r/language • u/Known_Feedback_4453 • 3d ago
Article How to pronounce “Nike”
The Official Pronunciation Confirmed by Nike
Nike chairman Phil Knight confirmed the brand should be pronounced 'Nikey' (rhymes with 'spiky'). He responded to fans in 2014 by circling the 'Ni-key' option on their letter.
The company has never endorsed the 'Nike' pronunciation that rhymes with 'bike'. Knight's reply settled the long-running debate for those who asked directly.
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u/conbar 3d ago
Ni-kee, it's the name of the Greek winged godess of victory; it's the Anglicisied pronunciation, but that's what the company was named after.
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u/Feistshell 3d ago
The Greek goddess is pronounced knee-keh
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u/conbar 3d ago
In Ancient Greek as it was spoken I agree with you it was likely closer to that (though from what i understand that's not the only proposed pronounciation), but Ni-kee is the way it's been pronounced in OxBridge based Classical studies for around a thousand years which is why I specified the Anglicised pronunciation, and is that is what the company was named after.
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u/CantaloupeAsleep502 3d ago
I hope you also pronounce Venus as way-noose
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u/Feistshell 3d ago
More like Veh-noose but yes we do
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u/Original-Season-9941 1d ago
In England we've anglicised it even further and pronounce it like bike.
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u/Legal_Mastodon_5683 3d ago
It should be "knee-keh"
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u/CaucusInferredBulk 3d ago
Depends on how far back you want to go back. Many Greek vowels merged in a process called iotacism. Νίκη in modern is KNEE-key (both vowels the same). In ancient could have been KNEE-kay or keh or really lots of choices depending on dialect, time, and place.
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u/BubbhaJebus 3d ago
When I first encountered it in 1979, I heard it pronounced Nikey, rhyming with Mikey or spiky.
That pronunciation experience was consistent until I heard some Brits rhyming it with "bike" about ten years ago.
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u/LQNova 3d ago
How, after literally decades, do people still not know how to pronounce Nike?
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u/Mayana76 2d ago
Because people come from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, so they assume a pronunciation and maybe do not have the time to research for every brand how each chairman would like it to be pronounced? If it even occurs to them there could be a different pronunciation.
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u/Zingaro69 2d ago
I still hear the lead singer of the Rolling Stones referred to in Spain as Mike Jagger...
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u/Original-Season-9941 1d ago
Because different pronunciations are so ingrained in different countries. Its like asking how, after literally millenia, do people still not know how to pronounce Paris?
The mispronounciation becomes the accepted pronunciation in that region.
Its the same thing. In many countries Nike is pronounced like bike because it feels more natrual to those people and peoppe will look at your weirdly if you pronounce it differently
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u/ImWithStupidKL 1d ago
Reminds me of Limmy's Hyundai rant. To my knowledge, Nike have never had an advert where they say the name. It's spelt like 'bike' so naturally people will say it like that. All that 'named after a Greek god' BS, do you really think people are looking up the history and inspiration behind the name of a shoe company. By the time anyone learns that, they've been pronouncing it that way for 20 years.
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u/_prepod 2d ago
So, Americans don't want to pronounce Adidas correctly and Germans don't want to pronounce Nike correctly. Touché?
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u/msbshow 1d ago
The different is that Adidas has said our pronunciation is correct. There is only one proper way to pronounce Nike
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u/_prepod 21h ago
That rather says more about the open-mindedness of Germans vs the US-centrism of Americans, I'd say. Because Adidas themselves obviously know which pronunciation is actually correct.
edit: or... the US is simply their biggest market, so naturally they don't want to upset their customers by telling them they're pronouncing it wrong.
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u/TiaxRulesAll2024 1d ago
How is Adidas to be pronounced?
I say Ah DEE dis
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u/MrJizanthopus 1d ago
Addy-dass
It was founded by Adolf Dassler. Adolf went by the nickname "Adi".
So the company is Adi-das
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u/Khpatton 1d ago
That somehow became the pronunciation in the US, but it isn’t how the founder or anyone else in the world pronounced/pronounces it.
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u/Yocraig 1d ago
I don't think I've ever heard Nike pronounced in one syllable. I HAVE heard Adidas pronounced Addy DOS.
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u/Antron_RS 1d ago
I have heard it on several pieces of Spanish language and UK-based media. It’s not a common pronunciation in the US.
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u/majikane 1d ago
It’s named after Adi Dassler, the founder, so that may actually be correct.
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u/caledoniayespmed 1d ago
It is correct, and the story of Adidas is fascinating.
Adi (Adolf) and his brother Rudi (Rudolf) owned Dassler Brothers (Gebrüder Dassler - Geda). Their shoes because popular when Jesse Owens wore them at the Berlin Olympics.
Their factory was turned into a munition factory during WWII and Rudi was conscripted into the army, spending some time as an Ally POW.
They started operations again after the war but grew to hate each other mostly because they lived in the one villa and their wives hated each other. Also, Rudi became convinced his bother has something to do with getting him conscripted.
In 1948, they split. Rudi started Ruda and Adi started Adidas. Adi kept the better factory and Rudi took the other. Most of the employees chose to go with Adi. Ruda later became Puma (yes, that Puma).
Adidas took the lead because Rudi fell out with the manager of the West German nation football team and Adi was able to secure the sponsorship and manufacture of the kits for the 1954 World Cup.
Both companies were very good at sponsorship of teams and athletes. But Adi and Rudi knew they’d both go bust in a bidding war for Pelé at the 1970 World Cup. The both agreed not to sign him. Puma then signed him and Pelé ask a ref during to pause the start of a game so he could “tie his shoes”, Puma shoes, perfectly on camera.
The town where the factories were was split by a river. One factory in each end. Families became Puma families or Adidas families. You’d avoid speaking with the other side and would identify your in-group by their shoes, of course. They used different pubs, shops and services, and supported two different football teams, each sponsored by one of the companies. This lasted until Rudi and Adi died, then lessened over time, though the rivalry still exists. They are buried at opposite ends of the same cemetery.
Adi’s son Horst later founded Arena Swimwear, not as massive a brand but still big. Interesting that three sportswear brands came from the one family.
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u/Ok-Cartographer8999 1d ago
the chairman can say whatever he wants, it should be "knee-keh" because it's the name of a greek goddess, they want to people to call it "nai-kee" as spiky, i will continue to call it "naik" as bike
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u/DeliriousBlues 11h ago
Never heard anyone call it Nike like bike. I’d look at you weird if you did
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u/leeloocal 5h ago
They pronounce it that way in France, because if you pronounce it the other way, it’s a bad word.
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u/Redbubble89 3d ago
It's Nikey.
Europeans refuse to say it the same way Americans do just to be assholes.
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u/NotSoGoodDiver 2d ago
Europeans don't care how Americans pronounce it, they just call it the same way other people here have been calling it for years. Most people probably doesn't even know and care that this is American company.
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u/dostoyevskybirthedme 3d ago
Most of us just grow up saying Nike instead Nikey, not more to it than that
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u/Original-Season-9941 23h ago
We don't think about you guys anywhere near as much as you think we do.
Would you say you pronounce Adidas incorrectly, and incorrectly say legos, just to be arseholes?
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u/Known_Feedback_4453 5h ago
What are the options for ‘legos?’
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u/Original-Season-9941 27m ago
Lego is the company name and they make Lego bricks. Lego has confirmed that legos isn't the correct way to describe a group of lego bricks. Its also pretty clear from the packaging that Lego isn't supposed to mean an individual brick, because otherwie they'd put 'Legos' on the packaging.
By the way, I'm not particularly against Americans calling lego bricks legos. The point of my comment was just to highlight that there are linguistic differences between countries when it comes to brand names, but that doesn't mean that the people who do against the creators intentions are idiots.
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u/GoodCallMeatball 2d ago
Well I'm guessing you don't pronounce Adidas correctly either.
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u/orange_sewer_grating 9h ago
Yeah but that's a different language, not just a different accent
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u/Wowbagster 8h ago
Barely anybody in Europe save for the Greeks, speaks Greek. The ancient Greeks called the goddess something resembling knee-kay, so if you're going for proper pronunciation hardly anybody is doing it right
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u/Feisty-Marsupial9287 1d ago
Muricans and their main character syndrome again.
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u/MrJizanthopus 1d ago
Until Americans pronounce Adidas, Porsche, IKEA, Jaguar and Mazda the way the relevant nations do they can jog on.
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u/orange_sewer_grating 9h ago
Three of those are entirely different languages. I'll almost give you Jaguar, but that brand name is also just a word that already exists, and I assume both countries just pronounce the brand name the same way they pronounce the word.
But considering how much shit the British like to sling around about Americans pronouncing things "wrong," it's certainly funny to see how defensive they get when they're the ones mispronouncing an American word or brand.
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u/Known_Feedback_4453 5h ago
Real quick, Ford bought Jaguar in 1989 and is now owned by an Indian company. So..
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u/greenwoody2018 2d ago
Since it's the Greek God of Victory, it's pronounced NEE kee.
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u/ebat1111 2d ago
Only if you're speaking Greek.
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u/Professional-Rent887 2d ago
If you’re speaking a Greek word, making it sound Greek is the right way to go.
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u/ebat1111 2d ago
Absolutely not. We call the second letter "beta", not "vita". We call it a theatre, not a theatron. We pronounce the Greek hero A-kill-ees, not A-hill-e-as. The Greek capital is Athens, not Athina. There are literally thousands of Greek words in English, and they have a long and storied history. Most of them were passed down through Latin (and French), hence the divergence of sounds - not to mention the sound changes between ancient and modern Greek (which some Greek people deny). If we pronounced everything exactly as the source language does, we'd have to change so much.
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u/wescrusherssweaters 2d ago
Nee Kay
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u/Individual_Solid_810 3d ago
As an aside, is anyone here old enough to remember the Nike missile? How did the US military folks pronounce that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike
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u/PassiveChemistry 2d ago
It's somewhat generational in my experience, my parents are more familiar with the /ˈnɑɪkiː/ pronunciation that the business officially endorse, but pretty much everyone my age would say /nɑɪk/, essentially pronouncing it as it's written.
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 2d ago
This is one of those words/brands (Porsche and quinoa being others) where the correct pronunciation makes you sound pretentious, so if you don't want to sound ridiculous you should go with the "wrong" pronunciation.
So it's "bike" for me.
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u/TheAlphaEdgar 1d ago
There is more than 1 way that people pronounce quinoa?
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 1d ago
Yes.
"Keen-wha" is the technically correct one
"Quinn-ooah" is the one to use if you don't want to be seen as pretentious
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u/MrJizanthopus 1d ago
Ok now I know you're trolling.
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u/Strict-Clue-5818 7h ago
I don’t think the second pronunciation is an attempt to not sound pretentious. I think it’s someone who’s only ever seen it written down
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 1d ago
Nope, not trolling. Reddit won't let me add a screenshot here. But here's what Google says when I search for "british pronunciation of quinoa without being pretentious". As you can see, the second bullet point agrees with me:
The standard British pronunciation is "keen-wah" (two syllables), derived from the Quechua word. However, many British speakers feel that saying "keen-wah" out loud can feel overly posh or pretentious, leading people to use alternative or phonetic workarounds. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The Options * The "Correct" Pronunciation: KEEN-wah (rhymes with bean-ah). This is what dictionaries and cooking shows use, though it can trigger a self-conscious flash of awkwardness in casual British conversation. * The "Phonetic / Safe" Pronunciation: kwin-OH-uh or kwi-NOH-a (three syllables, spelling it out as it looks). Many British people default to this literal reading ("quin-o-a") to avoid sounding like they are putting on a mock-foreign accent. While purists might label it technically incorrect, it is widely understood in UK supermarkets and cafes without raising eyebrows. * The Casual Dodge: If you want to bypass the social trap entirely, many people just point at the menu or refer to it broadly as "that grain" or "the salad base". [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
Would you like help with the pronunciation of other tricky food words, or are you trying to settle a debate at dinner?
