Names of two Irish celebs among 2024’s most mispronounced words

The surnames of two Irish stars made the ranking.

It's usually the Gaelic forenames like Saoirse and Siobhán that can have people in a tongue twister, but it turns out they also struggle with surnames.

The surnames of two Irish celebs have made 2024's most mispronounced list; and they're not even Gaelic names!

The British Institute of Verbatim Reporters and language learning app Babbel took on the research to look at the most frequently mispronounced words and names this year.

Their rankings were formed by singling out the words that public figures, newsreaders and politicians continuously struggle to pronounce. 

Two Irish actors made the list for their seemingly hard to pronounce surnames.

Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan supposedly have last names that may prove challenging to say.

Star of 'Gladiator 2', Mescal has previously spoken about the pronunciation of his last name, explaining its commonly incorrectly said as the Mexican drink 'mezcal.'

He told The Hollywood Reporter: "Everybody does it. I pronounce it MESS-kul and if I launch a tequila line then I would call it MESS-kul's mez-cal."

In 'Saltburn' star, Barry Keoghan's case, mispronunciation is understandable. In his case the 'g' is pronounced as a hard 'g' instead of the typical Irish soft 'g'.

Previously speaking to Geek Ireland, the Dublin man commented: "You pronounce the g. Or at least I do, Maybe I've just been pronouncing it wrong all these years but yeah, the g sound is in there.

"I find that if you have a difficult-to-pronounce name you're more likely to go far, especially in the US. Like Saoirse Ronan and all the talk of how to pronounce her name; so maybe it's a benefit having a peculiar name."

Other mistaken pronunciations making the list include Sabrina Carpenter's Record of the Year Grammy nominated single 'Espresso'.

It seems some people have been mistaking the lyrics for 'expresso'. Although if anything, it seems that Keoghan is now her 'ex-presso'.

The UK equivalent of Penney's, Primark (prouncouce Pry-mark) also made the list as many pronounce it 'pree-mark'.