A distinctive name often gets people talking, and Scarlett Johansson is no exception.
While the actor has been a familiar face on screen for years, plenty of people are still unsure about how her surname is supposed to sound.
That question recently came up for her husband, Saturday Night Live performer Colin Jost, during a video shared by Pop Culture Jeopardy! on Instagram.
The person filming put the pronunciation debate to him directly.
“Is it Jo-Hansson or Yo-Hansson?”
Jost responded with a joke before giving his honest answer.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met her in person yet. I wanted to hear how she says it.”
After laughing it off, he explained that he personally goes with the more familiar version of the name.
“I certainly say ‘Jo-Hansson’. I mean, I don’t say it really ever… [like] ‘Yo, Johansson, why is the fridge empty?'”
Jost then pointed to her Scandinavian background, suggesting the original pronunciation may have sounded different.
“She’s Danish,” Jost added. “I think her family is kind of a mix. They probably went back and forth a little bit between Denmark and Sweden. So it was ‘Yo-Hansson’ probably, originally.”
He also noted that, given his own German ancestry, his surname may once have been said differently too, more like ‘Yost’.
Johansson has long spoken about her family background, including her Jewish heritage and her Danish roots. She has said her upbringing blended traditions from both sides of the family, with Christmas and Hanukkah both part of the household celebrations.
Her ancestry has also been explored on PBS series Finding Your Roots, where she learned that her maternal great-grandfather moved from Poland to New York in 1910 and worked selling bananas in Manhattan. On the show, Johansson reflected on how difficult that journey must have been for someone to make alone.
Born and raised in Manhattan, Johansson is one of four children born to Danish architect Karsten Johansson and producer Melanie Sloan.
She also has two half-siblings: Christian Johansson and her younger sister, Fenan Sloan.
Reflecting on the fact that he made the journey to America on his own, Johansson spoke emotionally about what may have driven him.
“I can only imagine he was coming from a place where he could not continue to survive.
“I think he must have come from some broken place, which would have caused him to go on a journey like this by himself.”
Johansson and Jost, who married in 2020, now share a son, Cosmo, while Johansson is also mother to daughter Rose from her previous marriage.