It’s August 16, 2025, Worldcon, Seattle, and the main presenter of the annual Hugo awards butchers almost every foreign name on the list. When trying to pronounce an unusual African name, the presenter giggles.

It’s 1934, and Frank Lloyd Wright designs his masterpiece, Fallingwater. The beautiful house sits over a waterfall. To an outside observer, it’s a marvel of architecture, a fusion of engineering and nature. To the people who actually live there, it’s an endless nightmare of leaking roofs and cracked concrete. Fallingwater’s owner nicknames it “Rising Mildew.”

The 2025 Worldcon had hundreds of panels and thousands of attendees. It had fantastic freebies and fanfic fans and fun filking. It had authors and poets and filmmakers and podcasters. It had five full days of genre celebrations, of coming together as one.

It also failed at its most basic, fundamental purpose.

The cornerstone of this annual gathering is the Hugo awards ceremony. During the days leading up to the big event, the convention attendees engage in quiet discussions about the nominees. They wish their favourite authors the best of luck. They recommend the finalist books and art to all their friends.

And then… Then the esteemed Hugo awards host (as well as the secondary host) mispronounces non-English names, over and over. (Even Denis Villeneuve wasn’t spared.) They skip one of the nominees altogether, making the audience shout in unison, after which there is some awkward fumbling. (“Did we miss one? Oh no! Why aren’t they on the list? … Clearly they have to win because they were on the second page.”)

(That nominee did not win.)

The skipped nominee was Kamilah Cole, a Jamaican-born woman, whose only fault, it seems, was having her name on the second side of a page. (Typing on both sides of the page is a brand new technological development. Very few people have heard of it. We cannot expect mere Hugo awards hosts to keep up with such groundbreaking inventions.)

A house is supposed to keep you safe and dry, even when – or perhaps especially when – it doubles as a work of art. If it can’t do that bare minimum, it becomes worse than useless. It turns into a liability.

Likewise, an annual awards ceremony that fumbles that most basic of all tasks – pronouncing the finalists’ names – fails at its most basic purpose.

It’s May 2004, rural Nevada, high school graduation. The kind of school where many students get pregnant before they get their diploma. The kind of school where the biggest scandal of the year is the video of two boys kissing at a house party. The kind of school where the History teacher stops in the middle of a joke, chuckles, and says, “I’ll finish it later” when he realizes one of the school’s three Black students is sitting in the back of the class. The kind of school where all the students get lined up against the wall every few weeks, while a gigantic German Shepherd sniffs each crotch, presumably seeking drugs, and its handler, a gun-wielding cop, smirks.

It’s that kind of school. In a small desert town with one big street, one Walmart, and more casinos than libraries.

And as the graduation ceremony approaches, I worry that the announcer will butcher my name, just like most of my American classmates have during my sole year with them. The big day comes, and I’m beyond amazed when the announcer makes sure to ask each senior how to pronounce their name – and then gets all of them right, including mine.

Beneath the bright lights, on that stage, I get the ceremonial piece of paper and hear my true name. Few people clap: they’re so used to mangling my name that they literally can’t recognize me. No matter. I exit, stage right. Less than three months later, I leave for college. I never return.

The Hugo awards ceremony features a somewhat elaborate song number, with multiple people (including the awards presenters) singing in unison, at length, repeatedly. At one point, they even get the audience to join in.

There’s a very good chance they’d spent more time rehearsing that song than the names of the finalists, for whom this awards ceremony may well have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

During the ceremony, both of the main announcers say – repeatedly – that they don’t have a pronunciation guide for the names.

Five days later, there is still no official statement from the organizers. The announcer who giggled at the African name is silent on social media.

Aside from a Bluesky post by Elizabeth Bear, there has been no discussion, no articles, nothing beyond social media rumours. This is being relegated to the dustbin of history. An unfortunate faux pas. An oopsie.

I shall not let it fade away.

In the global forum that is the internet, I rank just slightly above a street preacher with a megaphone. I don’t expect this essay to be seen by more than a few dozen eyeballs. But my blog will live on for decades, and so will this contemporary record.

It’s 2015, Seattle, tech industry. Many of my coworkers are from India. Their culture fascinates me, as do their names. I take great care to memorize each arrangement of syllables, to commit to memory the names I’d never before encountered. Suyash, Vairavan, Srinivas, and many others. The sole Indian woman on my team is named Vijayalakshmi Deverakonda, and I’m in love with the melodious sound of her name, the way the syllables cascade off my tongue.

The rest of my white coworkers don’t share my respect for people’s names. They routinely call her “Vijay,” which is a male name, and more than a little insulting.

