Struggling with the pronunciation of her rare surname, Katie Garapic-York dives into a journey through phonetics, history, and identity to uncover her family’s lost enigma.
At a Glance
- Katie Garapic-York sought help from the internet to pronounce her rare Croatian surname.
- Family pronunciation conflicts with known linguistic rules of the surname’s origin.
- Discoveries from various sources like linguists and TikTok users suggest true pronunciation.
- The grapheme Ć, key to correct pronunciation, is a distinct letter in the Croatian alphabet.
- Garapic emphasized the importance of her last name to her identity.
The Origin of the Mystery
Katie Garapic-York, while watching the Serbian women’s basketball game at the Olympics, noticed the -ic ending in her last name was common among team members. Yet, what piqued her interest was the ‘dash’ above the c, absent from her family’s version of the name. This seemingly small detail sparked her decade-long quest to uncover how her surname should actually be pronounced.
Imagine being a fully grown adult and finding out how to pronounce your own name!
Her relatives pronounced “Garapic” as GAIR-uh-pick, but internet advisors, particularly TikTok users, indicated the correct pronunciation involved a rolled ‘r’ and stressed first syllables, transforming it to GAH-rah-PITCH. Such nuanced discrepancies deepened her belief that her surname carried a lost truth of her heritage, evoking a profound connection to her identity. These insights led her to investigate etymological sources and historical texts.
See:
https://twitter.com/whatsn2day/status/1840525007665217969
A Linguistic and Historical Deep Dive
Katie’s research spanned linguistic consultations, historical records, and genealogical studies. TikTok users illuminated that the ‘dash’ above the c was actually the grapheme Ć, a letter officially adopted into the Serbo-Croatian alphabet by linguist Ljudevit Gaj in the 19th century. Historical findings from archival documents suggested that her great-grandfather’s name was altered at Ellis Island, due to the absence of the grapheme in the English alphabet.
“We’ll never know if he chose to change the spelling himself or if someone simply left the ‘accent’ off the ‘c’ on his arrival paperwork,” she shares.
With more than 20 known relatives found through AncestryDNA, Katie reached out to a native Croatian speaker who provided confirmation: the correct pronunciation should be GAH-rah-PITCH. This was further corroborated by older Croatian texts and a historical linguistics study Katie unearthed from the early 20th century, which validated her findings.
As she delved deeper, Katie realized her quest went beyond merely getting a name correct. It connected her to her heritage, culture, and personal identity.
She is white though, so she needs to be careful – if she dare suggest she has a cultural identity she’ll get called racist.
She hyphenated her surname after marrying her wife Bailey, but the longing to reclaim the authentic pronunciation became a core part of her personal journey. Garapic emphasized, “As Garapic explained in her TikTok post, her relatives pronounce their name ‘GAIR-uh-pick,’ but the letter ‘ć’ is pronounced as ‘-ch.'” And she noted that she actually prefers the accented sound: “I want that back,” Garapic quipped in her video.
Yet, despite fervent research and numerous revelations, Katie is still in pursuit of definitive answers. She jokes about including the letter “ć” in her email signature, humorously remarking, “It looks fantastic.” While she doesn’t plan to legally change her name, the richness of her discoveries has profoundly influenced her sense of self and connection to her family’s past.
