<p>I have a Slavic maiden name that was always mispronounced. Understandable, really–chains of consonants not found in English. And it is an extremely uncommon name in US. We just expected it to be mispronounced, and many would not even try, just ask how to pronounce it. It never bothered us.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we were also teased about the name, which could be twisted into the word, “trashcan.” One of my cousins (with same surname) is a public defender. One of her clients recently came to their receptionist and said, “I’m here to see my lawyer.” “And what’s your lawyer’s name?” " I can’t remember-- I think it’s ‘SWASTIKA’, or something like that." (“Trashcan” is much closer, actually;) )</p>
<p>I was happy to change my name H’s short common name. Unfortunately, the name has several alternate spellings, and his is the least common one. So it constantly misspelled. </p>
<p>Whenever I’m at a ceremony where lists of names are read, I always zoom in on those difficult names in the program–and see how the announcer does with them. There was one very long pause at D’s graduation. At S’s graduation, one girl had a Hawaiian middle name that went on for several lines.
D always goes by a nickname, so many of her friends don’t even know her real name.
When her name was read, it was silent. No one knew it was her.</p>
<p>A slight hijack here ----- much more annoying to me is people who spell my name incorrectly. Yeah, we’re talking about good friends who send birthday and holiday cards. We’re talking about people who reply to an email (in which my correctly spelled name is on the “from” line), and then spell my name incorrectly in their email reply.</p>
<p>And a message to those who think a mispronunciation or a misspelling is no big deal and folks should get over it, I’d say it is indeed a big deal. What’s more personal than who you are? I believe people identify themselves with their name more than anything.</p>
<p>My sister-in-law recently misspelled my husband’s name on a fancy invitation. I was astounded and yeah a bit insulted. She’s known him for 30 years! </p>
<p>That said the only thing that truly, truly annoys me is people who automatically call me by a common nickname for my name. Why would you do that? I have no problem with my high school friends calling me by my high school nickname even though I don’t use it any more. That’s perfectly understandable, and I find it kind of cute.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we were also teased about the name, which could be twisted into the word, “trashcan.” One of my cousins (with same surname) is a public defender. One of her clients recently came to their receptionist and said, “I’m here to see my lawyer.” “And what’s your lawyer’s name?” " I can’t remember-- I think it’s ‘SWASTIKA’, or something like that." (“Trashcan” is much closer, actually )</p>
<p>Swastika? Oh my! </p>
<p>At younger son’s recent graduation, there was a person on stage signing the announced names with American Sign Language. God bless that poor lady when some of the more unusual and VERY long foreign names were announced. At some points, she just kind of gave up.</p>
<p>Haha, my D’s name ends in LYN but so many people say LINE. I thought I was giving her an “easy” name that people wouldn’t mess up – but I was wrong.</p>
<p>frazzled1, I wonder if your husband and mine share a last name, as his also has a 1st/2nd letter combination that is quite unusual (in English, at least - it’s an extremely common name in his country of origin).</p>
<p>I always compliment people who say it correctly because it’s such a rare occurrence.</p>
<p>When I started my last job, the computer wouldn’t let me sign in to clock in. I went to my boss and told her. She tried to get in to the program. I said, “I’m betting that whoever put my name into the system put in the more common last name with the extra letter.” An hour later, after repeatedly trying to convince various people that my name was probably put in the system wrong, someone finally realized that they had put the more common last name with the extra letter in it into the system, which was why I couldn’t clock in." Yeah, that’s what I’ve spent an hour telling everyone. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I have the same problem at the pharmacy when I pick up a prescription. It’s easy for someone to say “get over it.” But it does get tiresome.</p>
<p>Quite a few years ago I went to see a potential landlady, Mrs Buitenhuis. On meeting her I said “Are you Mrs Bait In Hyss” which would be correct in Dutch. She said, oh nobody says it right in America so even we have changed to saying it “Boot In House”.</p>
<p>A happy story…our last name is mispronounced at least 90% of the time. When my daughter got her MA, the chairman of the department was the one to call up the grads. He had been her music teacher since she was in 6th grade, so she had no worries!</p>
<p>My last name is simple, you would think, but we can screen calls by who pronounces it correctly. If you don’t know us, don’t call us at home!</p>
<p>The problem is that there are about four more common spellings, so our kids always had to deal with programs, awards, etc. spelled wrong. The one that *really * got annoying was the band teacher. We had kids in band under that director for 15 years. You would think he would have become tired of apologizing and made a mental note.</p>
<p>My first name is one letter different than a more common name…well it was more common in the 60’s/70’s, not anymore. Every teacher started off calling me the wrong name. I was always having to point out that it ends in “a” not
“e”. I still like my name better and don’t have to correct people very often now.</p>
<p>I can go the OP one better. They left my son’s name off the list entirely. This was at a school where all the kids had been together since kindergarten, with a graduating class of about 100. All the kids were lined up in alpha order to get their diplomas, and when it came my son’s turn, the principal called the next name on the list instead of my son’s. Both kids looked at each other, but the other kid went ahead. They figured the names had gotten switched. After about five kids had gone ahead of my son, leaving him standing on the edge of the stage, not knowing what to do other people started to notice. Finally, one girl, who was not a particular friend of my son’s announced in a very loud voice " YOU FORGOT LOLOLU SON!" Another voice from the student audience yelled out “TYPICAL!” Students started laughing and shouting at the Principal. The Principal was completely flabbergasted, but my son just laughed at the whole thing.</p>
<p>My oldest son went to parochial school K thru 8 one of only 4 students to do so. His name was feminized on the program. Man, I was HOT and not proud to say so, but I let Sister know I was peeved.