Within two years, Vijayalakshmi and I become workplace rivals. Afterward, we don’t stay in touch. But for a few months, I knew I’d made a fellow immigrant happy because I’d gone the extra mile to learn her true name, to treat her like a fellow human being.

Every failure can be explained by one of these two fundamental explanations: evil or stupidity. Malice or ignorance. It’s often hard to determine which of the two is the main factor. When people make assumptions, and when they build further assumptions on such shaky foundations, their ultimate conclusions diverge from reality.

I make no assumptions. I can believe that a celebrity of the literary world, the main announcer chosen by the 2025 Worldcon committee far in advance, was merely ignorant, and maybe nervous, but not evil.

I say this to myself, and then I remember that giggle in the middle of that unusual name.

Here is how to pronounce “Grigory Lukin.” The first name rhymes with “story.” It has nothing to do with the name “Gregory.” The last name rhymes with “win.” It does not at all sound like “looking.”

For the purposes of brevity, this essay will not cover the pronunciation of my consonant-rich patronym.

It’s 2017, Seattle, the same stressful tech company where white and Indian employees mingle but don’t mix. In a work chatroom, a fellow white guy makes a dirty joke about an Indian woman whose first name is Sukdeep.

I submit an HR report, as do several of my Indian workers. They’re surprised that I would care. To me, that’s a matter of fundamental human decency.

My white male coworker is a successful programmer. He gets a chat with HR, but suffers no further consequences.

The Hugo awards presenter is neither white nor male nor a programmer. But they are successful.

I live in Québec these days. Either here or in America, I can pass for a local, as long as I don’t open my mouth or show my ID. My Russian accent will never truly go away, and for as long as it stays with me, changing my name to something more Western-sounding would be futile. I shall always be The Other.

We rarely speak of this – we who have made a life for ourselves in the West, we who have fully integrated, we who have found a niche in this world. We rarely voice that deep-seated anxiety: do our new compatriots actually accept us? Or are we still viewed as The Other? Do they chuckle and mock our names when we’re not around? Do they bother to view us as fully human even as they enjoy our writing, our films, our art?

We’ll never know for sure. It shall forever be unknowable. Probably paranoia, nothing more.

And then the host of the most prestigious sci-fi and fantasy awards ceremony giggles while reading a foreign name, and the deep-seated anxiety flares up, and I think that maybe it’s not paranoia after all.

The importance of names is an ancient concept, perhaps even eternal. Even today, some cultures give their children a fake name to ward off evil spirits. Religious Jews don’t pronounce the four-letter name of God written in the Torah. Some cults insist on changing their followers’ names to separate them from their past. Many cultures automatically change women’s last names to those of their husbands. Residential schools were infamous for changing Native American children’s names as part of the forced assimilation process. In fairy tales around the world, through the ages, a villain could be defeated only if the hero learned and pronounced their true name.

And at the annual Hugo awards ceremony, the host giggles when they read an unusual name during the highlight of someone’s professional career.

Most issues can fit on a spectrum from one to ten.

Refusing to rehearse foreign names and then mangling them during an awards ceremony is more serious than a playground microaggression.

At the same time, it’s far less serious than a large-scale cultural genocide.

At the same time, it’s still on the spectrum.

Things you should do if you’re overwhelmed and nervous while presenting the most prestigious annual science fiction and fantasy award:

1. Take a few seconds to refer to your pronunciation guide.

1a. If a pronunciation guide is not available, demand one. Have the singers come back on stage to fill the gap until the guide is procured.

2. If the pronunciation guide doesn’t exist, take a few more seconds to summon somebody (perhaps even one of the singers!) to help you.

3. Apologize to the audience, invite every finalist to join you on the stage, and have them pronounce their own names into the microphone.

4. Apologize even more profusely. Admit your nervousness and lack of preparation. Give the microphone to somebody more qualified. Walk off the stage. Don’t return.

Things you should not do:

1. Don’t giggle.

2. Don’t goddamn giggle.

You may mock this essay, as is your right. In these turbulent times, as the planet gets ever hotter, as war crimes get more horrific, as genocides get swept under the rug, this is what people complain about?

And yes, sure, you’d be right. Saving even a single starving child from a sniper is infinitely more important than this issue, now and forevermore. And yet, if your first reaction was to scoff, consider this: is your name conventional? Do people ever giggle when they see it? Are you aware of the concept of microaggressions? Would you say you believe in equality, that racism is wrong, that diversity is important? When you claim to be an ally to those different from yourself, do you accept (both intellectually and emotionally) that they have certain issues which you cannot comprehend but should believe?

If there’s ever an apology letter from anyone involved, it’ll probably blame stress, and anxiety, and growing up in a social environment that didn’t have such linguistic diversity.

