Wow! The exact same thing happened to me. My fourth grade teacher changed my name from Gerardo to Gerry! I feel what he's feeling when he says that he was brought up to respect teachers and so he accepted it as I did and it changed my life forever. I don't feel as bad as he does but it does upset me that my teacher was too lazy to try and pronounce it and instead changed it impacting my life forever.

Thank You Gerardo, I cried.❤️ You are such a wonderful storyteller, it is so painful to loose your name after loosing everything else when you become and immigrant. I am grateful for the ones that try... and yes let’s all be calibrators.

I am very happy when I call one of them and I see the happiness in his face because he heard me calling him the names I liked to him or called them.

This video is great! Gerardo Ochoa explains in a simple but accurate way the problem generated when you mispronounce someone’s name. How can make you feel and how can affect your life. Thank you Gerardo, because now we can make a difference and I can identify into the four categories mentioned in this video to the people I meet that tried, or no at all, to pronounce my name, I'm grateful for the ones at least tried. Let's all be calibrators.

Thank you for sharing this Gerardo. I will be using it to help others.

Just about every critical comment showed that they didn’t watch the entire video, and/or missed the point.The simple message for those in education is to simply try. This also goes to every person who works with customers - my last name is tricky - many just make up their own pronunciation without even asking, then there are those who ask - I respect those who simply ask and try. Like Gerardo said, we don’t expect perfect pronunciations of challenging (usual non-Anglo) names, but to respect the individual enough to ask how it it pronounced instead of imposing your own nickname for the person. A Vietnamese American classmate of mine at UT had a professor who kept pronouncing Nguyen as “na-gai-yen” instead of “win” and he never bothered to ask the student how it should be pronounced.

My experience started in ballet class at age 7 and I felt that I could not speak up. Since that day I embraced everyone mispronouncing my name. I took it as a unique interaction between that me and that person. The ones that really knew me said it in a way that felt deep and heartfelt to me. The ones I was less close with, said it differently and I was ok with that. It showed me the degree of closeness I have with that individual. Names do matter a lot because they are a very unique experience for the individual that has a unique name but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Thank you, Gerardo. I so feel you on this topic. It really hurts to hear your name pronounced wrong all the time all your life.

I was trying to look up how to pronounce names correctly all of the time. I’m so glad I found this video! Thank you.

oh, God... I'm crying! Thank you, Gerardo.

this is one of my favorite talks. specific and also really vastly applicable and heartfelt. thank you Gerardo!

My experience is almost word for word like Gerardo. Change 5th grade to 6th grade, change emigrated from Oregon to Texas, change Spanish to Arabic. Thank you Gerardo.

Amazing TEDtalk!!!!!

I would have liked to have heard the host presenting Gerardo.

Beautifully said. I can relate.

What a great example of how cultural insensitivities can affect our students and children. I had a good friend from Juarez, Mexico, with a last name of Chavez. He said that he changed the pronunciation of his last name to conform with the mispronunciation of his surname that he had been hearing since arriving in the U.S. Great to see TED Talks in my hometown of Mac!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Love this talk - I so agree with this. Thanks Gerardo. On hearing the author Alexandre Dumas' surname being pronounced Doomas (should be something like "Doomaah"), I was then advised that Doomas was an acceptable American alternative pronunciation. Arrgh.

Omg I’ve been looking for a video like this. My name is Gènova. G pronounced with G sound like in the word gente.I don’t even know when but it became Genova with the G sounding like a J instead of the actual pronunciation 😩 and I sort of just accepted it. But now at 30 years old I’ve decided to take my real name back and this video has given me the fuel to do so!!

Embed an audio button with your name pronunciation in things like email signatures and resumes with instaPronounce.

I had the opposite problem I absolutely hated my last name with a passion 18 years I had to suffer with it … I curse that name and all it stands for

Absolutely brilliant

This was a great video, I struggle with this issue so much, my name is Joan and in my country it’s pronounced Jo-ahn but here in USA people pronounce it differently and it’s difficult because Joan in the USA is suppose to sound like JOUN for the way it’s written, but I don’t identify with it. I hate correcting people and having them forget to call me by my right name or come across people who mispronounce my Hispanic name on purpose with the excuse that it’s a “white” name and that therefore it should be pronounced as JOUN. It’s caused so many identity issues and self esteem issues for me I’ve though of changing my name. It sucks, this is a real issue I know I’ve struggled with it all my life.

Gerardo to Jerry how how HOW is that teacher in a entirely different universe idk how you can’t even say it like the fumblers

Love it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Would love to connect.

Why didn't you go by Lalo?

Very true. My name is Aamir which is Arabic and its always anglocised, which I understand since the first letter is really hard to pronounce for most people. I think it only matters to correct people that I know personally not someone I'll probably only see once or twice.

