How the hell do you pronounce "Siva Vaidhyanathan"?

Punchline:
"Siva Vaidhyanathan" is pronounced 'See-vuh (Shee-vuh) Vy-dee-yah-nah-thun'
(Here's a 20KB mp3: siva.mp3)

If you know me, you know I'm crazy about names. I have an uncanny ability to remember names and I truly enjoy being able to call people what they prefer to be called. Some people think this is spooky; I think it's polite, fun and it helps me remember other ancillary data as well.

An important part of all of this is being able to pronounce people's names... which is something the Net is especially bad at. For example, how the hell does one pronounce "Siva Vaidhyanathan"?

I've been a fan of Siva Vaidhyanathan's blog Sivacracy.net for a while now... Siva is a particularly good blog commentator (I'm mostly a quoter) and did his graduate work at UT; a place at which I've always wanted to spend some time.[1]

For all my muster as a techie, I couldn't find a single place on the Net that told me how to pronounce Siva's last name.[2] So, after asking politely, Siva supplied me with the phonetical pronounciation of his name:

See-vuh Vy-dee-yah-nah-thun

Even in phonetic-spelling, it can be a tad intimidating for a name... so Siva suggested I search for any NPR segments where he was referenced... I found this Anthem segment with Siva on it. The host (Rick Karr) pronounced it like this: siva.mp3 (20KB).

Yay! I'm now content.

Note: Before I get email talking about how I've infringed Anthem's copyright... know that this is de minimus copying. Check out this discussion at The Importance Of by Ernest Miller about a recent 9th Circuit case involving the Beastie Boys.

[1] For the record, I spent eight years of my youth in George W. Bush's hometown, Midland, Texas; calling Midland a "wasteland" is polite.

[2] I took a Hinduism class in undergrad. at NAU and knew that "Siva" is either 'See-vuh' or 'Shee-vuh'.

Posted by joebeone at Enero 6, 2004 02:28 PM