Commenter Jaida had a fun idea for a post:
I wonder if Swistle has ever done a reader poll to see how many readers have difficult-to-pronounce names and how much it bothers them to have to correct people. It seems like something we all worry a lot about as namers but my own experience is that mispronunciation causes a brief moment of embarrassment/correction and then everyone moves on and there is one more person in the world that knows how to pronounce the name (no shade to anyone more affected by it, I just hope it doesn’t prevent someone from using a name they love!)
There are two separate baby-naming angles here: one is the tolerance parents have themselves for correcting/demonstrating the pronunciation of their child’s name, and the other is how people feel about needing to correct their own names. Both are good to consider when naming a child. If I, personally, am a parent who feels cheerful and relaxed about correcting a pronunciation a million times, that’s different than if I, personally, am a parent who clenches my teeth every time. If I clench my teeth every time, I should not do that to myself or to the world.
But it is also useful to get an idea for how the CHILD (and, of course, the resulting GROWN ADULT) feels about having such a name. It’s not something we can know ahead of time when naming our own personal child—but it seems like it would be useful to have a STATISTICAL feeling about it. That is, are 95% of people with constantly-correct-the-pronunciation names perfectly happy to do it, and only 5% clench their teeth? or is it the other way around? or is it something in between? I can’t do a poll, but I can ask for a voluntary anecdotal offering.
I have a not-very-difficult-to-pronounce name that is also common in my age group (Kristen), and it still gets mispronounced pretty often: I have learned to respond to Kristine, Kiersten, Kirsten. It is, to me, NOT EVEN REMOTELY a big enough issue to make me wish I’d been named something else—and, based on that experience, I’ve advised parents not to shy away from a name just because it might sometimes be mispronounced. But I had someone on my freshman year college dorm floor named Alysa, pronounced ah-LEE-sah, and 99% of the time she was called either ah-LISS-sah (by people who saw the name without hearing it) or Lisa (by people who heard the name without seeing it). Each time, she would close her eyes, as if praying for patience, and then say through clenched teeth: “It’s ah-LEE-sa.” At some point a name isn’t worth the daily lord-give-me-strength, either for the name-bearer or for anyone else.
So clearly there are going to be SWATHS of names here, from mispronounced-at-only-a-normal/tolerable level (like Kristen) to mispronounced-almost-all-the-time (like Alysa), and everything in between and outside, and I think we want to hear from them all. If you are a Lara and people call you Laura; if you are an Andrea and your parents wanted it pronounced on-DRAY-ah; if you are a Mia and people say MEE-ah and MY-ah; if you are a Kati and no one ever knows whether to say it like Katie or like KAH-tee; if you are a Salomé and sometimes people say suh-LOME; if your name is so unfamiliar, you’re accustomed to hearing “Uhhhh…” and knowing they mean you: How much does it bug you? how much does it affect your life? does it make you wish you were named something else, or is it just part of your name and you don’t mind?
I’m a Rosemarie and often get Rosemary instead. I used to correct people, but I find a lot of people still don’t get it even after being corrected. After enough interactions along the lines of “Rosemary?” “It’s Rosemarie” “Yes, Rosemary”, I started going by a nickname. It easier for everyone!
I’m a Rosemary who often gets called Rosemarie! Go figure. Even when I correct folks, there are some people who just want to say “Rosemarie.”
I’m a Carolyn who often gets called Caroline even when I e already pronounced my name. I just go with it unless I’m going to get to know them much better.
I’m Caroline that gets Carolyn! I used to get more annoyed by it (cuz cmon the word line is in the name) but now it doesn’t bother me to correct people as much. If it’s a one time interaction I usually don’t say anything but if it’ll be someone who I actually need to know, I’ll correct them.
I have a difficult to pronounce last name and a nickname first name. I have always disliked occasions where I needed to correct both…first day of school, doctor’s office (I usually don’t bother in these instances), etc
My name is Carmel (pronounced car-MEL like the town in California) and it is constantly mispronounced. I get car-muhl, caramel, and Carmela. I hated it growing up and was often teased.
I’m an Ileana whose name is seldom pronounced right on the first go and constantly misspelled. I get Eileen-a (which I always thought was so weird til I realized my name was three words put together- I+Lean+A), Elana, Lena, and one horrid time, Ivanka. And no one spells it right either. I have had long term friendships with people who I just accepted got a syllable or two of my name wrong every time (Ellie-ana most often). And friends who always spell it with two Ls or some other variation. And I forgive them!
That said I love having an uncommon name and am so delighted when someone pronounces it right the first time (I am not Cuban or Latina but my Cuban
American friend from Miami pronounced it like it was the most normal name in the world the first
time she met me).
