What’s in A Name?

Do you have one of those last names that everyone mispronounces? We’re looking at you, Yastrzemski and Kyrgios. It can get frustrating and you probably feel like you have to constantly tell people how to pronounce it. From college professors to coworkers to the teller at the bank, everyone takes some time to get it.

Now, what if that was the name of your business?  As far as mispronounced names go, Lifecycle Biotechnologies’ Chata brand is pretty high on the list. Chata Biosystems constantly falls victim to one of the English language’s most common pronunciation rules — ‘c’ and ‘h’ together combine to make the sound that begins the word church or chicken. Our brains are wired to see ‘ch’ and make that noise; however…

Chata is actually a Hebrew word and as you may have guessed, it doesn’t play by the rules. The ‘c’ in Chata is silent, as customers and even new employees are constantly finding out the hard way.

The phonetic spelling is even more confusing. The correct Hebrew phonetic spelling of Chata is khaw-taw. Now, looking at that, you would think, “There’s a ‘k’ in the phonetic spelling, it must be pronounced with a hard ‘c’ sound, right?” Nope. The ‘kh’ sound in Hebrew is a throatier version of the English ‘h’ sound. It’s notorious for being difficult to pronounce when someone is first learning to speak Hebrew. The actual pronunciation has a strong emphasis on the first syllable, but without any hard ‘c’ or ‘k’ sound as most of us know it.

At this point, we know what you’re probably thinking, “Wouldn’t it be better to use a name that isn’t so difficult to pronounce?”  Well, maybe. But there’s a reason that we use Chata. The Hebrew definition refers to the terms “to purify from sin” or “to purify from uncleanliness.”  For a company that prides itself on manufacturing only high quality chemicals and reagents—no impurities—is a pretty big deal.

So, the name stays and we’ve found some ways to have fun with it, even as we constantly hear it pronounced incorrectly. In fact, we’ve had new hires who went weeks without realizing that the c is actually silent. Customers practically always pronounce it with the standard ‘ch’ sound and  we’re okay with that.  At the end of the day we just wow them with our service and our products. The name is important, but we can always gently correct them when the time feels right.

If you’re looking for a source for custom chemicals and reagents you have a name, and now a pronunciation to go with it. Contact us today to learn more about how we help companies just like yours with all their chemical and reagent needs.