Remember when I was afraid to say certain celebs’ names out loud? Well, a new fear has taken hold.
In honor of tonight’s 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee (the championship round airs live on ABC from 8-10 p.m.), I’d like everyone to line up against the wall and nominate the celebrity whose name you find hardest to spell. I’ll get the ball rolling with my selection, Scarlett Johansson, whose tricky arrangement of consonants (two Ts! two Ss!) and vowels (sen? son?) sends me scrambling to IMDB to fact-check myself every time. Someday, hopefully, I’ll master her thorny moniker, but until then, I’ll do whatever is necessary to spare you from encountering the dreaded ScarJo abbreviation on the pages of PopWatch.
Now it’s your turn: Ladies and gentlemen, submit your nominees in the comments section below!








Matthew McConaughey… I can never remember how to spell that last name.
Let’s just cut the bullcaca and say what we’re all thinking: A-d-e-w-a-l-e A-k-i-n-n-u-o-y-e A-g-b-a-j-e
I’m seconoding David. It doesn’t get much more difficult than that.
J-o-h-n W-o-o
You can’t bear Agbaje, but Stellan Skaarsgaard is pretty tough too.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
M-a-g-g-i-e-G-y-l-l-e-n-h-a-a-l
Z-i-y-i-Z-h-a-n-g
S. Epatha Merkerson
Q’Orianka Kilcher
also… Shohreh Aghdashloo
We are liveblogging the whole thing with Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes at http://throwingthings.blogspot.com. Join us.
For this, I’ll nominate the deceptively difficult Meredith Vieira.
Writing Djimon Hounsou’s name always messes me up, although the ones everyone else has said are really tough.
Mary Lynne Rajskub (rice-cub)-Chloe from 24. Maybe that one is just hard to pronounce.
MeShell Ndegocello
But really, who cares if you have nothing better to offer than your name…
Ioan Gruffudd – I have a difficult time spelling and saying it correctly.
T-o-m H-a-n-k-s