At coffee shops I use my cat’s name, Lola. It gets spelled in a song!
I have the most normal, boring name in the world, spelled the traditional way {{Emily}} and you would be shocked how often it gets spelled incorrectly. Also people can’t remember it and call me Elizabeth or Katie or Ashley. This is NOT the same thing as constantly having your name mispronounced, but my point is, I guess, that people in general are not very good at names, and all names have a very high likelihood of getting some grief, and you should probably go with what you love.
AND teach your kid to be a good sport about it!
So true!
My name, by the numbers, is not particularly uncommon, but growing up it was positively UNHEARD of where I lived. Not to mention it comes with all kinds of possible pronunciations (often tied to regional accents). Born in the 80s, I spent most of my life correcting people constantly, UNTIL finally, blessedly, Ariana Grande became famous and the questions and funny looks largely ceased. Do I, technically, pronounce my name exactly the same as she does? No. But I don’t mind her pronunciation.
My conclusion is that it’s not the worst but having an unusual name does kind of define you, in a way that some people will love and some people just will not. There really isn’t a way to know how an individual person will feel about it.
Personally, I both loved and hated it. I liked being different and special, but I still find it immensely annoying and perplexing when, AFTER several corrections, people still spell or pronounce my name not the way I prefer. But it is what it is.
With my own children, I tried to pick not-overused names that would still be relatively easy to spell and pronounce, and I did not entirely hit the mark with all of them. I have a Willa who I thought would get Willow constantly, but that hardly ever happens. Hers seems pretty straightforward. I have a Claire, which is not unusual but has several possible spellings that trip people up. Then I have a Delia who REALLY flummoxes people. Dahlia, Delilah, and inexplicably, Daylia? Dell-ia? Gosh, I did not realize this name would be so unfamiliar to people. And then Solenne, which I purposely spelled that way instead of Solène because I figured she would get Celine, and she still gets Celine.
I still love their names. It’s all a crapshoot. I would advise against purposely making one’s children’s names difficult to spell (so-called creative spellings), but beyond that… just pick what you like and hope for the best.
I have a Delia, too, and we have heard every one of those! It seems so obvious to me. It’s just like Celia and Amelia. What on earth is happening?!
Solidarity! With the popularity of Amelia I really did not think it would be a problem. People see it written and their brain just short circuits. 😂
The first portion of my life, I constantly corrected people on both the spelling and the pronunciation of my name. You’re not going to believe me: it’s Caitlin. For the first 15 years, it was just me! My Irish Dad named me after poet Dylan Thomas’ wife. That is the “correct” spelling, if we’re talking the Gaelic way. I got Cat-Lin, Cat-leen, Cathlin, Cait-land (my close friends still call me that one). And the spellings of course are innumerable – Kaitlin, Katelyn, Caitlynne, Catelin, ANYTHING imaginable – and I hated watching all those Caitlins coming out. I wish there hadn’t been that big of a Caitlin boom.
I have a hard to pronounce last name, so I’ve just gotten used to spelling both for people. My husband has a hard to pronounce dutch name that’s quite strong. My son has a simple, easy to pronounce first name and then the dutch last name. My girls have my Irish last name and I love their names. One is Emmel1ne, and I’d say 60% of the time they say it the way we do – line like fine. In some of her classes she tells me she just lets them mispronounce it! She went by Emmy until High School when she decided to go by Emmel1ne.
Bizarrely, my youngest daughter has the hardest time. I thought everyone would get M@ud. I’d say 85% of the time they say Mode. And 5% say Mowd. The rest get it right. And I’m Canadian and we have Lucy Maud Montgomery and Maud Lewis so I’m appalled.
I wouldn’t do anything differently. I LOVE my kids’ names and they love them, too. M@ud sometimes wishes she would be able to find mugs that say her name, but I just get things made with their names inscribed.
My given name was Zoe, but a surprising number of people spelled it Zoey (irritating), or Zoë (even more annoying – felt like they were trying to show off that they knew what umlauts were). Teeth-clenching for me but not something I wanted to complain about – and probably partially discomfort with it being a feminine name! I go by Leo now (and get called Leah, which makes me positively murderous).
So – I think this can happen with even fairly common names, and a child’s reaction to having correct others may not be because of the name itself.
My name can be pronounced many ways, meg-han, mee-gin, meg-anne, may-gin, may-ghane. I will only really correct one of the ones that bothers me, the rest I let slide. Even my parents don’t pronounce it how I like. I named my girls names that I think are usually only pronounced one way, though one can be misheard- dina/gina/lina/mina. I have a cousin named Gina but she pronounces is ghi-na, not gee-na. I think if one has a name that can be pronounced many ways, you have to tolerate people guessing wrong at least the first time. And if you have a pronunciation different than he norm, you have to be very tolerant.
