It’s pronounced “Throat Warbler Mangrove,” Siri

Siri can be frustrating. And we know from the most recent Apple financials call that Tim “This is Tim” Cook thinks so, too, even if he would intentionally not state that. While Siri doesn’t always know what you want or how to do it, people’s feathers get ruffled when it refuses to understand their name or that of people around them or with whom they refer to all the time.1

Six Colors reader Jackson wrote in with such a situation (and I received permission to share his and his partner’s name):

I have a partner with an uncommon spelling of a common name. Caryn is pronounced like Karen. Routinely my various devices will tell me I don’t have someone by that name in my contacts when I try to tell Siri to call or message her. The extra frustrating thing is that the text display of my input reads “Caryn” and it works if I repeat her full name.

I’ve gone into the contacts in added in the “Pronunciation First Name” field and filled it in with Karen but that doesn’t seem to have made a noticeable improvement. But there are also fields in there like “Phonetic first name” or “Nickname.” That’s three types of fields and I’m not sure if any of them would solve my problem or if I’m using them right when I do it.

I can fully understand why you would not know how to proceed, because Apple doesn’t provide guidance within the app or online about the phonetic and pronunciation fields, nor how to solve this name problem. The three fields each serve a different purpose:

You can add fields in Contacts (or via Phone) to correct Siri’s understanding of the sound of a name as it is spoken or how to speak it.

Pronunciation First Name: This field tells Siri how to say the name. So if you had a contact with the Irish name “Eòghann” and Siri might say “Eh-oh-guh-hann.” The name is often pronounced like “Owen” or “Ewan.” Using Pronunciation First Name, you can enter that anglicized version if Siri isn’t getting it right. With Caryn/Karen, the pronunciation seems to be the same, so this field won’t help. (You can also add last name pronunciation guidance.)

Phonetic First Name: Here’s where you should enter “Karen”—no special phonetic symbols required (or, perhaps, accepted). (You can also add middle and last name phonetic details.)

Nickname: Nickname can work as well, as adding “Karen” to a “Caryn” entry will provide a match. However, Siri might then use “Karen” in text onscreen when it refers to “Caryn”!

You can add any of these fields (and a number of others) by opening Phone or Contacts, selecting an entry, tapping Edit, and tapping “add field.”

Siri recognizes Caryn once I added “Karen” to phonetic first name.

I had several Karens and even a Carren in my address book. I added a “Caryn” with my phone number, and told Siri to “call Karen.” It showed all the Karens and Carren, but not Caryn. I then added “Karen” as Phonetic First Name, tried again, and it suggested Caryn as the first match! (See figure.)

One hopes that Future Siri will be able to deal with the vagaries of spelling names, given that it’s a critical component of what Siri should be able to recognize.

[For more about Siri, consult Scholle McFarland’s book, Take Control of Siri.]

[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]

At least it’s not as bad as this: “Eleven! Eleven!” ↩