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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

There is some controversy over how to pronounce SQL with some using S-Q-L and others (like me) pronouncing it like the word "sequel".

I believe the latter is the correct name for historical reasons. IBM originally named SQL 'SEQUEL' but were forced to rename it for trademark reasons.

So I pronounce SQLite sequelite.

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> So I pronounce SQLite sequelite.

This is by far the most popular pronunciation I’ve encountered, and I think by far the most practical one too.

Popular in America, but not elsewhere.

I also never heard it. In Brazil I only have heard SQL pronunced as sequel in NoSQL. SQLite is mostly pronounced S-Q-Light here, with the S and Q in Portuguese (weird, but it happens often)

In the US, I also say S-Q-Light.

Weird, I thought this was settled years ago, and it's obviously sequel. I guess we all live in our own echo chambers

> with the S and Q in Portuguese

Guilty as charged. Pronouncing letters and numbers in English requires an active mental effort for me, so that happens if I'm not paying attention. I guess it's because they don't really register as another language, even with context. My inner monologue also does letters and numbers in Portuguese, which doesn't help either.

Some time around 2008-2012, I think, my habit shifted from saying S Q L to SEQUEL in most cases. Even internal voice, when thinking/reading, still says SEQUAL now. Even things like My S Q L became My SEQUEL.

I feel like I made that shift due to how people around me, and how public speakers, were aligning on it too, it felt to me that the nomenclature was unifying a bit as linguistics evolve and change a bit over normal course of time. I remember the shift was not easy and I had to put intention into it and it took a bit of time to make it feel natural. Although, I’ve never thought about this too deeply and as I write it I’m Not sure how others would respond to my memory of it. I’m sure it’s very regional, and now age dependent as I’m sure if I was passed mid career at that time i wouldn’t have budged on my preferred terminology but also there’s many people who maybe are just too young to understand the time and trend that I remember. Or just my own experience and there was nothing really unifying at all.

For what it's worth(not much), but if we are doing a survey...

(US/western, not coastal)

I pronounce it ess que lite.

and always letter out SQL.

postgresql is the tricky one, naively there is no good way to pronounce it. so when formal I say "postgres Q L" but mostly just call it postgres

and because of the previous cases I have started slurring mysql, easily the most pronounceable one into "mys Q L"

Microsofts SQL server (which I have never actually used, and almost never talk about) is simply "S Q L server"

I've never heard anyone not say "sequel server" for Microsoft's SQL Server

Spite is a legitimate reason to choose a pronunciation.

I remember hearing an interview with Richard Hipp where he said he pronounced it as you do ("rhymes with kryptonite" I think he may have said, or perhaps "like a mineral").

I'd always pronounced it in my head S-Q-L-Lite up until that point, but I much prefer this other way that I'd never considered. It rolls off the tongue easier and adds a bit of fancy.

I have never heard anything else but S-Q-L, in multiple workplaces. What I was new to databases I started with the history lesson, but was quickly corrected to pronounce it S-Q-L.

I don't even know anymore, nor does anyone else I think

As an alternate datapoint, I've almost solely (by a 90% majority or more) heard "sequel" and "sequelite" (/'siː.kwəl/ and /'siː.kwəˌlaɪt/, respectively) across 12 years and 6 companies (from FAANG to YC startups in SF and NYC)

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