Never Have I Ever's Maitreya Ramakrishnan wants people to say her name right
Maitreya Ramakrishnan who plays Devi Vishwakumar in Netflix's Never Have I Ever shared, “When I was younger, I used to tell people, ‘Yeah, you can call me ‘My-tree’ like whatever, I don’t care’.
We all know her as Devi Vishwakumar from Netflix's Never Have I Ever, and while some may have trouble pronouncing even her onscreen name, Maitreya Ramakrishnan, who brings Devi to life has had it with people butchering her name and has decided to finally school people on how to say her name right, one syllable at a time.
The 19-year-old actor tweeted a voice note to her profile in which she shared how names are a huge part of one's identity, and that people often assume that she is pronouncing her own name wrong. She said in the voice note, “Names are so important, and I find that it’s a big part of your identity — it personally is for me. I love my name so, so much. And constantly I get people saying, ‘Oh, you don’t even know how to say your own name right’. It’s like, ‘No, no, no, I do. I do know how to say my own name right’.”
She shared how only the person whose name it is can pronounce it correctly, saying, “Because reality is, no one knows how to say someone else’s name except for the person themselves, you know? Like, this is my name. I’m sorry, but I get to call the shots here. There is one answer and that answer is my own. There’s no discussion for that.”
She shared how she let people off easily in the past as she didn't want to inconvenience them, she went on, “When I was younger, I used to tell people, ‘Yeah, you can call me ‘My-tree’ like whatever, I don’t care’, because I used to think I was inconveniencing them, but I’m not. I’m asking for basic respect when I want people to say my name right, as many of us do, right? Like, we just want our names to be right.”
She went on to add that now she makes sure that people say her name correctly and that she doesn't expect them to know the accent, but just be respectful, saying, “I ask people to say my name correctly and I put a lot of active effort whenever it’s like an interview, or, you know, just meeting people in general, like new people. I make sure that they say my name right. Not expecting people to switch up their accents on me, just asking for basic respect."
She also explained the correct pronunciation of her name, enunciating, “Mai-tre-yi Ra-ma-krish-nan.”