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Image credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

At a time when the pure narrative power of Major League Baseball is at its apex, the postseason heroics of Enrique Hernández and Luis Robert have seized much of the spotlight. The inherent conservatism of baseball has gone into its waning phase, giving way to the dramatics of October baseball. It’s ironic that the sport reflexively celebrates these two talents, their names perched on the collective tongue of MLB’s punditry and public alike, because it’s their names that people can’t seem to get them right.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. The way we have collectively chosen to address Hernández and Robert mirrors the way we have historically addressed players of color. Look no further than the following baseball card:

Hank. Bob. Richie.

Henry Aaron preferred his given name. Roberto Clemente rejected “Bob” and “Bobby” and made explicit and repeated requests for the media to call him by his given name. Dick Allen made it clear he’d like to be called Dick. It’s not like this is a rookie card. This is several years into each player’s respective career, and yet you’ll find their baseball cards adorned with their non-preferred names. The media didn’t honor their preferred names either.

Now, Hernández and Robert have their own preferences for how their names are presented and pronounced, and just like their predecessors, they’re different than what people use. We’ll start with Robert, because it’s more straightforward and should have been settled four years ago. Here’s a quote from 2017, via Parkins and Spiegel, where Robert himself clarifies the pronunciation of his last name:

In Cuba, people call me more like ‘Roh-bér,’ ” Robert said. “Outside people [pronounce the last letter]. But in Cuba, it’s ‘Roh-bér.’”

If you listen to the audio, it’s pretty clear. In Cuba, they roll the R and the first syllable makes a “Roh” sound, while the second half makes a “burr” sound, while “eating” the T. Outside of Cuba, the first half is similar, with the second half making a “burt” sound. Either way, neither is consistent with the pronunciation that the team has instructed people to use:

“RAH-bert.” The pronunciation that the White Sox suggest is the most heavily anglicized version, and not at all like how you would hear it pronounced in Cuba. Not only do they not get it right, but completely wrong. Both syllables are incorrect. Adding insult to injury is that fans have bestowed a hyper-anglicized nickname onto him: LuBob, an adaptation of Luis and Robert. Just as we did with Aaron, Allen, and Clemente, we have done with Robert.

Much of these issues stem from either a willful lack of consideration or abundant unawareness of other languages and cultures, but with Hernández, the confusion is more reasonable. From MLB, the official pronunciation guide for the Red Sox:

You need not have a degree in linguistics to discern the incongruence between the spelling of Hernández’s name and the suggested pronunciation. That’s because, without the acute accent, Hernández’s nickname can be mistaken for an anti-Semitic slur, and so we have, as a collective, decided to take the liberty of adding an accent over the E in his nickname. 

It’s understandable why people want to avoid spelling Hernández’s nickname as it’s customarily presented. Devoid of context, it can be shocking to see. While that’s a legitimate reason to not want to spell it in the traditional way, adding an acute accent over the E in Hernández’s name only solves the issue in the sense that it creates a different one: it changes its pronunciation. His nickname is pronounced “KEE-kay”. With the added accent, it changes the pronunciation to “kee-KAY”, a la footballer Gerard Piqué.

These are extenuating circumstances, one that not everyone can win. Hernández should be able to present his nickname as is, because it’s not a slur in his language. But also, people are going to read it as such. This is something that we need to get right, or, at the very least, not wrong. Right now? We have it wrong.

It seems that Robert has softened his stance over time and accepted his non-preferred “RAH-bert”, given that it’s easier for Americans to handle, and Hernández has said he’s amenable to the accented E to avoid controversy. But then again, that’s sort of the problem. What seems benign is in fact quite hostile. We’re not only imposing a change of identity onto players to prioritize our own comfort, but we’re also implicitly signaling to them that our way is desirable, and theirs is not. Call it what you want: Anglocentric, Americentric—it’s a problem, and the players feel it. This was the norm back then, and while it may have gotten better, it clearly hasn’t ceased to exist.

What all of this lends itself to is cultural assimilation. Rather than acculturationwhere parts of ourselves are independent but intermingled, like a salad bowlassimilation is where we lose parts of ourselves in order to conform to the dominant culture. This is what is at stake when the dominant culture forces its ideals onto a minority group. It’s an insidious process that—while presented nicely, wrapped up in a neat little bowcenters Whiteness and subjugates people of color. It is, at best, ethnocentric, and at worst, racist.

Taking players and giving them Americanized nicknames is in itself assimilative, and it contributes to colonial mentality. When players like Luis Robert go by nicknamesespecially ones that are player-givenlike La Pantera? That’s integrative, and it’s empowering for players. There’s no greater stage to celebrate and learn more about each other than through sports. Players like Hernández and Robert have shown us grace in making concessions with their names. We could certainly stand to reciprocate this by learning about other cultures and picking up a few accentuation rules along the way. 

