People are only just realising Ralph Fiennes' real name and how it's pronounced

Famous actor Ralph Fiennes has opened up about his frustrations of fans not pronouncing his name right, but claims it's "too late" to change it now - shocking fans all over the world

With over 40 years of acting under his belt, Ralph Fiennes has become a popular household name after starring in some iconic roles throughout the years both on stage and on screen.

Known for playing Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter films as well as starring in the recent 2024 film Conclave, Ralph is known across the world as a successful actor, with millions of people across the world knowing his name. Or do they?

The actor has previously expressed his frustration at not addressing people’s pronunciation of his name earlier in his career.

He previously told the Hollywood Reporter: "There is a story and sometimes I wish I had fixed it earlier on. There is a tradition in the UK, in England of pronouncing ‘Ralph’ as ‘Rafe’. It’s one of those weird peculiar English things where something is pronounced completely different from how it’s spelled.

• Harry Potter fans discover Evanna Lynch had 'secret' on-screen romance which lasted 9-years
• Harry Potter's Rupert Grint ordered to pay more than $2.3m in tax after losing legal battle

"But I believe my father named me after his step-grandfather his name was Ralph Eastwood, nicknamed Rusty, but spelt R-A-L-P-H. And I wanted to, I suppose, honour 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 went on to say that he felt like it was "too late" to correct people, saying: “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.”

A Reddit user went viral on the platform after starting a discussion about the pronounciation of Ralph Fiennes' name, and people were shocked to find out they had been saying it wrong.

One person said on the site: "It’s pronounced Rafe, and yes, it is some British thing! Not all Ralphs in England pronounce it “Rafe,” but some do — it’s a holdover from the shift in vowel sounds around the time of Shakespeare. The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams is another famous Ralph-pronounced-Rafe from the UK."

A second person asked: "While we’re at it, the surname: do you or do you not pronounce the s?" to which another person replied: "I’ve always heard it without the S. So basically 'Rafe Fine'"

"I used to think Ralph was always pronounced Rafe in the UK. But then I saw Pearl Harbor and then Rafe Spall happened, so I realised it's a different name," a third person wrote.

While another added: "If you find hi first name tough, wait till you see his FULL name: Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes."