It was more than an hour into last week\u2019s critical three-way debate for mayor of New York City, and somehow, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had yet to say the name of the race\u2019s front-runner.<\/p>\n
He called him \u201cthe assemblyman\u201d and a miniature version of former Mayor Bill de Blasio. But he shied away from saying a name that he had repeatedly butchered on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr.\u00a0Mandani\u201d <\/p>\n
Andrew Cuomo in a campaign video.<\/p>\n
And on the debate stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr.\u00a0Mandami\u201d <\/p>\n
Andrew Cuomo during a Democratic primary debate in June.<\/p>\n
His pronunciation was so notably off that, during a Democratic primary debate in June, the assemblyman himself, Zohran Mamdani, called him out on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cM-A-M-D-A-N-I\u201d <\/p>\n
Zohran Mamdani during the same debate.<\/p>\n
Mr. Cuomo is not alone.<\/p>\n
For various reasons, legitimate and perhaps otherwise, Mr. Mamdani\u2019s first and last name have become the subject of rather adventurous, even creative, displays of linguistic fumbling.<\/p>\n
Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, struggled with his name at the first debate of the general election last week, calling him \u201cZor-han.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cZorhan\u00a0Mandami\u201d <\/p>\n
Curtis Sliwa in the first general election debate.<\/p>\n
Letitia James, the New York state attorney general and a key political ally, botched his name at a major campaign rally in Washington Heights this month, enthusiastically shouting \u201cMandami\u201d as he came onstage.<\/p>\n
\u201cZohran\u00a0Mandami\u201d <\/p>\n
Letitia James at a Mamdani campaign rally.<\/p>\n
For Mr. Mamdani, having his name botched is not new. He said in an interview that mispronunciations were common growing up as an immigrant in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened quite a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cBut frankly, I don\u2019t begrudge anyone who tries and gets it wrong. The effort means everything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about any mnemonic tricks he recommends to help people pronounce it, Mr. Mamdani laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty phonetic honestly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cZohran\u00a0Mamdani\u201d <\/p>\n
Zohran Mamdani at a debate during the primary.<\/p>\n
Mr. Mamdani, who is running to become the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor, said that some people like Mr. Cuomo were intentionally mispronouncing his name or refusing to make an effort to say it correctly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who go out of their way to mispronounce it \u2014 that\u2019s not a mistake, that\u2019s a message,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His supporters have embraced the issue as a rallying cry against Mr. Cuomo<\/a>, turning the audio clip of Mr. Mamdani correcting him into a viral song online. Mr. Mamdani also said that his mother has started to sign emails with \u201cMomdani\u201d \u2014 a nod to her pride in being his mother that might also help with the pronunciation. <\/p>\n Mr. de Blasio, the former mayor, is another Mamdani ally who admitted that he had stumbled over his name.<\/p>\n \u201cZorhan\u00a0Mamdani\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m in the ballpark now, but it did take me a while,\u201d Mr. de Blasio said, adding: \u201cI think it\u2019s just to the American English ear, the construct is a little counterintuitive. It takes some practice to get the cadence of it right.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Sliwa said in an interview that he was trying to do better: \u201cIt\u2019ll take time. It\u2019s not intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Sliwa, whose last name is pronounced SLEE-WUH, said he understood Mr. Mamdani\u2019s pain.<\/p>\n \u201cOut of 46 years that I\u2019ve been the guy who founded the Guardian Angels, I\u2019d say about 33 years of that time, my name was constantly mispronounced,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t take offense to it.\u201d<\/p>\n President Trump\u2019s failed efforts to say Mr. Mamdani\u2019s name might be viewed less benevolently, since the president has repeatedly attacked the candidate and threatened to arrest him.<\/p>\n \u201cMandami\u201d <\/p>\n President Donald J. Trump speaking to reporters on Air Force One this week.<\/p>\n His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, used an even more outlandish pronunciation, merging parts of his first and last name.<\/p>\n \u201cZamdami\u201d <\/p>\n Karoline Leavitt at a press briefing in July.<\/p>\n While some pronunciation mistakes might be deliberate, several linguistics experts told The New York Times that both Mr. Mamdani\u2019s first and last name feature letter arrangements and vowel sounds that are not common in English, and it was not a surprise that some people struggled with them.<\/p>\n \u201cLanguages differ from one another as to what sequences of sounds are frequent, or even possible to pronounce, and they also differ as to what spellings or letters are associated with what pronunciations,\u201d said Gillian Gallagher, a professor of linguistics at New York University.<\/p>\n There are hundreds more words in English with the sequence \u201cnd\u201d than with \u201cmd,\u201d Ms. Gallagher said, adding that these clusters of consonants can lead to speech processes that result in mistakes. One, known as assimilation, involves morphing the second \u201cM\u201d in Mr. Mamdani\u2019s last name into an \u201cN,\u201d making it sound like \u201cMandani.\u201d<\/p>\n Another, known as substitution, leads speakers to replace the \u201cN\u201d in Mamdani with another \u201cM.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cZohran\u00a0Mamdami\u201d <\/p>\n Whoopi Goldberg, the television host, on \u201cThe View.\u201d<\/p>\n Those patterns of speech can be difficult to avoid.<\/p>\n \u201cMamdani has an \u2018M\u2019 next to a \u2018D\u2019, and that\u2019s hard for English speakers,\u201d said Professor Laurel MacKenzie, a co-director of the NYU Sociolinguistics Lab.<\/p>\n \u201cOur tongues are just not used to making that specific sequence of sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n The softer \u201cAhn\u201d sound in both Mr. Mamdani\u2019s first and last name can also be challenging. Frequently, \u201cZohran\u201d has been pronounced with a screeching \u201cZohr-ANNE.\u201d That miscue is the result of vowels being pronounced differently in Americanized English, said Suzanne van der Feest, an associate research professor at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.<\/p>\n \u201cZohr-ANNE\u201d <\/p>\n Carl Heastie, speaker of the New York State Assembly, at an event where he endorsed Mr. Mamdani.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is somebody who speaks mainly English and is just making it into American English vowels,\u201d Ms. van der Feest said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an example of how spelling is interfering with how someone\u2019s name is pronounced.\u201d<\/p>\n John Samuelsen, the international president of the Transport Workers Union, said his pronunciation of Mr. Mamdani\u2019s first name feels like a \u201cvery common outer-borough way of pronouncing Zohran.\u201d He also noted that he avoids saying Mr. Mamdani\u2019s last name, because \u201cI\u2019m afraid I\u2019m going to mess it up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cZohr-ANNE\u201d <\/p>\n John Samuelsen at a Mamdani campaign rally.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani said he once visited a mosque in Manhattan for Friday prayers during the campaign and asked the group to raise their hand if they had ever heard someone consistently mispronounce their name. Most people in the room raised their hands.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something countless immigrants have experienced,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen people mock or intentionally distort someone\u2019s name, it\u2019s a way of saying someone doesn\u2019t belong here.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani said he took pride in his name. His mother picked his first name, which means \u201cthe first star in the sky.\u201d His father picked his middle name, Kwame, to honor Kwame Nkrumah<\/a>, the first president of Ghana, who fought for independence.<\/p>\n \u201cAndrew Cuomo never struggles with names like John Catsimatidis,\u201d Mr. Mamdani said in reference to the Greek billionaire grocer. \u201cBut somehow Mamdani is too difficult. It\u2019s an issue of prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n