but in the UK too.
Meaning ‘God is gracious’, the name is pronounced like ‘Shawn’ for those who speak English.
Forvo, which is a website that teaches people how to pronounce words through audio clips, saw the word ‘Sean’ being entered one million times, according to WordFinderX. This meant it was the most requested word on the site by around 200,000 listens.
In second place was the Basque name Xuxa, which is pronounced like ‘Shoo-shuh’, and this was entered into the site 802,000 times.
In third and fourth place were Victoria and Francisco, with the Greek name Plato completing the top five list of most mispronounced names.
Several other popular UK names were also included in the top 20 list. Alexander and Benjamin had 422,000 and 399,000 listens respectively, and Michael racked up 364,000.
Thomas was also requested 344,000 times, while a further 339,000 people were unsure how to pronounce David, 330,000 needed to listen to the pronunciation of Mary, and 322,000 people requested audio clips of the name Laura.
As well as Sean, fellow Irish moniker Saoirse (‘sur-shuh’) placed 20th on the list with 293,000 requests. Also nearing the bottom of the list was Spanish name Juan, with 299,000 listens, and French name Guillame which had 342,000 requests.
Despite being among the most mispronounced names in the world, when BabyCentre revealed the most popular names of 2023 as far as July, Alexander was 42nd on the list, while David was 46th, Michael was 68th and Benjamin was 74th.
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