Highlights:
When Elon Musk mocked New York mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani by referring to him as "Mumdumi or whatever his name is," critics said the mispronunciation was no accident.
To many immigrants, it echoed a broader experience in which names become tools for exclusion and coded prejudice.
Musk, who endorsed independent candidate Andrew Cuomo in the city's mayoral race, made the remark last week on his social media platform X, which he purchased in 2022, says CNN.
"Bear in mind that a vote for Curtis is really a vote for Mumdumi or whatever his name is," Musk wrote, urging voters to back Cuomo instead of Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
The post drew immediate backlash. Users called it "childish, racist behaviour," with journalist Mehdi Hasan writing, "You can take the boy out of apartheid but can you really take the apartheid out of the boy?"
Others said purposely mangling a person's name is "one of the easiest tells that someone is racist," while one executive described it as a "third rate, middle-schooler tactic."
For Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist who could become New York's first Muslim mayor, the moment was not isolated. His name has been repeatedly mispronounced on the campaign trail - including by Cuomo himself, who has alternated between "Mamdini" and "Mamdani" in interviews and speeches.
Mamdani has said such inconsistencies reveal not difficulty, but disregard. "Andrew Cuomo never struggles with names like John Catsimatidis," he noted, arguing that claims of difficulty with his name reflect "an issue of prejudice."
Mamdani has often said that intent, not effort, defines the problem. "When people go out of their way to mispronounce it - that's not a mistake, that's a message," he said, describing deliberate mispronunciation as "an issue of prejudice."
The dynamic has long extended beyond New York politics. Former US President Donald Trump dismissed concerns about repeatedly mispronouncing Vice President Kamala Harris's name, saying, "I couldn't care less if I mispronounce [Kamala], I couldn't care less."
Analysts say such statements signal indifference - and, at times, hostility - toward non-Western identities, reinforcing a pattern of "othering" in political discourse.
Mamdani's experience mirrors those of many immigrants who see their names distorted or mocked. At a recent Friday prayer service, he asked congregants to raise their hands if someone had consistently mispronounced their name. "Most people in the room raised their hands," he recalled. "It's something countless immigrants have experienced."
Still, Mamdani differentiates between effort and intentional disrespect. "I don't begrudge anyone who tries and gets it wrong," he said. "The effort means everything to me."
Linguists say names like "Mamdani" contain sounds less common in English, but stress that intent matters more than phonetics. "We can learn hard names," one professor said. "We just have to practice."
For Mamdani and many others, the recurring mispronunciations - whether from a billionaire, a political rival, or a former president - serve as a reminder that in American public life, a name can still mark the boundary between belonging and exclusion.
Zohran Mamdani / Andrew Cuomo / Elon Musk / Donald Trump / Racism in America