Vincent D'Onofrio

D'Onofrio = don-noff-reeyo

D'Angelo = dee-angell-o

i don't think there's a hard and fast rule with pronouncing D'...

Mike D'Antoni (current coach of NY Knicks and past coach of Phx Suns)

While he was here in Phoenix, his name was pronounced Dan-toni.

I do know that American surnames starting with a single D and an apostrophe generally originated in Italy and (to a smaller extent) in France. The apostrophe represents the contraction of prepositions such as Di or De which takes place when the next word starts with a vowel.

Such names are pronounced in those countries as if the apostrophe were absent. The examples you have given look decidedly Italian in origin. Thus I personally would pronounce them as if they were written as Dangelo and Donofrio. However if I had heard the owners of the names pronounce them differently I would follow their preference.

I went to college with a gal whose last name was D'Antonio -- it was pronounced Dee-antonio. Hmm. I had thought that the a coming after the apostrophe would require the dee pronunciation, but there doesn't seem to be a true hard and fast rule for this.

It seems to be a family by family preference.

A former beau's last name was D'Alimonte.

His family pronounced it Dal i mon tay

I've since worked with someone with the same last name - pronounced Da li mount

and then there were two fellas I knew with the last name of D'eath

first one was Deee ath, second was Death

I'm agreeing with contrex on this.. and that a family pronuciation preference wins out.

Vincent D'Onofrio = Vincent D'Dicko

Surely it would have to be Di Dicko, because D is a consonant? Or Di Cazzo really I suppose.

What?! You don't like him?
I find him extremely sexy! Out of all the Law and Order detectives - he's my favorite. I even like him better than Benjamin Bragg and Detective Green (the very handsome hispanic and black guys).

He's just so intelligent and quirky.
But my mother doesn't like him either. Whenever I'm at her house watching tv with her, if Criminal Intent comes on and it's him - she's like, 'Oh, change the channel - that guy is twitchy - he makes me nervous...'

I don't like Jeff Goldblum as a detective. I used to like him in movies, but in Law and Order he's too studied and affected. I hate when they have scenes with him playing jazz piano.
I like jazz piano - but he just makes too much of show of being able to play it - like 'Oh look at me, I'm a brilliant quirky detective AND I can also play jazz piano.'

I say Don-o-frio although I say Dee-angelo instead of Dan-gel-o.
So I guess it just depends.

I think a lot depends upon the speed with which these names are spoken, Aidan.