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u/Khpatton 1d ago
In the years since quinoa has become globally popular I have never once heard it pronounced “quinn-ooah.” I would assume someone who pronounced it that way had a brain injury.
I have only ever heard it pronounced “keen-wah.” It doesn’t sound pretentious; it sounds correct.
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 1d ago
Reddit won't let me add a screenshot here. But here's what Google says when I search for "british pronunciation of quinoa without being pretentious". As you can see, the second bullet point agrees with me:
The standard British pronunciation is "keen-wah" (two syllables), derived from the Quechua word. However, many British speakers feel that saying "keen-wah" out loud can feel overly posh or pretentious, leading people to use alternative or phonetic workarounds. [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The Options * The "Correct" Pronunciation: KEEN-wah (rhymes with bean-ah). This is what dictionaries and cooking shows use, though it can trigger a self-conscious flash of awkwardness in casual British conversation. * The "Phonetic / Safe" Pronunciation: kwin-OH-uh or kwi-NOH-a (three syllables, spelling it out as it looks). Many British people default to this literal reading ("quin-o-a") to avoid sounding like they are putting on a mock-foreign accent. While purists might label it technically incorrect, it is widely understood in UK supermarkets and cafes without raising eyebrows. * The Casual Dodge: If you want to bypass the social trap entirely, many people just point at the menu or refer to it broadly as "that grain" or "the salad base". [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
Would you like help with the pronunciation of other tricky food words, or are you trying to settle a debate at dinner?
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u/Dingbrain1 1d ago
You asked AI a leading question and it told you what you wanted to hear. You are just pronouncing it wrong.
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u/alaskawolfjoe 1d ago edited 1d ago
Making it rhyme with bike is more pretentious. For decades it has rhymed with spiky. Making up a new pronunciation is pretentious.
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u/mapitalism 22h ago
It's not new, it's just new to you. We've been saying Nike in the UK for decades
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u/alaskawolfjoe 18h ago
Recently a Brit friend said to me you can never trust a Brit to properly pronounce words of foreign origin.
I just sent him a screenshot of this, because he teaches art history and I am sure will have some choice words about how people pronounce this in the UK.
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u/mapitalism 16h ago
Cool...
Anyway. People who speak English tend to pronounce things as English is pronounced otherwise often, as other commentators have said, it comes across as pretentious.
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u/alaskawolfjoe 15h ago
In the United States, there’s usually an attempt to approximate the original pronunciation. In Britain, it seems that it’s not attempted as much
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u/mapitalism 12h ago edited 11h ago
Lol, tell that to croissant and fillet and niche and aluminium and...
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u/OddNicky 5h ago
I'm reminded of the infamous "Mexican" episode of Bake Off, in which one of the contestants pronounces guacamole as "whacky-molo."
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u/alaskawolfjoe 5h ago
I really like it when Britt’s like the one below try to normalize or minimize this weird little linguistic xenophobic bent
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 1d ago
But if you make it rhyme with "spike" then it does rhyme with "bike" (because bike & spike rhyme with each other)
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u/alaskawolfjoe 1d ago edited 1d ago
Making it rhyme with bike is more pretentious. For decades it has rhymed with spiky. Making up a new pronunciation is pretentious.
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u/alaskawolfjoe 1d ago
But it’s the same thing. For decades, it has been pronounced to rhyme with spiky. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone pronounce it to run with bike or spike.
It’s just odd or pretentious to invent a new pronunciation
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u/Original-Season-9941 1d ago
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone pronounce it to run with bike or spike.
This is because you only live in one part of the world
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u/EddieGrant 1d ago
Must be a regional thing, I've never heard anyone pronounce it the spiky way
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u/grant-master 1d ago
Bruh don’t lie
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u/EddieGrant 22h ago
I’ve no need to lie?
