Harry Potter character Hermione Granger is infamous for correcting a pronunciation or two, such as her most iconic moment where she schooled Ron Weasley on the levitation spell -- it's LeviOsa, not LeviosAR! While Hermione's tendency to correct others produced a big ol' sigh and eye roll from Ron, when the Harry Potter books originally came out, readers could have benefitted from a little of Hermione's expertise, as many of the character's names were being pronounced wrong, including her own. Harry Potter readers were saying Hermione all sorts of ways before the fourth book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was released and J.K. Rowling included a passage about the correct pronunciation. It looks like J.K. Rowling has a bit of Hermione in her, as the author just confirmed that she added it in to avoid any more confusion for readers.
A tweet from a fan brought up a long-time theory regarding a passage in the fourth book where love-interest Viktor Krum kept pronouncing her name as Her-my-own. The heroine corrected him and fans everywhere, by announcing it as Her-my-oh-nee slowly and clearly. The Bulgarian wizard then repeated it as Herm-own-ninny, creating a cute moment as Hermione meets Harry's eye and grins, joking "Close enough." J.K. Rowling responded to the fan's tweet, confirming that her intentions here were to school readers on how to say her name above anything else.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was released in 2000, three years after initial frustration from some readers who couldn't decide how to pronounce Hermione's name in the first book. With the release of the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001, this was no longer a problem for new readers picking up the popular novels, as Hermione was now a household name with Emma Watson giving a face to the character on the big screen. The books are full of foreign names such as Voldemort, which is said with a silent "t" for readers to decipher, but with the Harry Potter films, many fans were likely relieved to see some of the character's names spoken for the first time.
The Harry Potter film franchise graced the screen for ten years, and now are considered a classic franchise that is fondly revisited by fans all the time. It thrust young actors such as Emma Watson into mega stardom, who made waves in 2017 with Beauty and the Beast and The Circle, and was recently cast in Hollywood's upcoming star-studded rendition of Little Women. J.K. Rowling's imaginative Wizarding World has found new life on the big screen with the Fantastic Beasts franchise, with Hogwarts making a comeback in the second installment Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindlewald, coming to theaters on November 16.