Second son’s first name which is common enough was mispronounced at college graduation.
Sheesh.</p>
<p>My name is Carolina and I often get called Caroline. I have about 10 awards with Caroline written on them. My name is produced Carol Lee Na but is frequently pronounced Carol Line Nah. Some of my close friends and teachers still mispronounce my name. It can be annoying, but I have become used to it. I enjoy being the only Carolina in my school.</p>
<p>Misspelling drives me NUTS. I’ve had family members and close friends send birthday cards, sign yearbooks, etc. with the wrong spelling.</p>
<p>The email is the worst…I’ve had people who work FOR ME send me emails and spell my name incorrectly. Um…HELLO?!? You can’t take two minutes to make sure you’re spelling your supervisor’s name right?</p>
<p>Although, funny story…my supervisor emailed me last summer before I had met her, and in my excitement I of course emailed her back right away. Then I realized I had called her “Lisa” instead of “Linda.” She was very gracious when I acknowledged it and we still laugh about it OOPS.</p>
<p>emails can be fun … not a name story but a misspelling … </p>
<p>I was working on a project with a women project manager and a staff of 4 or 5 guys. The project manager was a very formal and proper person at work. Before a big meeting she sent out a final email to ensure everything was set titled something like “Just making sure your ducks are in line” … except she misspelled ducks slipping one “i” into the mix.</p>
<p>The sweetest revenge to having a hard-to-pronounce name is to become so famous and successful that everyone knows EXACTLY how to pronounce it.</p>
<p>Case in point, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski</p>
<p>Also, in defense of the mispronouncers at graduations: sometimes looking at a name in print, even of a person you know very well, your brain just sounds out letters on the page. You’re not really visualizing the person you know, you’re just looking at a word on a page. </p>
<p>Some people are good at decoding names, others stink at it. I have a semi- tough name to decode and I have occasionally had fun with cashiers who enjoy the challenge of figuring it out. </p>
<p>Our family has had our name mispronounced so many times, it would never occur to me to be offended if it happened at graduation. More like I would be pleasantly surprised if they got it right!</p>
<p>Interesting topic and personal here. We have close friends ( no relation) whose name is very similar to ours. We have single letter and they have double letter in last names respectively and obviously different pronunciation. They live one street over and over the years we have received their mail, and even their son’s report card last year when both of us had seniors . They didn’t receive our son’s, that went elsewhere but that’s another story. They often sat alphabetically in school and attendance records got messed up as well as grades sometimes.Throw in another kid whose name is similar (without an R at the end) and one teacher simply said " I give up trying to figure out who is who". We knew in our hearts that they would screw up pronunciation at graduation and sure enough they did, mispronounce our names as the others and theirs as ours…After a while, we though we lived in the " I’m sorry we’ll correct it" School district for all the times we heard it…
Youngest son graduates next week and while there is no one with a similar name, I’ll be shocked if they don’t screw up again…What’s worse is that they give them speakers cards with proper pronunciation on it…and we have a simple 5 letter name, not something long and complicated.</p>
<p>“The email is the worst…I’ve had people who work FOR ME send me emails and spell my name incorrectly. Um…HELLO?!? You can’t take two minutes to make sure you’re spelling your supervisor’s name right”</p>
<p>Honestly, the email thing just cracks me up. I have an odd (but simple) spelling of my name, and people I’ve known for decades still misspell it. Everybody misspells it, even if they ask me at Starbucks to spell it out for them, they write down the wrong spelling. Sometimes I have emails going back and forth, that I sign my name to, and people continue to misspell it, in response. I wonder if they believe that I am the one making a typo…with my own name!</p>
<p>My maiden name is really unusual, and it has always been misspelled, definitely mispronounced. I stopped correcting people a long time ago, I don’t even bother.</p>
OOPS.</p>