We've All Been Pronouncing Denzel Washington's Name Wrong
The actor sets the history of his name, and the record, straight.
As part of the press tour for his new collaboration with Spike Lee, the film Highest 2 Lowest, Denzel Washington went on Jimmy Kimmel and shared some surprising news.
His name is not pronounced Den-zel, the way we all say it!
It’s actually pronounced “Denzill.”
The origins of the pronunciation, and how it transformed into the current, common pronunciation, are fascinating.
Washington went onto explain, “I’m Denzel, Jr. My father’s Denzel Hayes Washington, Sr. I’m Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. My mother would say “Denzil!” and we’d both show up. So she said, ‘from now on, you‘re ‘Den-Zel.'”
Proof that there’s nothing more powerful than a mom.
Watch the clip here:
Olivia Rutigliano
Olivia Rutigliano is an Editor at Lit Hub and CrimeReads. Her other work appears in Vanity Fair, Vulture, Lapham's Quarterly, AirMail, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, The Baffler, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Politics/Letters, The Toast, Truly Adventurous, and elsewhere. She has a PhD from the departments of English/comparative literature and theatre at Columbia University, where she was the Marion E. Ponsford fellow. She hosts the podcasst "Culture Schlock" at Lit Hub Radio. She is on instagram at @oldebean, twitter at @oldrutigliano, and bluesky at @oliviarutigliano.bsky.social.
