This is how you should actually pronounce Ralph Lauren… and you’ve probably been saying it wrong
Should the emphasis be on the LAU or the REN? A girl wrote to the fashion house to find out
IF ever the name Ralph Lauren has come up in conversation, chances are you’ve been saying his surname wrong.
One of the most popular ways to pronounce the fashion giant’s moniker is to put the emphasis on the REN.
However, that’s now been revealed to be incorrect – and the revelation is all thanks to Twitter user @Milbermann.
When she was younger, the British comedy booking agent wrote a letter to the style house asking for the accurate way to say Lauren.
She’s now posted the 2004 response she received – on official Ralph Lauren letterhead paper – on Twitter, alongside the witty caption: “Sometimes I wonder why I wasn't popular in school but then I remembered this was how I settled arguments.”
And it turns out the right pronunciation is how you’d say the girl’s name.
The company’s UK General Manager at the time, Benjamin Lisi, penned the letter, writing: “I would like to assure you that the way you are pronouncing his name is correct.
“As you put it, ‘LAUren’, like a girl’s name. This is the way he pronounces it along with everyone in his company and throughout the fashion world.”
It was also the way Rachel (aka Jennifer Aniston) from Friends said his name when she was employed by the designer.
In fact, Ralph even made a cameo in the show in 1999 – getting in the lift with Rachel at the company’s New York headquarters just as she was telling a colleague that she’d had a fling with the businessman, even though she hadn’t.
