Before we knew him as Willem Dah-foe, he told people his last name was pronounced Day-foe. Why did the 20 year old pronounce his name a different way in 1975? He told Conan O’Brien that half of his family pronounced it one way and the other half like we do. He preferred the Day-foe until people assumed his first name was Dave. After the happened to him a few times, he realized Dah-foe sounded better especially as an actor.