...which I have been sitting on for some time, but, based on the below
quote from the National Review Online (which has been discussed extensively on this site)...
Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent's simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to.
...I now feel as if I must make amends for the many months of torture I have put you people through.
As my on-screen cognomen suggests, my last name is Lieber, which my family has always pronounced LEE-BUR as it would have been back in the very foreign and terrifying country of Germany, where my ancestors were last seen playing the role of the "mole" in Adolph Hitler's version of "Wack-a-mole".
They were being shot in the streets, starved, and carted off like livestock to death camps where they were exterminated by the multiple millions... stuff like that.
Up until now, it has been with great pride that my family has held onto our last name (and its correct, though totally un-American pronunciation) because it was both an auditory link to those who did not escape persecution and a sign that YES, in fact, some of us had survived one of the greatest attempts at genocide humanity has every perpetrated.
Every time we spoke this awful, confusing, demanding name that has so vexed telemarketers (they think its LY-BUR as in "Mr. LY-BUR please call us back for 83% off our patented in-house rug cleaning!") it was a symbol of a victory won only by abandoning a homeland, giving up a lifetime of possessions, and having to hide in Catholic orphanages under assumed French names so horrible that I don't dare print them here.
Anyway, I now know those dark days are in the past and I should really just let go of my heritage and stop burdening the people of this great land with my historical longings, which is why, from this moment forward I will be legally changing my name to JESUS H. SMITH with the surname pronounced CHAY-NEE so as to make it most pleasing to the ear.
Thank you for your patience and your support.
Sincerely
Jesus Harold Smith