Zohran Mamdani, Louvre make list of most mispronounced words of 2025
DALLAS (AP) — From the election of Zohran Mamdani to the intrigue surrounding the jewel heist at the Louvre, keeping up with this year’s news also left some Americans struggling with pronunciations. That’s put both the name of New York City’s incoming mayor and the famed Paris museum on a list of the most mispronounced words in 2025.
The language-learning company Babbel and closed-captioning company The Captioning Group on Thursday released a list of the words that news anchors, politicians and other public figures in the U.S. struggled with the most this year, giving an overview of the people and topics that had Americans talking.
As Mamdani made his political rise, the democratic socialist’s name often was mangled. Babbel said his name — which should be pronounced zoh-RAHN mam-DAH-nee — was most commonly mispronounced when people swapped the “M” and “N” in his last name.
The theft of France’s crown jewels from the Louvre in October had many people mispronouncing the name of the world’s most-visited museum. Babbel says the correct pronunciation is LOOV-ruh, with a very soft pronunciation on the “ruh.”