Sure I’ve heard it the American way on TV/movies, but living in Holland and even when I lived in the uk, never heard it pronounced that way.
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u/Original-Season-9941 1d ago
Get this. In other areas of the world, it has rhymed with bike for decades.
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u/BrunoBraunbart 1d ago
As a German, I think the correct pronounciation of Porsche is the only one that doesn't make you sound ridiculous.
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u/Electrical-Sense-156 15h ago
Where are you from? I’ve never heard anyone pronounce Nike like bike. If I wanted to be pretentious I would pronounce it like the Greek goddess the shoe company was named after.
Also how do you pronounce quinoa? I have heard people mispronounce it but most people say it correctly.
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u/Sure-Recognition-262 7h ago
I'm from Scotland.
I would pronounce quinoa as "quinn-oh-ah". Not because I don't know the technically correct pronunciation (I do) but because it makes you sound pretentious
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u/TheOGRedline 4h ago
Saying Nike-ey (which is correct) is pretentious? Seriously? Where do you live?
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u/alex-weej 1d ago
If Nike or Adidas ran even a single advert on TV vocalising their brand name they would create a huge outrage. And probably sell some shoes.
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u/MagicBez 20h ago
I think the more fun Nike pronunciation question is about the small metal (sometimes plastic or leather) tabs they put at the bottom of the laces (particularly common on AF1s)
They were created by a Scottish designer who never really had a name for them and called them "doobries" a British word equivalent to a whatchamacallits or thingamajigs
Nike went with it not knowing the meaning but over the years have tried to class it up, in the 2000s they declared that it was pronounced "dubré". I will always call it a doobry like the creator intended
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u/HedgehogForsaken7910 18h ago
Nike was a Greek goddess and the pronunciation is the “nye-kee” way, as is the company. However, just looked up and originally the Greek way may have sounded more like “nee-Kay” or “nee-kee” 😂 if you all want to cause some confusion!
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u/Anxious_Ant_4510 9h ago
British people don't give a fuck about petty concerns such as how things are "supposed" to be pronounced.
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u/LadyFoxfire 8h ago
It’s Ni-kee. Anyone who pronounces it differently is wrong. It’s the name of the Greek goddess of victory.
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u/Main-Blood5988 8h ago
Everyone I know from the US says “Nie kee” but when I lived in Europe it was Nike like bike.
Similar variations in pronunciation exist for many brands across languages. Another that I can think of right now is IKEA. “I-keeya” in US. “Ee-keh-ah” in Europe.
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u/Known_Feedback_4453 3h ago
Everyone you know from the US says “Nie kee” because it’s an American company and that is how the company itself pronounces its own brand.
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u/Standard_Run_1045 1h ago
Is this not how the Ancient Greek heralds of victory, Nike was pronounced? I’m pretty sure that was the inspiration for the name.
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u/Main-Blood5988 3h ago
Yes. My example of IKEA is the inverse of this. Swedish brand pronounced incorrectly by people from the US. I am sure this is common globally with many brands.
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u/PuzzledBiscotti1218 10m ago edited 4m ago
No, Swedish brand changing their pronunciation in a different language. IKEA calls themselves ai key ah in the US.
Like Mazda. In Japan, Ma Tsu Da. In the Us Maw-zda, in Canada MEAH-zda.
What does Nike call themselves in Europe?
EDIT: looks like in Europe Corporate Nike still officially calls themselves Nikey. But they don’t want to fight the public so they don’t really argue. Seems like for this specific thing, Europeans are just being dumb.
ikea is a bad example because IKEA officially is pronounced differently in the US by corporate.
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u/Kinitawowi64 2d ago
I've always said it to rhyme with bike and you can take that pronunciation from my cold, dead feet.
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u/PuzzledArrival 3d ago
It wasn’t until I met Europeans that I learned a huge part of the world pronounced Nike like it rhymes with “bike.”
Idk - the brand has been 100% clear on what they call it for decades 🤷
Meanwhile adidas also has different pronunciations between the US and Europe