Why you’ve been pronouncing the new PM’s name completely WRONG – and the little Italian trick to make sure you’re never caught out again
- Anthony ‘Albo’ Albanese, 56, has shared the correct way to say his surname
- His Italian last name is pronounced with a soft ‘S’ and strong vowel at the end
- Mr Albanese is the first Australian Prime Minister with a non-Anglo last name
Australia’s new PM Anthony Albanese shares the correct way to pronounce his surname – and the simple thing to remember that Aussies can use to get it right.
Over the course of the election campaign and his more than three decades in politics, many Australians have fallen into the habit of pronouncing the 31st Prime Minister’s name as if it rhymes with the word ‘easy’.
Liberal ads even campaigned against Mr Albanese by using the catchphrase ‘it won’t be easy under Alba-neasy’. However, that pronunciation isn’t quite right.
During an episode of Q&A several years ago, Mr Albanese said his Italian surname is pronounced with a soft ‘S’ and strong vowel at the end.
‘It’s actually Alban-nese,’ he said. ‘It depends where you’re from.’
Listen to the correct pronunciation in the video below
Mr Albanese explained his Italian surname is pronounced with a soft ‘s’ and a strong vowel at the end
‘It’s a very gentle S in Italian but you always use the vowel at the end.
‘No one says Bolo-ney-sey, do they?’ he asked, of the word bolognese.
‘They should.’
According to ancestry.com the surname Albanese is a southern Italian name given to people from Albania or from one of the Albanian settlements in Abruzzo, Apulia, Campania, and Sicily.
Mr Albanese is the son of Carlo Albanese from Barletta, a city in the region of Apulia, in south eastern Italy.
The Labor leader believed his father had been killed in a car accident until he was about 15 when his mother finally revealed he was the result of a fling with an Italian steward she met on a voyage from Sydney to England.
Anthony Albanese (pictured) is the son of Carlo Albanese from Barletta, a city in the region of Apulia, in south eastern Italy. The surname was given to people from Albania or from one of the Albanian settlements in Italy
He met his father, Carlo, in Italy seven years after his mother’s death in 2002. His father died of cancer in 2014.
Mr Albanese brought the Labor in from Opposition for the first time in nine years when he was elected on Saturday.
Labor is currently closing in on 76 seats – which would allow Mr Albanese to run a majority government in its own right.
Mr Albanese was officially sworn in as the 31st Prime Minister on Monday and is the first person with a non-Anglo last name to reach high office.
‘I, Anthony Norman Albanese do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia, her land and her people in the office of Prime Minister,’ the new leader said.
The incoming parliament will be the most diverse in the nation’s history and comes at a time where half of Australia’s state premiers have non-traditional western names.
Anthony Albanese (pictured, centre) celebrated his election win with his partner Jodie Haydon (left) and son Nathan (right) and his the first Prime Minister with a non-Anglo surname to hold office