Some have recognized this. Just the other week, Jon Morosi conducted a post-game interview with Randy Arozarena in which Morosi served as the interviewer and translator. It’s hardly the first time he’s done this, and he’s described it as “both a sign of respect … and a necessity if we are to tell their stories with as much cultural context as possible.”

Morosi understands that acculturation isn’t solely on players—we need to meet them halfway, if not further. Failing to do so is not only a detriment to players of color, but ultimately to everyone else as well. Morosi has been met with a resounding level of encouragement and patience from Spanish-speaking players. The result is a deepening of respect, in that both parties truly understand how difficult it is to speak in a second language on a big stage, but also, a more accurate and enriched understanding of players as well. 

The solution is simple, one that shouldn’t need to be said: call players by their preferred names. For Luis Robert, we should be saying an approximation of the way his name is said in Cubawith or without the Tnot like it’s some European guy’s name. The lone exception to this rule seems to be spelling out Enrique Hernández in print, and using his nickname out loud.

This is an ongoing conversation that I’m having, one that I want to proceed with delicately, and with grace. Getting people’s names right can be a complex issue at times, but it’s also the bare minimum. To minimize acculturative stress for players, we have a lot of learningand perhaps even more unlearningto do. For now, we’ll use this as a jumping-off point, but we’ll need to continue this conversation, because it goes much deeper. In the meantime? It’s Enrique, not Kiké.

Thank you for reading

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Mike Gianella
10/22
Very well done. Thanks for writing about this.

My dad was Armando but so many of his white colleagues insisted on calling him "Andy". It bothered him, but when he was a relatively new immigrant to the United States he didn't say anything about it, even though I suspect it bothered him. I think people often assume that assigning a nickname or pronunciation is ok if they don't get any pushback, despite the fact that pushback is often met with derision or outright hostility.
Michael Ajeto
10/22
Thanks for sharing Mike! This is actually something that I initially had in the article but omitted, regarding people butchering the pronunciation of my last name. It's alienating!
alex chidester
10/22
Fantastic article, Michael. The phenomenon strikes me a version of "benevolent racism", where fans give players an Americanized nickname/pronunciation and defend it by saying "how can it be racist? It's the same as the nicknames we give our buddies!"
Michael Ajeto
10/22
I absolutely think that's what it is!
RonKittle
10/22
Thanks for this excellent piece. This is exactly the kind of subject that is best explored through a thoughtful, explanatory article rather than throwing bombs on twitter.
Jon Crate
10/22
This has bothered me for a long time. The biggest one for me has always been Giannis Antetokounmpo in the NBA. Hardly anyone tries to pronounce it. This is one of the best players in the world, and we still won't even try.
Luis Torres
10/22
This is excellent and important.

When I was a kid, I didn't mind going by Louie or Lou, but when I became an adult I insisted on going by Luis. Sometimes people will call me Louis, and it still feels awkward to correct them. I've been fortunate to not have had any problems, thankfully.
David Xavier Marquez
10/22
Great article, thank you.
mark warmuth
10/22
Always found it odd that Robert's surname was pronounced RAH-bert. When he first came up, I figured it wasn't right, but heard people using that pronunciation.
jsdspud
10/22
I don't think that it is just MLB. This happens in all walks of life. My last name of Eastern European decent is only 6 letters but people always mispronounce and misspell it. Then they repeat the spelling back to me incorrectly and act like I don't know how to spell my name.

When I come across a first or last name new to me, I always make sure that I pronounce it the way that the person prefers. It is just wrong to intentionally mispronounce a name. I think that it is natural for people to pronounce names foreign to their language incorrectly at first using their native language. When I see the name Robert, I am going to pronounce it Rob-bert because English is my first language. If corrected by the person or a TV broadcast, I will change my pronunciation in the future.
Michael Ajeto
10/22
Sure, it's natural for that to be our first reaction, maybe, but if we're reading Robert in context, it should be clear that it's not pronounced as the first name in the U.S.
Llarry
10/22
And all the while, most fans have never had trouble with French Canadian names (and now European - Swedish/Russian/Finnish) in hockey. Hmmm.
William A Peterson
10/22
Really? Hispanic names are easier for me then French or Russian names. But yea nice try on that card.
alex chidester
10/22
I can provide anecdotal evidence to the contrary:

one of my favorite players is Vladimir Tarasenko. The first nickname fans developed for him is "Tank", but he strenuously objected because of family/childhood trauma from military action, and the second was "Vlad", despite "Vlad" being the nickname for "Vladislav" in Russian.

Most fans have adopted the proper "Vova", but it's been circuitous.

