Pronunciation of "Ralph Fiennes"

current mood: Inquisitive...


Since Ralph Fiennes is going to be Lord Voldemort in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and he has a new movie coming out (The Constant Gardener) I have been seeing him come out on several talk shows. They have consistently been calling him what I have heard to be Ray /rey/, which was confusing to me, so I went ahead and looked it up and this is what I came up with:

"Ralph" was traditionally pronounced /reIf/ in Britain -- Gilbert and Sullivan rhymed it with "waif" in _H.M.S. Pinafore_; that's how the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams pronounced his name; and even today actor Ralph Fiennes (of _Schindler's List_ fame) is said to pronounce his name /reIf faInz/.

from the The alt.usage.english FAQ

or this:

The Pronunciation of "Ralph"
I ought to mention somewhere on my web pages that my name is preferably pronounced "Raif" *, not Ralph. I prefer it and have always been called this by friends and family. I do, however, answer to both pronunciations, and don't vociferously object to the more obvious one.

For those of you who wish to know more:

i) "Ralph" was traditionally pronounced this way in Britain

ii) Gilbert rhymed it with "waif" in H.M.S. Pinafore and Sullivan provided the music for Little Buttercup to tell us all about it:

"In time each little waif
Forsook his foster-mother,
The well born babe was Ralph--
Your captain was the other!!!"

iii) the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams pronounced his name this way

iv) actor Ralph Fiennes (of Schindler's List and The English Patient, amongst others) pronounces his name the same way

*"Raif" == "Rafe" == "Raiph".

from Ralph Shiell's HomePage

Now I will never refer to Ralph Fiennes as /rawlf/ but as /reIf/. So that is my little tidbit for the day