I was born in 1951 in the USA Midwest. My mother named me after her father. He was Homer so I am Homa. By the time I was in the second grade, I learned the pause in the teacher’s roll call was me so I would say my name without prompting. By the time I was in junior high, I started also spelling my name – Homa, H-O-M-A, Homa. Sometimes it aggravated me because I don’t consider it a hard name to figure out. The good side is that I usually just had to do it once for that person or group of people.
I would say my name is pronounced Carolyn 95% of the time, including when I have just said Caroline. (I did find that during the year I spent in England in the 80s, no one got it wrong, but Caroline was much more common there, at least at that time [I was one of about 8 Carolines at the school.]) Interestingly, I will also get emails that spell my name Carolyn, even though Caroline is part of the email address! My last name gets mis-pronounced and misspelled all the time, so I’m kind of used to spelling and emphatically pronouncing both. I used to think that I would prefer a name that didn’t get messed up all the time, but it sounds like they mostly do. My mother always loved Caroline so I know that naming me this was very meaningful to her.
I have come to believe that there is always going to be some number of spelling or pronunciation gaffes with any name, first or last! My maiden name and married last name are both phonetic, short (1 and 2 syllables), and some degree of familiar, and both are often misheard or mispronounced or misspelled.
My name and my oldest son’s name have multiple spellings that could be used, so even though they aren’t hard or unfamiliar names, they sometimes must be spelled out. My daughter’s name is easily misheard and sounds similar to some other more-familiar names so it must always be spelled.
It’s okay- it rarely bothers me and in the case of the last names, I have learned to just always spell it out- it’s easier that way! Though I don’t underestimate the fact that with a more unusual or hard-to-spell-or-pronounce name, it would really be a burden.
My daughter is Rosalie. It never occurred to me there would be pronunciation issues. Apparently no one gets it right the first time. I was horrified when she told me – I had no idea I had burdened her. She said she didn’t care. Ro sally , Rosa Lie, Ross a Lee. What?
My husbands family all pronounces it weird, rose- ah- LEEEEE. I tried at first but they actually argued with me. Not worth it. I’m over that. This year her team coach calls her Rose. She’s corrected him but he still calls her Rose.
My name was NEVER pronounced correct from people reading it so I grew up correcting most of the time (born in 1982). I knew the PAUSE on the first day of school when they got to the B last names and would pipe up “Alaina (Uh-LANE-uh). I mostly get Uh-LAWN-uh or Ali-ana or Uh-LEAN-uh. Never met someone with the name until I was in HS- now it’s more well known as are the variations so now when people hear it they don’t spell it correctly. But I don’t mind at all- I love my name and love that it’s unique and whenever people fret in your column I agree with your advice that it’s not really a big deal.
I’ve apologized to my Lorelei for giving her a difficult name to spell/pronounce, but she loves her name and has gotten so many compliments on it. People pronounce it correctly once they know and people who have already heard the name are enthusiastic when she introduces herself. You’d think Ella wouldn’t get misspelled or mispronounced, but she gets Emma A LOT. And Charlotte, a classic name that goes back for centuries, is called Char-LOT ALL THE FREAKING TIME. I tell people to name their kids what they love because all names have issues.
I literally am a Lara who’s always called Laura. I feel so seen!!!
I hate the whole Laura thing. Not enough to visibly clench, but I gave up on correcting when I was 5 which is kind of sad. It’s unusual for people to stumble or ask, they just go straight to Laura. And the Laur sound is so common (Laura, Lauren, Lori) even my own husband will slip sometimes.
I love my name and think it’s beautiful (and hate Laura, sorry Lauras!!) but when naming my own kids I insisted on names with one pronunciation and spelling.
Oh, this is an interesting topic. My kids all have pretty common names. I’ve never heard anyone mispronounce the middle’s name, BUT it’s a name with a few variations for spelling, so I have seen people spell it wrong when they’ve only heard it.
*My* name gets mispronounced, but in an odd way. I’m Meg, short for Margaret. I introduce myself as Meg, I write my name on emails as Meg, my work email address has Meg in it.
Many people call me Megan, in person and in emails. Without being asked or told.
I give a pass of course to people from other cultures. I’ve heard myself mangle names from other cultures even when I’m trying really hard. They can pronounce my name however they like.
