Pro-noun-ci-ation has always been fascinating for me. If you don’t pronounce something properly then it can entirely change it’s meaning or tone/sound or attitude, whether it’s for a person, place, thing or process.
Being in US for so long, I’ve always seen American’s struggling to pronounce certain Indian names, especially the long ones.
I was at a wedding and someone I know was the emcee, they had to introduce everyone in the family, however one of the family member’s name was a bit unique and the person (emcee) couldn’t pronounce it at all.
The family member’s name was “Iftekar”, the emcee however couldn’t pronounce it and got frustrated after making several attempts.
That’s when an idea struck my mind, I mapped the sounds to different words so that when you say those words together, it would sound close to the name.
For instance, the sentence “If the car won’t start, then I will have to call someone to help me”. So I decided to use “if+the+car” so that it would sound like “iftekar”.
The emcee tried a few times and was able to sound “iftekar” by saying “ifthecar”.
Thankfully nobody was able to figure out if they said “iftekar” or “ifthecar” and everything went smoothly.
Since then, I’ve always used this idea to help others who struggled to pronounce. Based on that I wanted to put this list of names and how to pronounce it. Feel free to send suggestions/comments:
| Name or Sentence | How To | Notes |
| Al-Markaz | All+Americas | |
| Bahar niklo | Bar+Nick+Low | Bahar Niklo means “Get Out” or “Go Outside” |
| Iftekar | If+The+Car | |
| Narendra | Naa+Rain+Draw | |