10 Things Harry Potter Fans Probably Didn't Know About Voldemort
9. You've Probably Been Saying His Name Wrong
Early on in his evil career, Tom Riddle clearly decided that his own name wasn’t menacing enough and adopted the name Voldemort instead. Admittedly, this does sound much more frightening.
Still, one has to wonder whether he gets frustrated with people pronouncing that name wrong. While most of us will have pronounced the name with a hard ‘t’ upon first coming across it in the books, and the films followed suit on this, author J.K. Rowling revealed that this is not actually the correct way to say it.
Back in 2015, Rowling confirmed on Twitter that the 't' was indeed silent, while also noting that she was probably the only person who actually said it that way. This is because the name’s origin comes from French, a language where the letter t is usually silent.
The name also gives us a hint as to Voldemort’s true nature, since it translates as “flight from death” or “to flee from death”, highlighting his lifelong goal of obtaining immortality.