Regardless, pronunciations might be marginally better for non-North American players in hockey, but nicknames have the same issues (both in terms of being "colonized" and being just plain bad).
andre dawsons creek
10/25
Your assertion is completely false. In all honesty, I think the pronunciation of European names is often butchered even more than Hispanic ones. Have you ever actually conversed in Russian, Swedish or Finnish? The pronunciation of words is fundamentally different from in English. Take a name that I bet you think everyone gets right: Nicklas Lidstrom. In actuality, it's pronounced Neecklos Leedshtrom, and it requires that you say it in a sort of sing-songy manner. Sergei Fedorov is actually Fyodorohv. And people don't even attempt to pronounce Danish names right. He's obviously not an athlete, but Søren Kierkegaard's name is actually "Soo-en Keekegoht". I mean, for that matter, Swedes and Norwegians barely even attempt to pronounce Danish correctly; it's a running joke throughout Scandinavia. In fact, it's literally impossible for many people to pronounce certain Danish words correctly if they weren't raised speaking it because their vocal chords simply are incapable of it. The biggest issue is that mixing different languages in one sentence is VERY hard for anyone to do - even those highly gifted in accents and linguistics. Hell, many people are genetically incapable of rolling their R's, which is a requirement for speaking Spanish properly. As an experiment, try going to a country where English is not their first language, and see if they suddenly flatten their accent mid-sentence in order to pronounce "Larry" correctly. Spoiler alert: it's not going to happen. While I agree with the article in that the preferred names of people should be respected and honored, it is silly to think that everyone is even physically capable of pronouncing every name correctly and doing so while conversing naturally.
Martin Alonso
10/22
This was a great piece. As a native Spanish-speaker, I've always seen Enrique being spelt with either a 'K' or a 'Qu'. I can't speak for Hernández's preference, but for me, it always seemed more natural to spell it 'Quique'. The 'é' at the end in the 'K' version, while I understand it, it is just grammatically incorrect, like you correctly state.
Anyway, thank you for this. It is very enlightening.
Jim Maher
10/22
Odd there isn't any guide to the pronunciation of Xander-- at least with Xavier, some pronounce it ex-avier and others zavier. Is it Exander or zander?
Byron Hauck
10/22
As a lifelong hockey fan, the first time I saw Robert's name in print, I of course pronounced it with a silent T, like a french name. But then on podcasts, people explicitly "corrected" the pronunciation. There had to be some miscommunication coming from the White Sox because most people have no problem with silent Ts.

As a Jew, the first time I saw Kike's name in print I said "yikes!" But it also wasn't that hard to pick up from context that there was nothing offensive about it. I didn't realize the spelling was wrong until now though.
Johanna Perez-Shovlin
10/23
This was very well written on baseball's assimilation problem. It reflects the United States' assimilation problem. As a child and a young adult, I frequently shortened my name to "Jo" to help Americans who couldn't say my full name: "Johanna." I heard: "Joan", "Joanne", and variations that weren't close to my name. Now, I insist on Johanna.

I never considered how putting the accent over the e in Kiké's nickname totally changed the pronunciation of his nickname. I only thought of how the misplaced accent avoided the anti-Semitic slur. As a Dominican-American born and raised in the U.S., I only considered the American point of view, not the Hispanic point of view. (I personally love the name Enrique. Is Enrique his preferred name?)
Chad Ronnander
10/23
I liked the attention to this issue when I read it last night after work, and I enjoyed reading the comments today. It is good to know my family, friends, and I are not alone in paying attention to the importance of getting everyone's name right. I have been thinking about this ever since I was 8 years old, and my Dad would always insist when I was reading my baseball cards that I get each guy's name right, or at least admit that we didn't know how to say certain guys' names ... that was back in the 1970s.

Of course, our last name was Ronnander, hard to pronounce, so you can see with a smile where some of his thoughts came from. But he was also a "white" guy who grew up on Minneapolis's South Side in the 1960s, and he saw how things were with the many people of diverse backgrounds who lived there and went to school with him. He knew that to get a person's name right, was to show that you respected him or her.

And to not bother to get a person's name right -- well, that was a sign of disrespect. Intentional, unintentional, doesn't matter. And though I know it's more often been a struggle for non-"white" Americans than others -- the baseball card you show above is an excellent piece of evidence -- we had better remember that it has been a similar issue for people from many different backgrounds in the course of our history ,,,

To call a person (correctly) by name is a thing so important, as to be sacred in many traditions. I am a Roman Catholic; others from other faiths will probably join me in supporting the sacred (and ancient) importance of names. Nicknames are cool, but only when they are mutually agreed. Thank you for your article.
michael bradley
10/24
The Pirates have several announcers: greg brown (who ascended later from ticket office), 3-4 different ex Pirates and ONE person who went to school for broadcast journalism (Joe Block).

Guess which one does the most professional job? The one who is a TRUE broadcaster. The rest make the mistakes you speak of here.