It's not spelled "Nygun"
The last name is spelled N-G-U-Y-E-N!
For the last time, my last name is spelled N... G... U... Y... E... N!!!
NGUYEN.
Don’t make out your personal checks to Peter Nyguen.
Don’t be a customer representative on the phone with me and mishear the way I pronounce the “y” as an “i” when I carefully spell out my last name, and then mail me back a confirmation letter addressed to Peter Nguien.
And especially: don’t be my partner on a class project, insist on the typing duties of the 15-page report, and then have my last name spelled “Nygun” on each page.
That means you, Ryan, and if you think I’m going to quickly type an apologetic semi-colon followed by an end parenthesis, you’re wrong, Ryan Meddina.
And if you ever want help on how to pronounce my last name, refer to this helpful tutorial.
Sigh. I guess it’s kind of like how no one really seems to know how to spell “douche”, or even know what that word means for that matter.
Phil spells it “deutch“, and I’ve also seen it spelled “deutsche”, “douch”, and the absolutely most amusing variation: “doosh”.
Now I wonder if Heather B. Armstrong has ever been referred to as a “dooce bag.”
In any case, I might have to start coming to grips with the reality that my last name is impossible to spell. And some people surprisingly have it worse; I’ve got a buddy of Polish decent whose three-syllable last name consists of two k’s, two z’s, two y’s, and only one vowel. Ouch. The last I heard, his last name was the name of one of those remote former Soviet republics. Kryzyka-something.
Anyway, for those of you that actually know how to properly spell my last name, I really appreciate it. But for those of you who still believe that the “y” comes after the “N”, well, you’re all a bunch of dooshes.
RSS
6 Comments
And my name is spelled with an "I" GODDAMNIT!! ;~)
Chin up, bro. It only gets worse...
haha, B. Russell spells it “deutch“.
heres an easy way to remember how to spell petes name, leastwise its worked for me for the past 6 years:
"en"-"guy"-"en", N-guy-en. Why its pronounced "new-gen" i havent the foggiest idea. ha
oh, and i'm also known as phil whyte.
to Photofill:
"new yin" "new en" "newen", whatever, i tell people all sorts of pronunciations for the last name Nguyen (my last name too), because it's the "Americanized" version of it. The proper way to say it would be the Vietnamese way, where you have to make the NG sound, then it would sound like "ngweeng", but you'd have to hear someone say it, i don't know how to write the pronunciation here.
THe reason it is spelled like that is because it's Vietnamese. and that is the Vietnamese pronunciation for it, it's a phoenetic language.
Nguye^~n, with the ^ over the e and the ~ a bit higher between the e and the n is the Vietnamese spelling.
just like for example the name Juan. Americans might say "ju won", but it's a Spanish name so the J is pronounced like an H more than a J, so it's "hwan".
same idea as Nguyen. it's not "new wen", or "nu gin" or whatever, it's Nguye^n~, said in Vietnamese according to Vietnamese rules, not American rules. and it's only 1 syllable.
My maiden name was Stang. Simple you would think. It became Strang, Strange, and Stong on many occasions. I never understood it. It is spelled exactly as it sounds. And if people have trouble with that, having a name that doesn't spell as it is pronounced must be 100 times more difficult for other people to spell. Fortunately, I got married and changed my name to another easy to pronounce but often misspelled last name. You don't have that option!
Awww - poor Petey. I'd say that I can relate...except Tran is pretty hard to screw up ;-).