Mariska Hargitay deliberately has her name spelled wrong on the set of Law + Order: Special Victims Unit

Mariska - who is the daughter of Hollywood legends Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay - told Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast: "When it happens, because it happens on set a lot, now on the call sheet, it's M-A-R-I-S-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-K-A. That's how I put it on the call sheet, just so people go, 'Oh, okay, got it. She's big on the Hs.'

"[I've been called] Maritza, Marcika, Markiska, but [Christopher Meloni] will call me Maritza on set."

And even the actress' own family members get the pronunciation wrong.

She said: "Oh, I still live with it. Who was it last night? Oh, I had a lunch yesterday - brunch, for my sister, and my cousin was there. I've known him since 1994, and he kept calling me Ma-ris-ka."

Mariska was named after her paternal grandmother and she joked the name means "gorgeous, talented one, ray of sunshine, queen of, queen of - queen of something."

But then she added: "It's a nickname for Maria. It means little Maria. In Hungarian, the K-A or K-E on the end of a name, it just is a little endearment. So the name is actually Maria, after my grandmother."

Despite being best known for playing Olivia Benson on Law + Order: SVU, Mariska thought she would be a comedy actress and revealed she tested for a main role in Friends "many times".

She said: "I did a lot of [comedy auditions]. I did Seinfeld, and I did Single Guy, and I tested for Friends so many times.

"I think it's Monica - so long ago, again. But I always thought that I would end up being on a sitcom or doing comedy, that's what I thought."

As a "struggling actor", Mariska was urged to see a psychic by her friends while on a trip to New York City and she was amazed by the "amazing stuff" he said to her.

She recalled: "He said to me, 'You see that face you're doing right now? You see that face?' ... I said, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'You're gonna be famous for that face. You're moving to New York, and you're gonna be famous for that face.'

"And I said, 'Uh, no, I live in L.A., and I'm gonna be a comedian because I'm funny, and I'm pretty, and that is a deadly combination.' And he looks at me - and this is my favourite moment in my life - and he goes like this, 'I don't give a rat's a** what you say.'"