'Never Have I Ever' star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan wants people to pronounce her name correctly

• Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays protagonist Devi Vishwakumar on the Netflix series "Never Have I Ever."

• On Thursday, she tweeted about how people often pronounce her name wrong.

• She clarified the correct pronunciation is "My-tray-yee Ra-ma-krish-nin."

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Maitreyi Ramakrishnan stars in the Netflix hit series "Never Have I Ever," which audiences have been bingeing ever since the second season dropped on July 15.

In the show, Ramakrishnan plays a teenager named Devi Vishwakumar who navigates her life at school, relationships with two boys, and her traditional Indian family, as she processes the trauma of her father's death.

On Thursday, Ramakrishnan, who is 19, tweeted a voice note about how to correctly pronounce her name, as people had been getting it wrong her whole life.

"Names are so important, and I find that it's a big part of your identity - it personally is for me, I love my name so, so much," she said.

She said that when she was younger, she would tell people they could mispronounce her name because she believed she was inconveniencing them. But she now insists people get it right, both when meeting new people and when being interviewed.

"Like this is my name, I'm sorry but I get to call the shots here," she said. "There is one answer, and that answer is my own. There is no discussion."

Ramakrishnan said nobody wants their name to be "butchered," but sometimes we just accept it and that "really, really sucks."

"I hope you guys don't have to go through that too often," she said.

Ramakrishnan said she left the pronunciation to the end of the voice memo so people had to listen through the whole thing. She clarified that the correct pronunciation is "My-tray-yee Ra-ma-krish-nin."

"That's how I like it," she said. "I'm not expecting people to switch up their accents on me, just asking for basic respect."

In follow-up tweets, Ramakrishnan said before"Never Have I Ever" came out, many people used to assume she would adjust her name's pronunciation to make it easier.

"Lets make sure we remember that names have power. pronounce peoples names the way they want it to be pronounced and put in the effort," she added with a loving emoji. "So hey! My name is Maitreyi /my-tray-yee/"

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