'Never Have I Ever' Star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Talks The Importance of Learning How To Pronounce South Asian Names

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is proving a very important point in her latest interview with Variety.

The 18-year-old actress chatted with the site about her Netflix show, Never Have I Ever, and applauded the series for promoting cultural sensitivity, and that includes pronouncing her name and other South Asian names correctly.

“That active effort for Devi’s name ‘Vishwakumar,’ to get that right, it’s important because that’s her name. You deserve to be called the way you want to be called, no matter what,” she shared.

Maitreyi adds that she knows “obviously, Tamil names are super long. My entire full name — Maitreyi Ramakrishnan — I have 20 letters, but I do have my friends at school that just call me Ramakrishnan and they pronounce it correctly. I think names are so important.”

“I think one of the greatest disrespects you can do to a person is not put the effort into somebody’s name. Personally for me, I used to anglicize my name…in high school, and then when I landed in L.A., they were like, ‘How do you say your name? Sorry, I don’t want to mix it up.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is my chance to reclaim my name’ because I love my name. Why would I change it?”

Never Have I Ever is streaming on Netflix now.

Head to JustJared.com to see what Maitreyi shared about a possible season two!