Correct Pronunciation

[calvin]

Surely, Elgins is pronounced:
Downbeats....

I don’t think The Downbeats was a good name and they were right to want to change it, but they could have come up with something better than The Elgins.

When I first saw the name The Elgins, I thought it might be a family name, like The Jacksons. When I saw that it wasn't I didn't think about it much, I figured it was just some name they came up with [like Vandellas]. It didn’t occur to me that they had named themselves after a brand of wristwatch!

The Temptations mini series makes fun of that name in the scene where the group goes to Hitsville to meet BG. First David Ruffin [“Elgins? Like the wristwatch?” ... pause, David and Jimmy Ruffin look at each other like 'wtf', then ... “Cool”], then Martha Reeves ["Huh like the watch?"], and finally Otis comes out and tells the others that he was told to "wait outside and come up with a new name.”

That scene starts at 33:00, I don’t know how to embed the video to make it start at that point.