{"id":118107,"date":"2025-09-04T11:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/118107\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T11:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:38:09","slug":"denzel-washington-name-pronunciation-actor-reveals-fans-have-been-saying-it-wrong-for-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/118107\/","title":{"rendered":"Denzel Washington name pronunciation: Actor reveals fans have been saying it wrong for decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denzel Washington<\/a> has shared that we have been commiting a cardinal sin when it comes to his name.<\/p>\n

The 70-year-old has just revealed fans have spent his entire career mispronouncing his name in a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/p>\n

Kimmel was sharing that there have been an uptick in people named Denzel<\/a>, especially since he won his first Oscar for his film Glory in 1989.<\/p>\n

Watch the video above.\ufeff<\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘He is dangerous… I am brainwashed’ : Controversial royal couple address scandal<\/a><\/p>\n

\"DenzelDenzel Washington has revealed we have been mispronouncing his name for decades. (YouTube\/Jimmy Kimmel)<\/p>\n

“And this is how you know they named themselves after me,” he explained, “because my name’s not pronounced Denz-ehl. My name’s pronounced Denz-l.”<\/p>\n

Fans normally emphasise the second “E” in his name like in “gazelle”, but in fact it is actually a short “L” sound, like in “able”\ufeff.<\/p>\n

Washington shared that the distinction came about as he was named after his father.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: The best mobile phone plans we’ve spotted this month<\/a><\/p>\n

“\ufeffMy mother would say ‘Denzel!’ and we both show up,” he recounted, “So she said from now on you’re Denz-ehl… that’s how it got pronounced Denz-ehl.”<\/p>\n

Kimmel went on to explain that since the actor’s rise in popularity, there has been a correlating rise in people named after him and his characters.<\/p>\n

There are four players in the\ufeff NFL named Denzel when prior to 1987 \u2013 the same year of his first Oscar nomination for Cry Freedom \u2013 there were none.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Denzel“My name’s not pronounced Denz-ehl. My name’s pronounced Denz-l,” the actor said. (Vittorio Zunino Celotto\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“I know, there’s a lot of Denzels now,” the actor acknowledged.<\/p>\n

He’s not the only star who’s admitted to struggles with their name.<\/p>\n

Actress Kirsten Dunst recently revealed the world has also been mispronouncing her name.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: King Charles’ morbid joke to woman who is ‘wearing out’<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

She’s a household name, but do we pronounce it correctly?<\/p>\n

“I mean, everyone messes up my name, so I give up. I don’t care,” the actress, who’s been on our screens for 35 years, said in a recent TikTok shared by Town & Country.<\/p>\n

The actress said she answers to all versions of her name \u2013 including “Kristen” and “Ker-sten” \u2013 though “Keer-sten” is the proper pronunciation.<\/p>\n

“I don’t blame people. Like, in England, they don’t really say my name right,” Dunst said.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: How the number 27 makes decluttering easier<\/a><\/p>\n

Kirsten Dunst recently shared that she faces the same problem as Washington. (Getty)<\/p>\n

Even coworkers have gotten it wrong.<\/p>\n

“The last set, everyone was saying my name wrong,” she said.<\/p>\n

“There was, like, Swedish people and people from Hungary. You just give up.”\ufeff<\/p>\n

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE<\/a>: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denzel Washington has shared that we have been commiting a cardinal sin when it comes to his name.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-118107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}