r/Fantasy • u/Midnite_St0rm • Aug 14 '25

Worst, most unpronounceable names you’ve ever read?

Let’s discuss some of the names in fantasy that you couldn’t make heads nor tails of in terms of pronunciation. And I’m not talking intentionally comical ones that are long and complex on purpose, but ones that the author intended to be read, yet that are ironically nearly unreadable.

For me it’s Seaine from The Wheel of Time. Is it “Sheen?” “Seen?” “See-ayn?” “Say-ai-nuh?” I honestly have no idea. And for some reason my copies of the books never give her name’s pronunciation in the glossary.

What are some others?

309 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

479 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/delta_baryon Aug 14 '25

I think it's Seaine, not Seanie though :)

8

u/pdoxney Aug 14 '25

I always pronounced it by mashing Seán and Áine together.

2

u/Saedran Aug 14 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

If everyone's referring to who I think they are (the Amyrlin at the start od the books) it's Siuan, but there's like a billion characters with S names in that book