NRL Pronunciation Guide

By Stephen Gallagher

Kia ora, Kia orana, malo e lelei, talofa lava, bula vinaka, g’day, hello.

My name is Stephen Gallagher – I’m Māori (Ngāti Porou) who grew up in Wellington, New Zealand and recently moved to Penrith to pursue my creative/radio career.

Firstly, I am a footy tragic through and through. Always have been, and always will be. I am a long-suffering Saint George Illawarra Dragons fan who is longing for Jamie Soward to come back and win us another premiership.

I first came up with this idea in 2023, when I was working through building a Māori pronunciation guide with a colleague for work, who I also worked closely with when we founded a Māori and Pasifika Network there.

This initially took me about a month of my spare time to do, often working late at night after work and other footy commitments!

I get it. I do. Polynesian, Melanesian and Māori names can be hard to pronounce. Especially if you haven’t grown up around them and the culture like I have.

The one thing I want to stress with this NRL Pronunciation Guide is that this is done off my own back. So, is this 100% accurate? No – however, this is done to my best knowledge and understanding of the Māori and Pasifika languages. So I would say this is rather accurate and is a great stepping stone if you’re looking to get players’ names right.

I’ve spent plenty of time studying Te Reo Māori and Te Ao Māori, growing up with Pasifika peoples, and have whānau who are Sāmoan.

If you think there’s an error, or want to query any pronunciations, I am absolutely happy to revise and work through and work with you on these.  We are all learning, and with new players joining the NRL every year, and the increasing numbers of Māori and Pacific Island making their way into the NRL – it’s hard to keep up.

You can reach me at swtgallagher@gmail.com or @swtgallagher on Twitter or Instagram.

If you’d like to know more or ask any questions – I am more than happy to oblige.

So – thank you for wanting to take a look at this – it means a lot to me.

Let’s all get better at saying players’ names. A genuine attempt is better than not attempting at all. Be genuine with this. 

I’d love to get to do an NRLW version too, time and resources pending of course. It’s a time-consuming exercise, but worthwhile.

HERE IS THE GOOGLE DRIVE LINK TO THE NRL PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

I will give you access to view once you request it.

Follow Stephen Gallagher on Twitter