Yup that’s true happened to me till this day people still call me Jerry

This is true, but some Latinos don’t pronounce a name correctly if you aren’t of Latin decent such as the name Sonya. This name is of Italian, American, Russian, Latin.

Everybody calls me Gerry too

I get that...

@sonoki82 The only thing he did was talk about his personal experiences as a kid, and what that taught him about the society we live in. He pointed out how small acts can affect the future. People like to fantasize frequently about what they would do if they had the chance to travel back in time.. then they worry about making little mistakes that would alter their future. This is similar, except in this reality you can’t go back to the past. There is no time machine, but the fact is that someone else in the past got to chose for you with a small act or gesture they believed was harmless or insignificant. They chose your identity and how the world sees you. In this reality you didn’t get to chose who you wanted to be because it was taken from you. This is not about race. This is about mindfulness and respect for the human dignity of individuals. Respect for their identity and place in society. This is not a race war, even though it’s easy to make it into that when you don’t want to use the brain you were given to actually think for yourself...

I'll never forget when someone butched my last name and called my last name as Zucchini over the loudspeaker in my high school. I was called Zucchini for months after that. My name looks nothing like Zucchini except that it starts with Zuc. Like that's it. 😩 If my dad wasn't adopted it'd have been Jiménez so at least I get more passing privilege with my last name, even if someone calls me Zucchini sometimes. 😣

Met this person today. He’s in charge of the Alpha Alpha Alpha honors society at Linfield. Funnily enough. He mispronounced my last name.

Oh my god- so much of this resonates with me. I had a beautiful birth name but I changed it to make it easier to fit into with white people. It wasn't me. So I changed it back and reclaimed me.

Funny how the ancient Hebrews understood that different cultures had trouble pronouncing words, but this guy doesn't. "And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand."

My name is Ashling. Not many can pronounce it correclty. No one can spell it correctly first time. I have far more awards with it spelt wrong than right. But honestly I don't care. Like my name doesn't define who i am as aperson. Its just a word to to me. i necer cared enough to correct anyone lol.

*click* do you no da wae

gerry versus gerardo 2 different names but pronouncing a name correctly as per your native language is a different thing

🎉🎉🎉🎉

How do you pronounce his last name??😂

Gerardo, i was born in America. Raised in America. My name is Herbert. I was called Herbie as a boy. People made fun of that name. I preferred Herb. But it is amazing how many Americans read my name and pronouce it Erb, dropping the H as if i were some kiind of a plant. I have corrected the same people over and over. I never felt people were micro-aggressors, as you suggested. When i was 50 years old I decided to fix my problem. I introduced myself as Thomas. Thomas is my middle name. So i suggest that if people don't appreciate how their name is mispronounced. Just change your name. O am a Caucasian and was raised in an overwhelmingly Mexican American community. They were generally very good people and best friends. Some Mexican friends would butcher my name. But i NEVER felt micro-aggressed by them.

YAHUAH IS THE FATHER . HIS TRUE NAME MATTERS YAHUSHUA IS THE SON AND MESSIAH. HIS TRUE NAME MATTERS

earth does not revolve around ur name,humble ur self first.

Probably the teacher was Donald Trump.

Imagine expecting non-Spanish speakers to magically produce native-Spanish pronunciation of Spanish names, and thinking that failure to do so is a microaggression rather than a language-based limitation. That's a lot of hubris. Of course, no one should be involuntarily assigned a nickname, but expecting people to just know and be able to correctly pronounce your name is not reasonable nor realistic. If my name was the Spanish Geraldo, I would be more than content if people pronounced it /hair-al-dough/. That's close enough and reasonable. Geraldo's mom needs to sit him down for a talk.

ILLEGAL or LEGAL??? ...I ponder.

Imagine getting upset because a teacher pronounced your name wrong. If you corrected them the first time there wouldn’t be a problem

So if I were to go to a Spanish speaking country, or any foreign nation that speaks a different language I should be offended if they do not pronounce my English name correctly. This guy is arrogant.

This is an unfortunate video. In fact in the US and much of the world, names have been changed. Yes if this happened today a teacher might ask him how he pronounces it. But this looks like something that happened near the Hood River- so in Oregon and maybe 20 years ago? And why this person thinks something bad happened, suggests that he took on a cultural battle that he did not have to take on. And his idea that we should pronounce with hispanic consonants and vowels is really bizarre. Does really expect that everyone in the US will learn the subtleties of hispanic pronunciation? I grew up with aunts who came from Poland. So Valerya became violet. And Casimira became Cassie or Charlotte. And the Polish "W" is NOT an English W. Growing up Antonios became Tonys and Bohdan became beau. Wieslaw became Wesley. Yes it is hard to fit in to a new place. But this is a pout that seems to overvalue his culture. Oh - and try Chinese names. We simply can't reproduce the names as they pronounce them (without lots of training).

people are now required to speak everyones language