Woman Doesn't Know How to Pronounce Her Rare Last Name Shared by Only 20 Known Relatives (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Katie Garapic; family photo of Katie Garapic’s great-grandfather and grandfather.Photo:Katie Garapic

Katie Garapic

Katie Garapic is having an identity crisis that spans generations and continents: she isn’t sure how toactuallypronounce her last name.

Garapic, 27, took to TikTok toshare how the dilemma occurred to herwhile she was watching the Olympics, though she tells PEOPLE her family has discussed the pronunciation since she was a child. She saw that many of the athletes from Serbia — which neighbors her family’s country of origin, Croatia — had last names that also end in “-ic,” but their names were spelled with an accent over the last letter.

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.

Katie Garapic with her sister, Elizabeth, and parents Rebecca and Peter Garapic.Katie Garapic

She tells PEOPLE that her great-grandfather emigrated from Croatia to the U.S. around 1896, and she’s been told their family name was likely “Americanized” then, hence the evolved pronunciation.

“We’ll never know if hechoseto change the spelling himself or if someone simply left the ‘accent’ off the ‘c’ on his arrival paperwork,” she shares. Thanks to TikTok, she actually learned that the letter “ć” isn’t just an accented character. Garapic clarifies, “It’s actually its own separate letter in the Croatian alphabet.”

Her video did help make connections and some new discoveries about the name. One person reached out simply to say she played cards with Garapic’s aunt in the 1980s. Someone else said they knew someone in Ohio with the name, though that person pronounces it the same way the creator does. Another TikTok user helped Garapic understand how she might hear it said in Croatia.

“The last syllable would be pronounced ‘itch,’ and the ‘r’ would be rolled to make a soft ’t' sound, kind of like ‘Gotta-pitch!'” she recalls of the advice she received from viewers. “I have determined how each of the letters in my name are supposed to sound, but there’s still some discourse over which syllable gets the emphasis.”

Katie Garapic with her parents Rebecca and Peter Garapic.Katie Garapic

(Strangers usually don’t spell it right either, says Garapic: “My personal favorite was an email addressed to Ms. Katie Garlic!")

Largely, Garapic tells PEOPLE she’s still looking for answers in solving the mystery of her surname. She’s hoping a native speaker will duet the video so she can hear it said properly out loud. On the recommendation of another commenter, Garapic did phone the Croatian Embassy, but her nerves got the best of her.

“I got phone-shy and hung up, so I may never know,” she jokes.

Ultimately, Garapic says her name is such a significant part of her identity that she doesn’t foresee changing the pronunciation anytime soon. In fact, she recently got married, and she and her wife plan to hyphenate their names.

Katie Garapic’s family at her sister’s musical.Katie Garapic

“We’ve always thought the Garapic name would end with us, so my sister committed at a very young age to keep our last name when she gets married,” she says, adding, “My [wife’s] last name is York, so she’s in for a treat as someone who has never had her name mispronounced in her life.”

Garapic and her sister are considering using the letter “ć” in writing for posterity’s sake, but not in any official way.

“I’d never pursue a legal name change over one letter,” adds Garapic. “But the ć does look great in my email signature!”

source: people.com