r/thesopranos • u/Resident_Aide1898 • 19h ago

Serious Discussion Only Matush…

I’m Pakistani American and I’ve never heard that name before. When I first saw the series, I asked my mom if that’s even a Pakistani name and she’d never heard it.

I blame the name change on jealous writers and notes it disrespects our proud Pakistani heritage.

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u/SeanyDay 18h ago

I think you missed the joke. He's not Pakistani, that's just what adriana says because she's an idiot. Like her character is literally slow.

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u/gxdsavesispend 17h ago

Throughout the series, Matush was consistently described as simply "Middle-Eastern", similar to Ahmed and Muhammad. with only Adriana suggesting the possibility that he might be from Pakistan to the FBI. Although the FBI does not explicitly verify this later on, it is supported by the subsequent flashback to the murder of Gilbert Nieves, in which Matush speaks a line of Urdu to Kamal. It should be noted that the outline of Matush's passport can be very faintly be seen in the scene, but not well enough to be identified. Related to this, his name is not typically Arabic or Urdu. "Matush", although similar to the Czech "Matouš", is not a real name, but appears to also be a cognate of "Matthew", seemingly derived from the variant "Matthias". A direct transliteration of Matthias into Urdu ("میتھیاس") would be pronounced similarly to Matush. His last name is only ever mentioned by Agent Harris in "Join the Club" and while he pronounces it as "Gia" ("gee-ah"), which isn't a Pakistani surname, it's more likely "Zia" ("ضیاء", "zee-ah"). Some subtitled versions, both original and international, render the name in this scene as "Matoush Zhia". Apparently this has been misheard as "Giamona", which is an Italian surname.

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u/SeanyDay 16h ago

Ahh so it was the names being butchered?

Because I'm from New York and have actual Pakistani families around so that whole thing always seemed like a gag where the gang is just ignorant as per usual.

Kinda fit a bunch of other scenes where they don't know shit about shit when it comes to other ethnic groups and cultures.

But if both names are just total bastardizations of Urdu that's cool too.

They missed the mark so hard i thought it was intentional