Catherine Rusoff
May V. Lee Zubeth Brotoski. Syer Ovoon Jean June Breenun. Victoria Lee Zubithruss. Those are the names announced at Thomas Jefferson University’s commencement ceremony — except the graduates were named Maeve Elizabeth Brostoski, Sarah Virginia Brennan and Victoria Elizabeth Bruce.
At the university’s graduation ceremony for nursing students on Thursday, the person in charge of calling out the graduates’ names messed up several of them — even some as simple as Thomas.
The video made by @colleenb415 and shared on TikTok accumulated almost 8 million views and 16 thousand comments on the platform in less than a day. It was shared by others on social media platforms and went extremely viral.
The people who recorded the original video couldn’t help but laugh, surprised by the horrible pronunciation errors. “Milena Zabeth Cop,” the woman reads to Molly Elizabeth Camp.
“Tamome,” she says, before the graduate says his name is Thomas. She corrects herself and says Thomas, but doesn’t even try to read his last name, Canevari.
Thomas Jefferson University has apologized for mispronouncing the names of several graduates.
“This ceremony is a celebration of the significant achievements of our students, and each graduate deserves to have their name honored correctly on this pivotal day,” the university said in a statement to CBS News.
Many people on social media speculated that the woman was reading the phonetic spelling of the names and did not have the full names written in the normal spelling. Others had a more cynical explanation – perhaps the woman’s name had been pronounced incorrectly all her life, and this was her revenge.
The university confirmed that the first is true.
“The pronunciation errors occurred due to the way the phonetic spelling was presented on the speaker cards, which was noted when the presenter apologized during the ceremony,” the university said in a statement. “This unfortunate error does not reflect the immense respect we have for our graduates and the value we place on their hard-earned achievements.”
The school said it “deeply regrets any disappointment this may have caused.”
Many of the graduates in the video appeared to take the wrong names in stride — some laughed as they walked over to pick up their diplomas, while others just looked confused.
Caitlin O’Kane
