Hello! I'm going to be teaching a chess class for kids, and I want to share with the parents some of the educational benefits of chess. One thing I thought of is that chess exposes you to lots of foreign names from other countries that you get to learn how to pronounce.

For example, Najdorf, La Bourdonnais, Velimirovic, Nezhmetdinov, Pirc. (Somewhere a while back I read that the last one is pronounced "peerts" or something)

Can you think of more exotic-sounding names of chess openings or masters?

(This is obviously aimed at a North American, English-speaking audience. Bonus points if you speak another language and some regular American name sounds funny to you)

Roman Yakovlevich Dzindzichashvili. LOL

I agree that chess does help in some sense to learn foreign names, although I think that is a fairly minor aspect, considering some kids might play casually and never learn such names.

haha thanks (yes it will be but one in a long list of benefits)

Konstantinopolosky named after Alexander Konstantinopolosky the soviet chess player and David Bronstein's chess coach from a very young age !

Fun Fact : Alexander Konstantinopolosky played against Ilia Ambramovich Kan as in the chess player who invented the Kan Sicilian 

Openings names after Soviet/Russian cities : Novosibirsk, Arkhangelsk, Leningrad, Chelyabinsk, even Volga gambit (impossible not to think about Volga Cossacks)...

Players : Mir Sultan Khan, Lkhamsuren Myagmarsuren (known for his games against Tal and Fischer), Georgian names in general, Znosko-Borovsky, Makogonov, Duz-Khotimirsky, Kasimdzhanov becoming Qosimjonov as Uzbek takes over former russian spelling, many others...

Foreign player = Fischer

Foreign opening = English

Now I remember in the book Dangerous Weapons: The French by IM John Watson, he calls a somewhat obscure line in the French the "Hecht-Reefschlager System" after two people who wrote about it.

GM Svetozar Gligorić (player), Scheveningen variation of Sicilian and Rousseau gambit (openings), J'adoube (term, adjusting a piece) is what I can think of

Foreign sounding opening-Trompowsky Opening

Ruy Lopez De Segura is quite catchy. Siegbert Tarrasch is another one.

As for USA chess players, Harry Nelson Pillsbury sounds interesting.

 Maghsoodloo

I completely forgot about Awonder Liang when talking about US GMs, but it sounds even better when I've heard that his brother is called Adream Liang. Really creative parents.

The name "Alberic O'Kelly de Galway" has always stuck out for me. He was a Belgian GM, even though the name screams Ireland.