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How to pronounce torvalds

person community-consensus

tor valdz /ˈtɔːrvɔːldz/ mp3

torvalds is most commonly pronounced "tor valdz" (/ˈtɔːrvɔːldz/). This is the widely-used reading among engineers, though edge cases exist.

Linus Torvalds (Linux, Git). First name is "LEE-nus", not "LYE-nus".

Pronouncing project and product names correctly avoids the small but persistent friction of being gently corrected during standups, conference Q&As, and team calls. Hearing the word a few times locks in the right reading better than reading IPA ever will. Pronounce is a community-maintained dictionary — every entry tagged with a confidence level and (where possible) a citable source.

Hear it from the command line

$ say-it torvalds # primary × 3 + audible "or: …" for each alternate
$ say-it --why torvalds # print the dict entry with source URL

Install the CLI: git clone https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce.git && cd pronounce && ./install.sh

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About this entry

Audio on this page is rendered by your browser's Web Speech API, whose voice varies by OS and browser. The CLI (say-it torvalds) uses macOS's built-in say with a tuned respelling for a consistent reading. Found an issue or want to add a reading? Contribute on GitHub.

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