Since this is my first post for Ad Libbing, let me introduce myself. My name is Dzu Vien Bui.  I’m the son of a Vietnamese immigrant father and a White Western-European mixed mother from the United States. In the days before Google, I was always told my name was unique and made up for me – something I loved! Well, it turns out that I was misinformed. There are quite a few Dzu’s out there, as any Google search will show. 

The one thing we all I’m sure have in common is that Dzu is a difficult name for people to pronounce and even harder to spell if you just hear it – it doesn’t sound like it looks and doesn’t look like it sounds. In case you’re wondering this is the closest pronunciation I can find online.

This is problem not unique personal names. Government agencies and non-profits often face a similar difficulty with their organization names. Just look at the following few examples (pronunciations in parentheses):

• SAMHSA (SAM-SA)
• AHRQ (ARK)
• NHTSA (NIT-SA)
• GLSEN (GLISTEN)

Not everyone can be a DOT or CDC. And in a world where one’s URL is on everything and used as a main means of communication fulfillment, we need to ask, how do we ensure good traffic with a URL that is difficult to say or spell?

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