I don’t mind it per se – Megan is a perfectly nice name – but I’ll never understand why so many people just automatically elongate it. When someone introduces a Chris to me, I don’t start calling them Christine or Christopher without being told to?! It’s just weird.
Yes! I’m also a Margaret that uses Meg as my nickname, and it drives me absolutely batty when people assume Meg is short for Megan. Perfectly nice name, but it’s just not my name. (I used to get super annoyed when my great-aunt called me Megan. I was named after her sister (my grandmother) Margaret; she, of all people, should have known better!) The confusion is why I always introduce myself as Margaret nowadays. If someone asks if they can use a nickname, I’m happy to let them call me Meg, but they have to learn my formal name first. (Not that it helped that much with Great-Aunt Angeline… Yes, I’m still annoyed!)
Seriously, though, 8f you don’t have permission otherwise, just call people by the name they introduce themselves as instead of making assumptions about formal names or preferred nicknames. It’s not that difficult!
Holy crap I had no idea any others existed! Hello hello! <3
That's so painful about your great-aunt!
I will NEVER understand why people make those assumptions.
No issues for me, but my son is Callum and it gets mispronounced quite a bit, which surprised me at first. My Dad could just not get the hang of it, so when he heard me call him Cal once, he latched onto that and never looked back. I honestly never call him just Cal, but I did know when I named him it would likely happen, and I’m just fine with it.
We say it Cal like Calvin + um. He gets Cay-lum and Column regularly. We usually only have to correct people once and they get it.
My daughter is Channing. No pronunciation issues, but between her name and wearing her big brother’s hand-me-downs, a lot of people think she’s a boy.
I’m due with our third in September and am leaning towards Ellery if it’s a girl. Spelling and pronunciation issues would not surprise me at all, but I still just love it. Middle name would be Cate or Cait after my sister Caitlyn, who goes by Caty and who has had her name mispronounced and misspelled for 33 years. She’s a delightful human and just corrects people and moves on with her day.
Yes! I also have a Callum and have been so surprised at how many people say Cay-lum like Caleb-lum instead of Calvin-lum. He seems unfazed by it though.
My boys all have top ten for half the century, in the bible names so no problems there.
My husband has an unusual name to say and spell. He hated it. I see him pause before he introduces himself and he enunciates it carefully. He uses a fake name in coffee shops. He felt strongly enough about it to insist on very plain names for our boys.
My name is Shari and I get Sheri a LOT, both spoken and written. Other pronunciations too. My own husband says it more like Sheyri. In the beginning I told him my preference was rhyming with Gary. 20 years later he hasn’t changed. He claims he can’t hear the difference and I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but I’ve noticed he never calls his friend Gehri instead of Gary. It’s annoying, but not enough to divorce him. Lol.
My husband also pronounces the names Gary, Jerry, and Mary to rhyme with each other! I’m from Philadelphia, though, and have maintained my strong Mary/marry/merry distinction. He thinks the way I say the name Jerry sounds insane, whereas I think it is obviously and easily phonetic.
From Phila area too! I guess that means we have proper pronunciations here!
those names all rhyme in my dialect, too. My kid Kerry has been called Gary, Jerry, Terry, Barry, Larry, Perry, Harry, and when he was little Mary & Sherry. One hearing impaired old fellow went through the whole list, trying to understand what i said, lol.
This is so interesting! I’ve been a name-nerd all my life but as I started having babies, I realized the majority of people are not. I purposely picked names that are easy to pronounce and recognizable. I didn’t want them to go through the hassle of spelling their names or correcting people (as an “Emilie” I can’t even tell you how often I get called “Emile”…eye roll). My son is named Asher (a top 20 name!) and most people still act surprised when they hear it. My other son is Eli and my daughter is Ivy, both easy to say, which I love.
Kirsten here! Eternally have the same problem as you, but maybe worse because Kristen seems to be everyone’s default and K-eer-sten is definitely not. I don’t necessarily wish for a different name, but do wish it was easier to pronounce and spell generally (I live overseas in non-English speaking countries most of the time). The thing that ticks me off is when someone sees it spelled correctly and then neglects to check their own spelling of it and comes back at me with any of the incorrect variations. My name is misspelled/mispronounced probably 70% of the time by people I am not close friends with, including people I’m having repeated in-person and written professional interactions with, which I find rude and inconsiderate. And, honestly, Kirsten isn’t even that difficult or unusual.
All that being said, I gave my daughter a name that I think is much more straight-forward (Ellis). She was born in South Africa, however, and the first people to meet her thought I was saying her name was Alice, which had never occurred to me before she was born! But I like the name Alice, so it’s not horrible. And most people get it immediately when I say “like the island” and everyone spells it right so far!
