He Who Must Not Be Named actually has a name — and it’s often pronounced incorrectly.
Ralph Fiennes, known for his role as Lord Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” series, set the record straight on how to pronounce his own name at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
“From R-a-l-p-h F-i-e-n-n-e-s, (how) could we get Ralph Fiennes?” an interviewer asked the British actor onstage at the festival, according to a TikTok posted by The Hollywood Reporter on Feb. 7.
Fiennes, 62, broke out into a huge grin before giving an explanation of why his first name is pronounced “Rayfe.”
“Well, it’s one of those funky, old English things that I was dealt — my parents dealt me this hand, this name,” he said. “I think it’s the case, the spelling R-a-l-p-h used to be pronounced, and I have met other, ‘Rafes’ spelt ‘Ralph’ — that was the old way to pronounce ‘Ralph.’ You said, ‘Rafe.'”
“I’ve always had to deal with this question,” he continued, leading the crowd to burst into laughter.
And he’s not exaggerating — multiple articles from 2011 attempted to answer this question, including The New Yorker’s “How Do You Say Ralph Fiennes?”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, Fiennes said he sometimes wished he had fixed the public’s pronunciation of his name sooner, but that he felt it was “too late.”
“That was the name I was born with and I sort of have some weird thing about, I’m sticking with what I was given,” he said.
Fiennes also shared the story behind his name in the 2011 interview.
“I believe my father named me after his stepgrandfather. His name was Ralph Eastwood, nicknamed Rusty, but spelt R-a-l-p-h,” he said.
“And I wanted to, I suppose, honor my parents giving me this name and keeping up the spelling but I have — I’ve come on occasion to regret it because it would be easier,” he continued.
The presenters of the 2025 Academy Awards should start preparing to say his name out loud: Fiennes is nominated for the best actor award for his role in “Conclave,” a political thriller about the selection of a new pope.
This year’s Oscars ceremony is scheduled to be held on March 2, and Fiennes is up against Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet, Colman Domingo and Sebastian Stan.
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