Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University
Rm 205A, 18 Seminary Pl, New Brunswick, NJ
adam.jardine@rutgers.edu
I get a lot of questions about my last name. Below are answers to some of them. I'll probably add some more in the future.
I say [ˌd͡ʒɑrˈdiːn] (jar-DEEN); i.e., it rhymes with "sardine". I'm also fine with an initial fricative instead, i.e. [ˌʒɑrˈdiːn].
Less good pronunciations I've gotten are [ˈd͡ʒɑrdɪn], [ˌd͡ʒɑrˈda͡ɪn] or [ˈd͡ʒɑrda͡ɪn], [ˌʒɑrˈdæn] (or some other approximation of the French word jardin), and, perplexingly, [ˌd͡ʒɑrˈdo͡ɪniː].
No, actually, it's Scottish. It is, however, ultimately derived from the French jardin 'garden'. The name came to the British Isles during the Norman Conquest in the 11th century. Note that 'Jardine' is a bad spelling of the French word.
My great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland through Ellis Island in the 1910s. Interestingly, my grandmother had always insisted that he came to the US illegally by sneaking across the Canadian border, but my father discovered records from Ellis Island that prove otherwise.
No, although he does have a son named Adam!