Kirsten Dunst: English people can’t pronounce my name

Kirsten Dunst says she has given up trying to correct people who mispronounce her name. Photo / Getty Images

Actor Kirsten Dunst is well-known, but she says that doesn’t stop people from regularly mispronouncing her name.

In an interview with Town & Country Magazine, the Spiderman trilogy star said: “I mean, everybody messes up my name”, but noted English people were particularly bad.

She said: “I’ll answer to Kris-sten, Kir-sten, Keer-sten, which is my name. I don’t blame people. In England, they don’t really say my name right.

“On the last set, everyone was saying my name wrong. But there was like Swedish people and people from Hungary and like you just give up.”

However, the American-German actor laughed off the common mistake. “It’s Keer-stun, yeah, but again, who cares? It’s fine.”

The Interview with the Vampire star is not the first celebrity to have her name regularly mispronounced.

Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy regularly gets his name pronounced as Sy-lian with a soft C, whereas the correct delivery is Ki-lee-un.

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel poked fun at Murphy’s name when announcing his Oscar victory in 2024.

Kimmel said, “Interesting fact about his name: when he does drama, it’s pronounced Cillian. But when he does comedy, it’s pronounced Silly-an.”

Mean Girls star Lindsay Lohan’s name gets mispronounced regularly, with many saying Lo-han rather than the correct Low-en.

Lohan confirmed it was pronounced Low-en in a 2022 TikTok video.

Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes’ name is pronounced Rafe Fines. The Schindler’s List star explained the pronunciation of his name, which has Norman origins, at the 2025 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

“It’s one of those funky old English things ... The spelling Ralph used to be pronounced Rafe,” he said.

And the mispronunciation of names doesn’t stop on the big screen. In the world of football, for instance, former Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil – whose name is correctly pronounced Er-zil, regularly gets O-zil instead.