This is a very old article. It has been imported from older blogging software, and the formatting, images, etc may have been lost. Some links may be broken. Some of the information may no longer be correct. Opinions expressed in this article may no longer be held.
Below is a non-comprehensive list of surnames which are pronounced non-intuitively. (Or one could argue that they are pronounced perfectly sensibly but the spelling is non-intuitive.)
I've also included a count of how many times each surname applies in the 2006/07 Brighton telephone directory, to give you an idea of the relative importance of learning to pronounce each name correctly.
| Spelling | Pronunciation | Freq |
|---|---|---|
| Althorp | Owltrop | 0 |
| Ayscough | Askew | 0 |
| Beauchamp | Beacham | 12 |
| Beaudesert | Belzer | 0 |
| Beaulieu | Bewley | 0 |
| Belvoir | Beaver | 0 |
| Chandos | Shandos | 0 |
| Chisholm | Chiz’m | 11 |
| Cholmondley | Chumley | 0 |
| Cockburn | Coburn | 10 |
| Colquhoun/Colquhon | Co’hoon | 6 |
| Cowper | Cooper | 3 |
| Crawshaw | Crayshaw | 2 |
| Dalziel | Dee’el | 6 |
| Farquhar/Farquar | Far’har | 2 |
| Featherstonehaugh | Fanshaw | 0 |
| Fiennes | Fines | 0 |
| Gower | Gore [1] | 40 |
| Greenhaugh | Greenallsh | 0 |
| Home | Hume [1] | 3 |
| McKenzie/MacKenzie | Macinnie [1] | 59 |
| Magdalene | Maudlin | 0 |
| Mainwaring | Mannering | 1 |
| Marjoribanks | Marshbanks | 0 |
| Menzies | Mingis [1] | 5 |
| Ruthven | Ruffen | 0 |
| St John | Sin-jen | 5 |
| Trywhitt | Territ | 0 |
| Urquhart | Urhart | 5 |
| Wauchope | Warkup | 3 |
| Wodehouse | Woodhouse | 1 |
| Woolfhardisworthy | Woolsey | 0 |
| Worcester | Wu’ster | 2 |
| Wriothesley | Roxley | 0 |
| Wymondham | Wind’am | 0 |
***
1 Also pronounced as spelt.
