Co-Worker Keeps Overpronouncing One-Syllable Name

“Foreign names are just so hard to pronounce,” whined Grzegorzewski.

April 14, 2021

After Ty Ma started his new job as a financial analyst at a mid-size insurance company, he ran into a situation that happens to him frequently: a co-worker constantly over pronounces his name.

“The human resources lady kept calling me Tire Moana when she was introducing me to people,” sighed Ma. “I corrected her several times, but it didn’t seem to matter. I don’t get it because I heard her say my exact name in different situations. She told me to tie my shoes. She told me a story about how her mother, whom she referred to as ‘Ma,’ moved to the US from Poland when she was five. I mean, my family has been here for decades longer than hers.”

36-year-old Ma shook his head in confusion. His parents specifically picked out a first name that would be easy to pronounce in English.

“I don’t get it,” continued Ma. “My entire name is four letters long. Four letters. Two for the first name. Two for the last name. My first and last names could literally only be shorter if they were a single letter each.”

Stephanie Grzegorzewski, the human resources representative, explained the difficulty she was experiencing.

“Foreign names are just so hard to pronounce,” whined Grzegorzewski. “I try my best, but doggone it, it’s not as easy as it seems. When I looked at his name, it just looked like a bunch of random Chinese characters. It’s not like my last name, which is pronounced exactly like it looks.”

The company has recently undergone an initiative to hire more people of color to keep up with the evolving demographics of the U.S.

“We do these people a favor by hiring them, and then they expect us to bend over backward for them,” complained Grzegorzewski. “When non-Americans like Tire come to work here, we just end up giving them nicknames that are more in line with our culture. I’m going to call him Tyler so that he will fit in better.”

Although Ma doesn’t have a middle name, he laughed that people have tried to pronounce the blank space between his first and last names.