Kiersten here! (Keer-sten)
I get Ker-sten or Kristen more often than not, even when I just said it. A friend of my parents who’s known me since birth still calls me Ker-sten.
Although, to be completely fair, I have definitely forgotten which pronunciation the Kirstens I know use. *fp* Somehow even “It’s (not) the same as mine” isn’t enough of a mnemonic.
Spelling is more of an irritant to me than pronunciation – first tries reading my name are probably 60-70% incorrect, but first tries spelling it are 90+% incorrect, so I’m definitely in camp “spell it automatically if someone needs to write it down.” But, eh. It does make me crazy how many people are incapable even of copying it correctly, but… that feels like more of an irritation at the world than at having this name? So don’t worry about your kid hating you, but maybe worry about your kid becoming a misanthrope? XD
Overall, having a confusing name doesn’t bother me much, but somehow that doesn’t stop me from fretting over whether it’s fair to give my kids comparable names. :P
It’s interesting reading how many people get called random other names, though – that’s never happened to me. It seems like maybe that’s mostly a phenomenon with common names, and less common names tend to stick more, even if the pronunciation isn’t quite right.
Interesting question! My name is Veronica, which no one has ever mispronounced; however, it is shocking how often I am addressed as Victoria / Vanessa / Virginia, including via email when folks are looking right at my email address. Also, I have occasionally had to correct people who automatically want to call me Ronny or Nicky. Luckily, there is an Elvis Costello song about precisely this! :)
One of my daughters is named Veronica and so, so many people call her Victoria, including my mom for the first few years of her damned life! I used to be a teacher and had a sweet student named Victoria and I asked her if people called her Veronica, and she said all the time! I guess there are few V names and our minds just go to whichever one we know when we see a V! It’s crazy!
Yes, I’m a Brigid. In my first 15 years of life, I met one other Brigid. I met a few Bridgets, but my name was inexplicably always spelled Bridgette though I never met one. I’d introduce myself and instantly be called Brittany or Gretchen or Rebecca. When reading my name off a list, most people squinted and said, “…Brajeed?” One person said Birdshit, but she was just being mean.
I didn’t mind it, because I love my name and my namesake. And in my circles, Brigid has become much more popular. I know a dozen now!
When I named my Hilaria, having grown up with one and read about a few historic ones, I expected it would be familiar but uncommon, like Aurelia. Instead it is entirely alien to most people, like Leocadia. Oops. People love how it sounds, but she hates feeling weird, so the positive reactions don’t make up for having to repeat herself and feeling different.
Okay birdshit made me LOL
I’m Amity. It is always either mispronounced or said in a questioning way. I have no problem with people mispronouncing it as long as they try! It’s much worse to me to be just “you”. Many people comment on my name and I always say “it grew on me”. Which it did. I was painfully shy until my teen years and being asked my name was horrifying. Every time. It always entailed me repeating it 3-4 times, trying to say it louder, with them leaning in closer and closer. By the time I was 20 and married, I had a bit more confidence and also had a nice short, easy last name to lean on. Getting a coffee? I just give my last name. At the Dr? They call “Mrs. Easy Last Name”.
All that said, when choosing names for our kids, we went for unique but not hard to say names. Except the first. I fell into the trap of a “tradition” and I regret it still. My Stefan is spelled Stephen. So MY name angst was relived about the time it began with HIM. Nobody says it correctly the first time; they can’t. He says he doesn’t mind. But he has his dad’s outgoing personality, so that fits.
My name was mispronounced in a particular dialect way in my childhood. People in the region where I grew up pronounce Sarah as Surah, so not only were they calling me Sarah instead of Sara (which are different where I come from – Sair-ah vs Sah-rah), but the dialect made it even odder.
Then I moved to Canada, where they don’t recognize a difference between the two spellings, and have corrected those who it matters (to me) for ever since. And some of them, having known me for 15+ years, still “forget” and use Sarah occasionally. I do answer to Sarah, because otherwise I’d be arguing with clients, patients, doctors, nurses, receptionists and baristas all my life.
My husband & kids can say it. My father in law “forgets” 🙄
Oh, I forgot to say…
It bothers me when it’s people who have already been told, and should know, but not when it’s people who I couldn’t care less if they call me Sue!
