A comedian by any other name would still be as funny, as long as he is Hasan Minhaj.
That said, the American, who was born to a North Indian family, is very proud of his name, thank you very much.
The Patriot Act star appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show recently, where the host asked him what was the correct way to pronounce his exotic name.
“And it’s Ha-saan Min-aaj,” she said; to which the comedian corrected her with the correct pronunciation: Has-en Min-haj.
“Look, when I first started doing comedy, people were like, ‘you should change your name,’” he revealed. “And I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna change my name.’”
The 33-year-old then raised a fantastic point: “If you can pronounce Ansel Elgort, you can pronounce Hasan Minhaj. There’s an actor just named Ansel Elgort, and we all just walk around pronouncing it, completely normally.”
But as any comedian would, Hasan takes the recurring name situation in stride and finds the humor in it.
“At Starbucks, I go by Timothée Chalamet.”
Pleased to meet you.
