Denzel Washington has been one of the biggest names in Hollywood for more than 40 years now—but the name his millions of fans know him by isn’t being pronounced correctly.
The Training Day actor appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! earlier this week, where the topic turned to the number of people who share a first name with the two-time Oscar winner. Kimmel mentioned that there are currently four athletes playing in the NFL with the first name “Denzel.”
“There’s a lot of Denzels now,” Washington said, to which Kimmel replied: “There weren’t that many before your first Oscar,” which he won in 1990 for Glory. “There were zero in 1987,” Kimmel noted. Which is when Washington dropped a major bomb.
“This is how you know they named themselves after me, because my name’s not pronounced DEN-zel,” he revealed. “My name’s pronounced ‘DEN-zuhl.’ I’m Denzel Jr. My father’s Denzel Hayes Washington Sr. I’m Denzel Hayes Washington Jr.”
Washington explained that having two Denzels under one roof became a bit of a problem for his mom. “My mother would say, ‘Denzel?,’ and we’d both show up. So she said, ‘From now on, you’re DEN-zel.’ That’s how it got pronounced ‘DEN-zel.’”
Kimmel gave Washington a rundown of the forenames he helped to supplant, noting that currently, “There are two Denzels on the Arizona Cardinals, one team. In 1987, there were 14 Dennises and 24 Dougs,” Kimmel said of the NFL name lineup. “Five Earls, four Walts, two Butches… and two Corneliuses.”
Supplanting this last name seemed like a particularly celebratory moment for Washington. “There ought to be some kind of compensation for this, should there not?,” Washington asked with a laugh. Kimmel agreed