I have both a difficult first name (that is short with no easy nickname options—think Xochitl or Saoirse) and a VERY difficult last name. Neither are English so not pronounced how one might expect them phonetically in English. I expect that people will get them wrong, and I’m comfortable correcting people (politely or impolitely depending). The issue is that quite often, it’s not enough—people will continue to get it wrong, and at some point, you come off looking rude to correct them (even though by mispronouncing your name, they’re literally calling you the wrong name), so you sit with the discomfort. The comments are also aggravating—incorrectly defining your name, making insensitive/offensive comments about it, the endless repetitive questions, etc. As someone with social anxiety who moved a bunch as a kid, I can’t tell you how stressful it was to wait for the pause in the roll call in class, the pause that became my name. I use my partner’s very common name at coffee shops and restaurants, etc.
For naming my own children, an easy nickname option was imperative to me. I love having an uncommon name with so much history and heritage and meaning, but it would’ve made my life a lot easier to have the option to use a much more digestible nickname.
My name is easy to pronounce but tricky to spell, it seems. Very few people look at it on paper and pronounce it wrong (Cel!a) – but it gets butchered in coffee shops etc, or people mishear. Most common are Selia and Ceila but I also get Sheila, Delia, Celeste, Cecile, Cecily, Cecilia ENDLESSLY. Also Cecil sometimes which cracks me up.
Unhelpfully, my last name is also a common male name. So I get many, many emails saying ‘thanks John!’ or equivalent.
None of it stopped me giving my kids slightly more unusual names, and a double barrelled surname to boot. Neither of them seem to care at the moment although my daughter (M@rgot) gets the t at the end of her name pronounced more than I could possibly have imagined.
As an Alyssa, I constantly get mistaken as Melissa, Alison, Eliza, Elise, Alicia, Aleesia, Lisa, Iliana etc. The spelling variations are even more interesting: Allysa, Elissa, Ilysa, Alisa, Ellysa, etc. People are never sure which vowel it starts with, if it’s an i or y in the middle, and if the s or L is doubled.
As a kid it would frustrate me but I was usually too shy to say anything. As an adult I’m just like meh whatever and only correct them if it’s someone who I’ll have constant interactions with. It does annoy me though when my name is clearly spelled out in an email or something and the person still either spells it wrong or addresses me as a completely different name. Like c’mon, it’s right there for you!
I think my experience has caused me to favor names with straightforward spellings and pronunciations when it comes to naming future children although one of my favorite girl names is Hallie which has a few different spellings and is commonly mistaken as Haley! Not sure if I could go through with using it for those reasons haha
I am Suzanne, which seems like a common-enough name that it shouldn’t cause trouble. (Suzanne Somers! Suzanne Collins! Suzanne Sugarbaker!) And yet it is rare that someone will call me Suzanne; instead, I get Susan. If I am giving my name to someone, they spell it Susan. I hate it, thanks, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I would say I fall somewhere between super-annoyed and super-resigned on the spectrum. I am not bothered enough to change my name, but I am irritated enough to complain about it and make jokes about it with my friends.
My ten-year-old has a traditional/classic name that nonetheless has a few different spellings. She gets VERY bent out of shape when people misspell her name, so I’m trying to work with her on not letting it bug her quite so much. (She is more likely to get the “Oh! My grandmother had that name!” though, so it’s not an every-time problem.)
I have a very plain, easy sounding name that people cannot read correctly. My parents chose the french spelling of Jean and it bugs me to no end, I get Jee-ann, Jeanine, Jeannie, Joann, Joan, Joanie. I’m a teacher, and for YEARS, a former principal only ever called me “Mrs. LastName” because he was never sure how to pronounce it. Whenever I’m in a situation that requires a nametag, I just use Jean so that I don’t have to constantly correct people.
But, I also know some Jeanne’s who insist that the e at the end ISN’T silent, and should make the long e sound (aka Jeannie).
I am a Shannon and I get Sharon or Janet a lot but it’s ok. Nobody knows how to say my last name, which is very unusual, even after I tell people how to say it. They try to make it more complicated than it is. It sounds like all ways but I get al-ways, al-wayz, allowissy, all-wice, all-wize, al-o-way-see, all-wy-see, al-way-see. Used to hate that in school and wanted a last name like Smith.
I named my kid Beatrix, still love it! Did not anticipate how many people would say Beatrice even when reading the name, or Bee-trix instead of Be-ah-trix!
I also have a daughter named Beatrix! And I’d say 90% of people reading her name in places like doctors’ offices say Beatrice. I guess she’s learned from me, for better or worse, and doesn’t correct them unless it’s someone (like a teacher) who will be using her name a lot. And on top of that, she ended up using the nickname Bea (Be-uh), which 99% of people pronounce Bee. Oh well, she’s turning 18 soon and going off to college, so she has the chance to reinvent her name if need be!
(Which, btw Swistle, could be another interesting thread — who started using a different version of their name when they moved/went to college/started a new job?)
