What’s In A Name? Pronouncing Your Client’s Name Right

Cultural competency is increasingly vital to business and social interactions in the United States. As an attorney, you’re likely to interact with judges, co-counsel and clients who have surnames that are unfamiliar to you. You might have no idea how to correctly pronounce their last (or first) names. In this situation you have a few options. You can just ignore your ignorance and pronounce the name however you think sounds good (probably not your best option). You can ask the person how to correctly pronounce their name once you talk to them. Or you can use a site like Hear Names to learn how to correctly pronounce your colleague or client’s name before you even talk to them. They might be impressed!

Hear Names lets you either search for a specific name or browse by national or ethnic groups. Each name includes a short mp3 file so you can listen to the correct pronunciation of the name. Examples of names include: Zhuang, Byeoung-Keun, Hatakeyama, or Subramanium.