Mariska Hargitay is setting the record straight after decades of people saying her name wrong — including some of her own family members.
The Law & Order: SVU star revealed on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast Tuesday, October 21, that the correct pronunciation of her first name is actually “Muh-rish-kuh,” not the many variations fans have used over the years. Hargitay, 61, explained that her name is a Hungarian nickname derived from Maria, which means “Little Maria.”
“In Hungarian, the ‘ka’ or ‘ke’ at the end of the name is just like a little endearment,” she told Poehler. “So the name is actually ‘Maria’ after my grandmother, both of them, Hungarian and Italian.”
Even after decades in the public eye, Hargitay admitted that people — including colleagues and even relatives — still get it wrong. She recalled a recent lunch with her cousin who repeatedly mispronounced her name as “Muh-ris-kuh.” When Poehler asked if it was really her own cousin, Hargitay laughed and confirmed, “I’ve known him since 1994 and he kept calling me ‘Muh-ris-kuh.’” Though she almost corrected him, she decided to eventually just “let it go.”
The Emmy winner added that mispronunciations happen so often on the SVU set that she changed her name to “Marishhhhka” on the call sheet as a lighthearted way to help her coworkers get closer to the real thing. “I get called ‘Muh-ritz-uh,’ ‘Mar-see-kuh,’ ‘Mar-kis-kuh,’” she said, noting that her co-stars sometimes jokingly call her by the wrong versions on purpose.
Earlier this month, Hargitay reflected on one of SVU’s most emotional moments — the death of Captain Donald “Don” Cragen, played by Dann Florek. During her October 15 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Hargitay spoke about the season 27 premiere, which opened with Cragen’s wake. “We lost Captain Cragen. That was a rough one for [my] character,” she said to Clarkson.
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Hargitay added that filming the scene was bittersweet, as it marked Florek’s official farewell to the Law & Order universe after 35 years. The episode also reunited Olivia Benson with former colleagues like Detective Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters) and Special Agent George Huang (BD Wong). “It was really special but also very sad,” Hargitay said.
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