My name is Margot, pronounced the French way with the T being silent. I was born and raised in the US in a time before Margot was trendy, and often hear “Margaret” and “Mar-got” and “Mar-get” and “Mar-ghit”.
For a stranger at Starbucks or the waiting room, I don’t bother to correct people. For someone I’m establishing a working relationship with that I will see regularly, I do. It really doesn’t bother me now.
That said, I rarely used my given name at a child, instead I had a non-obvious nickname, as did my sister, and we were both very annoyed by people assuming our real names were the more common back forms, and using those to call out to us. We were forever saying “that’s not my name!”, and for a while I really hated the common back form of my nickname (the one that wasn’t my name), and my sister still does hate her “not name”. Think Emmy that everyone assumes (and calls) Emily, but really it’s Esmeralda.
When I did use my real name as a child, like the first day of school or when we would have a substitute teacher, I remember only mild annoyance and quickly correcting the pronunciation, often with the added note that “it’s French,” and/or “the T is silent,” followed by “I go by …”. I’ve only met one person who did not make the effort to correct or remember the pronunciation, but looking back, I’m pretty sure they were on the autism spectrum, and I honestly don’t think it occurred to them that someone would consider it rude or disrespectful to continue to mispronounce the name of a person one has a working relationship with after having been corrected multiple times, until I pointed it out.
I’m Heather which SHOULD be easy but it wasn’t. I grew up in two places that had trouble with the H or the TH sound. And I also grew up when the name was uncommon. I usually got HEE-THER on the first day of school. I always had a knot in my stomach….I KNEW I was going to have to correct the teacher when roll was first called. But that was all elementary school. Since then, I have loved my name. And I even changed the spelling of my middle name (Lynn to Linn) because I wanted more “unusual” in my name.
My parents indulged me and, for a brief period, let me go by my middle name until I was able to ‘manage’ Heather.
Oh! And my daughter is named for my mother. My daughter is a 24-year old Irene (it’s highest popularity was in 1918). She gets Eileen ALL.THE.TIME!
I am a Madeleine, last syllable pronounced -lynn, and was born before that was a common name in the US. To this day, almost no one pronounces or spells it correctly. (Same problem with Maddy.)
I live in a non-English-speaking country now, and people usually say mad-LAINE, which I kind of hate! I’m kicking myself a bit for not having adopted an easy nickname when I first moved 😅
My child has an easy, popular name, and I admit it’s a relief to never have pronunciation be an issue.
I work in a school with a lot of students from all over the world and as part of our SEL work, we have a pronunciation guide so we don’t say a more unfamiliar name (to us) in the wrong way. This post makes me think of what privilege a lot of us have, with people pronouncing my name Joanna or spelling my last name wrong, even if I spell it out for them, all FIVE letters! Just FIVE! Anyway, this post is super interesting to me! I think if we all took a little more time to listen to each other, we wouldn’t mess up people’s names because it doesn’t seem like it’s a lack of understanding as much as a lack of CARING.
My full name’s pronunciation is a bog-standard English one that’s more or less the same across every dialect I’ve ever heard. People misspell my first all the time because they think there’s only one spelling, just because s is so much rarer than z. My surname gets mispronounced pretty regularly, though. (Its 2 syllables are both very common single syllable words in English). I find it pretty funny, honestly.
Nah. My main problem is people who’re unwilling to pronounce such a _loonnnggg_ name like Elisabeth and decide to call me Liz or Beth. *eyeroll* It’s usually people who’re older than my mid40s self, but not always.
My husband’s surname, now that one’s always being mispronounced. It’s super rare, though, so probably not so surprising, if annoying as heck. Doesn’t help that the kids in school noted it rhymes with duckin’, among other things
I had an uncommon last name (it was Giles). That name is pronounced to rythme with “Miles” so basically Jiles. But people would say Guy-ules or Gill-es 50% of the time or more. I am a friendly and extroverted person, but I didn’t like the first social interaction I had with a person to be a correction. It’s awkward and uncomfortable.
My SIL is named Stu@rt. She’s a very feminine person in a male profession and she’s also very petite. All social interactions for her begin with commentary on her name, and sometimes Stu@rt Little jokes. She hates it. Her personality doesn’t like the constant commentary and attention.
We both have children with very traditional names, that have 1 prominent spelling and pronunciation.
I can’t comment exactly to the issue, as my name is plain and easy, and had no mispronunciations. …Okay, a few in my life have asked if it was the Jewish pronunciation, and it is not, and I haven’t minded answering that. Sometimes it is spelled without the latter H, I guess. This does not bother me. And I rarely correct it.
