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The actor confirmed during her guest appearance on Amy Poehler’s Good Hangpodcast this week that the correct pronunciation of her first name is “Muh-rish-kuh.” Hargitay — who is the daughter of late actor Jayne Mansfield — said that the moniker is a nickname for Maria that means “Little Maria.” “In Hungarian, the ‘ka’ or ‘ke’ at the end of the name is just like a little endearment,” she explained. “So the name is actually ‘Maria’ after my grandmother, both of them, Hungarian and Italian.” Never miss the latest entertainment news from Australia and around the world — download the news.com.au app direct to your phone. The Law & Order: SVU star said that the mispronunciation is something that she “still live[s] with” to this day, from friends, colleagues and even some family members. “Who was it last night? I had a lunch yesterday for my sister and my cousin was there,” she said, recounting a time where a family member said her name wrong. “Your own cousin?” host Amy Poehler asked, to which Hargitay responded, “I’ve known him since 1994 and he kept calling me ‘Muh-ris-kuh.’” Hargitay said she almost went to correct her cousin, but ultimately decided to just “let it go.” How to handle the mispronunciation is also something she deals with on the set of her hit show. She told Poehler that to avoid having to constantly correct everyone on set, she changed her name to “Marishhhhka” on the call sheet. “I get called ‘Muh-ritz-uh,’ ‘Mar-see-kuh,’ ‘Mar-kis-kuh,’” she shared, noting that her co-stars will sometimes call her by one of the incorrect variations just to tease her a bit. Hargitay isn’t the only Hollywood star who deals with people mispronouncing her name on a daily basis, however. Kirsten Dunst recently spoke out about giving up on correcting people who say her first name wrong. “Everyone messes up my name,” the actor told Town & Countryin August, revealing that the correct pronunciation is “Keer-sten.” “I don’t care,” Dunst continued, noting that she’ll “answer to Kristen [or] Kirsten, which is how you say my name.” “In England, they don’t really say my name right. On the last set, everyone was saying my name wrong, but there were Swedish people, people from Hungary.” The Bring It On star confessed that at some point, “You just give up.” This article was originally published on Page Six and is reproduced here with permission
