How is my Italian last name pronounced?

Question

My name is John Tuilici—I live in America but I am Italian-Swedish and my family has been pronouncing the name To-lee-see. I went to Italy and some pronounced it that way; yet, most pronounced it To-lee-chee. I know that the second pronunciation is more Italian in regards to the sound of a “c” yet, my family has always been under the impression that it pronounced with an “s” sound because we are from central-Tuscany (Lucca) and that is the dialect…but nobody seems to really know. I went to EPCOT and all the Italians pronounced it To-lee-chee. I want to pronounce it correctly but I am not familiar with different Italian dialects.

So, could someone who knows a great lot about Italian dialects help me in how to pronounce Tuilici when it is from Tuscany?

Answer 1

Confirming what other responders have already said, yeah, in the end you pronounce your own name however you want, it's your choice. ;)

But if your question is how you pronounce your name according to how Italian is pronounced, it is indeed, as a couple of people have already explained, "too-ee-LEE-chee" (where the too-ee part can be elided to sound like "twee" and the accent is on the LEE part.) Some basics of Italian pronunciation, and that come into play with your name are:

1) In most cases, pretty much every letter you see is pronounced, e.g. you don't get things like "silent e's" at the end of Italian words, which is where the "too-ee" or "twee" part come in, and where it wouldn't be totally accurate to say that your name is pronounced "too-lee-chee" because that would be omitting the pronunciation of the first 'i' in your name, which isn't done in standard Italian.

2) The letter "c" followed by an "i" or an "e" is always pronounced as a "ch" sound. (As in "DaVinCI" or the name "FranCEsca" (Pronounced "fran-CHES-ka")

Hope that helps :)

Answer 2

Well, I'm Italian living 20 miles far from Lucca and I'm familiar with its dialect since I've also lived a few years in Lucca's province (Viareggio).
However there are no different ways to pronounce the name Tuilici being the dialect not affecting the pronounce of surnames (it's just a matter of different inflexion but pronounce it's the same everywhere here).
If you come here in Italy everybody will read yr name as
Twee - lée - chee with slight stress where I've marked "é".
Sound of Twee is exactly like in English "twee(d)" .

The other suggested pronounces would lead to different writings in Italian :
To-lee-see is written Tolisi
To-lee-chee is written Tolici

Answer 3

Too-eelee-chee

Answer 4

You pronouce it the way you have your entire life.
Listen, spelling wasn't consistant until Webster came up with the dictionary - pronunciations still arent.
My mother to this day says "hul-lo" despite knowing there is no "U" in "hello" - and she is afraid of going to hell.
Go figure.
My point is.....dont insult your family by changing how its pronouced because you are insecure about something trivial. It will come back and bite you in the butt.

Answer 5

zendullo