My name in the western name order is Károly Kántor.

Pronounciation

“ly” is a digraph, the 20th letter of the Hungarian alphabet. The key is that the “L” is completely silent. Imagine it’s not even there and try “kaa-roy“.

Name Order

The Hungarian language uses the so called “eastern name order“, where family name comes first, given name comes second. This is similar to some East Asian languages, including Japanese, Korean and Chinese – hence the “eastern” name.

When abroad, or in a foreign language context, Hungarians usually use their names in the western (given name – family name) order, to avoid confusion.

My Given Name

My given (“first”) name, Károly, is the Hungarian equivalent of Karl, Carlo, Carlos, Charles, Karel etc. When abroad, in informal situations, I often introduce myself using the local equivalent of my name, to make it easier for locals to remember. So you can call me Karl, if you have to.

Accented Characters

Hungarian has several accented characters. As you might not have these characters on your keyboard, writing my name without them is OK. You can refer to me as “Karoly Kantor” when using your English keyboard. In fact, I often do the same when writing in English.

About My Family Name

Kántor is an occupational surname. In English, the profession is called cantor. This denotes the lead singer in a catholic church. I think the origin is Latin / Italian “cantare“, “to sing“. You do not want to hear me sing.

“Kantor” also means “currency exchange” in Polish. This is a coincidence as this Polish word is related to “counter“. Kantoor means “office” in Dutch. Also unrelated.

Other notable appearances of the letter “LY”

• Székely – A subgroup of Hungarian people, living in Székely Land, Eastern Transylvania, part of Romania since the catastrophic defeat of (Austria-) Hungary in World War One. By the way, in Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula, Count Dracula is a Székely. Wrong.

• Louis Alfred Székely (a.k.a. Louis C.K.) – American stand-up comedian, actor and filmmaker, whose father was of Hungarian origin. Very obviously, he calls himself C.K. because he was tired of explaining how to pronounce “LY”.

• János Bolyai – 19th century mathematician, founder of non-Euclidian geometry. His theories are the foundations of how we see the structure of the universe today. He has “LY” in the middle of his surname – making it so difficult to pronounce for foreigners. Listen to a serious butchering of his name here, (at around 6:00 minutes) in an otherwise excellent presentation of his achievements.