BG3 Fans, We've Been Pronouncing Astarion's Name Wrong

Neil Newbon has entered the chat

Over the course of more than 236 hours of voice acting in Baldur’s Gate 3, no character in the game ever says Astarion’s full name out loud. We know what his last name is — the detail-loving fanbase has spent the last three years staring at “Ancunín” on Astarion’s gravestone. But we’ve only been able to guess at how it’s meant to sound, with many of us landing somewhere around “an-KYU-nin” for an approximate pronunciation. That changed this week when a sample of the new tie-in audiobook Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion gave us the first-ever chance to hear the name officially spoken — and by Astarion’s voice actor Neil Newbon, himself. The sound bite has taken everyone off guard. According to the voice of Astarion, the correct pronunciation of "Ancunín" is something closer to "an-soo-neen." The internet’s divided on whether to take this new information in stride or to, with all due respect to Newbon, say the name the way we’ve mostly agreed on since 2023.

Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion, written by T. Kingfisher and narrated by Newbon, is a prequel novel following Astarion’s years as a magistrate-turned-vampire-spawn under Cazador Szarr before the events of Baldur’s Gate 3. The book will be available on Sept. 29 through major book retailers, and the audiobook through platforms including Audible, Spotify, and library apps like Libby. A five-minute audio sample of the first chapter, which opens on Astarion bleeding out in an alleyway contemplating blood-tinged turnips as fashion inspiration, is out now.

The surname mix-up can be traced to the accent over the í, which can be hard to see when chiseled into a gravestone, to be fair. Commenters dissecting this news on X note that the accent is what softens "nin" into "neen" — and from there, how the "c" gets pronounced is really anyone's guess, which is how you end up with camps split between "soo" and "koo."

The book itself, and what we know about it so far, is causing its own stir among early listeners. Kingfisher consulted directly with Stephen Rooney, Astarion’s original writer at Larian Studios, to keep the prequel feeling both true to the character and consistent with the larger game’s lore. The result is a mixed bag of both confirmations and some other things that the Baldur’s Gate 3 community may need to adjust to. The book may settle a years-old fan question by naming a “darling boy” that Astarion references in-game as someone called “Sebastian,” while other choices, like having Astarion call Cazador “Father” instead of “Master” in the prequel, are a bit more contentious.

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There are also brand-new characters to acquaint ourselves with: In Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion, we meet an Aasimar paladin named Hahn den Suriel, an ally for Astarion during his prequel adventures. After the first five minutes of the audiobook, in which we hear Newbon cataloguing the aftermath of a disastrous day on the magistrate’s bench, Astarion will surely need all the help he can get to navigate the book’s events. But for now, we can focus on saying his name right. After Astarion spent all of Baldur’s Gate 3 letting players mangle his last name, in very uncharacteristic silence, Newbon’s here to set the record straight — assuming you’re willing to accept his authority on the matter.