Over the past five days, there has been no such letter.

I’m prepared to accept that the main announcer (and their helper) was an anxiety-ridden human being, with human biases, with imperfections. I understand. There are eight billion people in this world. Quite a few of them have sins that are far worse than laughing at foreign names.

I don’t demand perfection. I demand basic competency.

This essay isn’t about the Hugo awards announcers. It’s about the stunning incompetence of the ceremony’s planners.

Here are some things I’d love to learn, but doubt I ever will:

  1. How many times did they rehearse the Hugo song?
  2. How many times did the announcers rehearse the names?
  3. Was there ever a pronunciation guide?
  4. If not, why?
  5. If yes, what happened to it?
  6. Was there ever, at any point of the planning process, a voiced objection, or even a concern, that the popular awards presenter would not be able to pronounce foreign names?
  7. If so, what was the reaction?

I’ve been a lifelong reader of science fiction and fantasy. I can go to great lengths to suspend my disbelief. But if you expect me to believe that a racist, homophobic, rural high school in one of the poorest states can find a professional name announcer, while a giant annual convention held in one of the most prosperous cities cannot… I’m sorry. Even I cannot suspend my disbelief that much.

Was the awards presenter chosen on the basis of friendship and connections and good vibes? Were they chosen because they had decades of experience in speculative fiction? Was there no one else available who had a richer linguistic and sociopolitical background?

Would it be fair to say that even if any concerns had been voiced at all, the overall sentiment was to dismiss them and hope for the best? Let’s just do it and be legends, man. We’ll do it live. Fingers and toes crossed. YOLO, eh. What’s the worst that can happen?

A system that awards top jobs based on seniority and connections rather than competency related to the job at hand ceases to be a system. It becomes a joke.

This essay is not about the US politics.

Throughout history, one of the worst and most unusual punishments was to have your name struck from historical record, as if you never existed at all.

Call it petty. Call it poetic. Call it neither, or both. I deliberately choose not to mention the name of the giggling name-mangler in this essay. Likewise for their co-host. It’s a bit ironic, since neither of them had actually introduced themselves when they started the ceremony. (Nice song, though.)

The announcer’s name will probably live on through all their many written works, but this essay will do them no such honour.

Names have power. Deleting them, even more so.

Someday, I hope to be a Hugo finalist. I’ve got about 35 years left; 40 if I eat my veggies. If I ever do get that honour, when my turn comes, will the announcer mangle my name? Will I be afforded the most basic human respect of an identity?

In this genre of dragons and werewolves and rocketships, this is my wildest, most improbable hope: that someday, we shall have awards ceremonies where people with unusual names will be treated as individuals.

May we live long enough to witness such wonders.

Notes and video excerpts:

  1. The well-rehearsed Hugo song: https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=0AklpGZtEfv5Cu07&t=965 
  1. “They’ve given us a script, but I cannot find it”

“Right, there’s supposed to be a binder, right?” https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=yh96eRIiOFmtsOhO&t=1220 

  1. The mispronunciation giggle: https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=_zCF83ds59z_JVpQ&t=3387 
  1. Khōréō name list: “There’s a lot of them” [skipping the entire list of names after painstakingly reading the two prior lists of names] https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=0zVwe8T1eXf-JrNB&t=3403 
  1. Mangling Denis Villeneuve’s name: https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=ZSYncwfYiwyK4Rgh&t=4969 
  1. “I’m looking for my cheat-sheet before I say something that is difficult for me to say… Let us see… I don’t know if I have any pronunciation guides. Okay, I’ll just – I’ll be corrected when I’m wrong, okay?” https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=_7rZwfn-l5988LjF&t=6061 
  1. “And this – I do not know how to say this, but you know how to say this”

“What? I do? I do not know how to say it because nobody gave me the pronunciation guide.” [referring to “Sheine Lende” by Darcie Little Badger, who went on to win the YA prize.] https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=dL34349j1IKwgQKK&t=7655 

  1. Skipping “So Let Them Burn” by Kamilah Cole entirely after the confusion with “Sheine Lende” pronunciation:

“Did we miss one? Oh no! Why aren’t they on the list? … Clearly they have to win because they were on the second page.” https://www.youtube.com/live/py7MeV31ln4?si=nVOK4Ivqe0IB9D5d&t=7671 

  1. Elizabeth Bear’s Bluesky post on this topic: https://bsky.app/profile/matociquala.bsky.social/post/3lwm66nrzjt22 
  1. Related to the topic of names: a very beautiful short film about a rural woman and an eccentric foreigner with a hard-to-pronounce name, and their resulting friendship. “Meeting Mr. Oscar”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcbPCcpzQ1I