My husband’s name is about equally plain and easy, but it’s often misheard as a different plain and easy, common name, for some reason. He also doesn’t care.
And our kids have many-lettered, off-the-beaten-track or just-plain-difficult-for-people names that people regularly get wrong in pronunciation and/or spelling (except our one son whose called-name is very normal, though not that common). And we don’t care a lick. So far, the kids don’t really either.
On the whole, from what I have seen anyway of those I’ve been exposed to, I do get the idea that most parents care about potentially agrieving their children by way of making them have to correct people on their names all the time…much more than the actual children ever actually care. On the whole. The teeth-clenchers do exist, too, for sure. But on the whole, that I have seen, most people with unique names simply love their names being unique, despite the necessity of correcting. And some will complain about the having to correct, but it’s really more of a (possibly appreciated, ice-breaking sort of) talking point than a real thorn-in-the-side type thing anyway. And since my husband and I didn’t love our names’ overdone-ness, nor either have any bother when we did need to correct people, we just personally couldn’t limit the choice of our kids’ names based on our perception (which could have been very wrong anyway) of how familiar the people around us would be with the names.
Another thing I’m wondering is how many people feel very embarrassed/insert-negative-emotion-here when they themselves mispronounce/misspell someone else’s name or cannot remember it properly? And then how many rather don’t feel like these personal mistakes on their own part really embarrass, bother, or affect them that much actually. I guess I think I fall more into the latter category. I certainly try to hear people’s names correctly, and to double check spellings, out of courtesy to people…but if I mess it up, I think I usually just feel like, oops; oh, well; I’ll try again; not really a big deal or a source of deep shame or something. But if I felt deep embarrassment/bother/shame at mispronouncing/misspelling someone’s name, maybe I might have been much less open to choosing difficult-for-people-to-get names in naming our children. 🤔
No one ever says or spells my name correctly. Mahr ee. I like that it’s easy to know it’s me by just my first name but I hate that it’s so often wrong. I especially hated it as a shy child. To the point where I hated my name & wished for a common name. My son has a classic name that’s been used for hundreds of years for exactly that reason.
I commented to an earlier post without reading this one – but just want to reiterate that as someone with a difficult, international name, I very much *prefer* being called by my Anglicized nickname. I think there are many well-intended efforts these days to learn to pronounce international names correctly – but I encourage people to take cues – if the person introduces herself as Snow, but you know her birth name is Xue, don’t insist on calling her Xue!
So my full name is Jennie and that’s more of an unusual spelling issue, rather than a pronunciation issue. Growing up in the UK in the 80s & 90s I was frustrated by teachers assuming that my name was Jennifer, when it wasn’t. So I remember saying “I was christened Jennie” – not sure why I didn’t just say “My full name is Jennie.”
Never any pronunciation issues. Now fast forward to 2001 and I emigrate to the USA. In the US I have been called Jeannie many times. Like “Genie” or “Jean – ee”. People see an “a” in there that isn’t there. The worst instance was during our wedding ceremony where the preacher kept calling me “Jeannie”. (We hadn’t met him before because it was one of those 90 day fiance weddings and he also showed up late to the ceremony so we didn’t have extra time to go over the pronunciation of my name!) It will happen in stores too, when they look up your loyalty card and confirm your name “Jeannie?” “It’s Jennie.” I guess “I Dream of Jeannie” is the origin of the issue and it must have been more popular in the US than the UK.
It doesn’t super bother me to correct people on pronunciation. I also kind of like the less common spelling because you can tell who actually knows your name or not – like how close a friend are they? If I’m getting a Christmas card to “Jenny” then I am not impressed.
My name is Arika, which should be pronounced just like Erika/Erica but for all my life people regularly say air-ree-ka instead of air-uh-kah. One time in middle school a vice principal stumbled over it so badly he ended up spelling it out rather than saying it. I was a shy kid, especially then, and I was so very embarrassed. By my senior year of high school myself and a boy in my grade had names that were so commonly mispronounce the rest of class would correct the sub when we had one. As an adult I now immediately correct people when they mispronounce my name, and even a lot of the time thank people for saying it correctly. I think the favorite thing I ever had someone say about my name was a college professor who said “You spell it differently, so we assume you want it pronounced differently.” To which I responded. “I didn’t spell it this way. My mother did.”
I have a rare, but traditionally-spelled first name. My married last name is hard to spell and pronounce, so I’m constantly spelling both of my names. My husband has a common name with a unique spelling and it drives me nuts. I wish his parents gave his name the normal spelling; it’s not cute for me to frequently have to spell it. When you use an original spelling, it’s not just the person who has to spell it out, think of their future spouse, too.