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Baby names

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Original poster

Would you tell someone they’ve misspelt their baby’s name?!

259 replies

CaptainCabinets · 08/11/2018 16:02

A colleague has recently announced the birth of ‘Pheobe’ on Facebook and have since referred to the baby as ‘Pheobe’ several times.

Would I be awful to gently suggest the correct spelling or just hope it’s picked up on when they register the birth?!

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IHeartMarmiteToast · 08/11/2018 20:38

I have a Phoebe. I spelt it Phoebe in a fb group telling them of the birth and someone pointed it out gently. I had just made an error ..... I was tired!

MingoMingo · 08/11/2018 20:38

You’d want to be told though if it was a mistake surely? A few minutes of embarrassment vs years of it spelling it out when the names been registered. No doubt someone is going to say something at some point.

CaptainCallisto · 08/11/2018 20:33

I know a Feebee, who has an elder sister named Jema...

Still neither of those are as bad as the daughter of one of my uni friends. She's called Reinebeau (rainbow), is 15, and hates the pretentious spelling of it!

SawnUpLooRoll · 08/11/2018 20:31

I taught an Eille, once. Pronounced Elly.

BendydickCuminsnatch · 08/11/2018 20:27

percheron67 I know a french Ghislaine pronounced the way your friend pronounces it, so IME that’s correct.

I know a ‘Phebe’ 😬

ReginaPhalange89 · 08/11/2018 20:24

Haha @SavoyCabbage I went to school with a Tuesday !

Bobbiepin · 08/11/2018 20:24

I once taught a bit called Danyeal, pronounced Daniel. He was teased mercilessly (Danielle) and insisted on being called Dan.

BathFullOfEels · 08/11/2018 20:23

There’s a little girl called Beau in ds’s class. It sounds like there’s loads of them. I think it’s worse in the case of the little Beau I know as we live in (probably the only town in mainland Britain) where you can see France. Also her dm works for a French company where about 75% of her colleagues are French. She still absolutely insists it’s a girls name whenever anyone say ‘oh, I was expecting to see a boy’ or similar.

SavoyCabbage · 08/11/2018 20:22

I once taught a Wedensday.

Teaching the days was fun.

Cosmoa · 08/11/2018 20:17

Jaime is a correct spelling.. Maybe not in the UK but it's not that weird. I actually much prefer it to Jamie!

Soubriquet · 08/11/2018 20:16

My name is misspelled

Micheala instead of Michaela

I was forever correcting people on spelling AND pronunciation

I would send a text congratulating them on Phoebe and see if they reply actually it’s Pheobe

MonteStory · 08/11/2018 20:11

I once saw a child’s name spelt differently by thr two parents announcing the birth on Facebook. Dorothy and Dorethy

percheron67 · 08/11/2018 20:01

A friend of mine named her daughter Ghislaine. She calls her Zhislayne but , I understand, the correct pronunciation is Gillayne. Has caused problems I understand.

cantstopfreaking · 08/11/2018 19:56

A girl I went to school with called her son “Tayler”
We are Devon too so very West Country, so perhaps she intended it to be “Tay-lerrr”
Just looks funny to me and I think she thought it was the common spelling as lots of people on Facebook corrected her and she insisted it was the correct spelling for “Taylor” and now she won’t write his full name, just “T” or “Tay”.

ReginaPhalange89 · 08/11/2018 19:52

I have a Phoebe and a few people spelt it wrong on her cards when she was born ! I probably would ask the spelling rather than saying "do you know it's supposed to be spelled Phoebe" , in case she has chosen to do that (I don't know why anyone would though 🙈)

I'd just say oh just checking are you spelling it the traditional way of Phoebe or have you gone for a different spelling ....

Original poster
CaptainCabinets · 08/11/2018 19:50

Kristofer isn’t too bad tbh, I think it’s actually a Scandi spelling of Christopher?

@Awwlookatmybabyspider but ‘oe’ in the middle of a word makes an ‘ee’ sound, like amoeba, coeliac, onomatopoeia. ‘Eo’ in the middle of a word is usually phonetic, like geode, deodorant. So the misspelling of Phoebe as Pheobe would read ‘Fee-obe’ instead of ‘Fee-bee’.

I honestly think she’s just misspelled Phoebe. So many people do it!

OP posts:
MrsCar · 08/11/2018 19:35

I know someone who named her newborn son Jaime (Jamie)

She was relieved when someone pointed it out to her, and mortified too, as they had already announced his name

VictoriaBun · 08/11/2018 19:34

I give you Kristofer 😕

Flowersonthewall · 08/11/2018 19:29

My daughter is called phoebe and one of my closest friends writes pheobe in cards and presents tbh I just ignored it until my daughter told her that she's spelling it wrong 😂

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 08/11/2018 19:24

No I wouldn't is there such a thing as spelling a name wrong. There are no laws, are there. I mean granted Feighbeigh might be pushing it.
Plus when you pronounce Phoebe you say feebee You dont say Foebe , do you

Theweasleytwins · 08/11/2018 19:14

Isnt boux avenue an undies shop?

Cosmoa · 08/11/2018 19:07

I was desparate to say something when I saw it on fb but we hadn't spoken in years.

Cosmoa · 08/11/2018 19:06

Someone from my school named her daughter Boux, rather than Beau. Correct me if I'm in the wrong but I'm pretty sure that it not a spelling of Beau.

SallyGardens · 08/11/2018 18:18

I misspelled DD2's name in the announcement Blush It's an Irish name but the anglicised version has the vowels the other way around (so similar mistake as in the OP). My sister was the only one to pick up on it, I blamed the post-section morphine Grin

Spooples · 08/11/2018 18:05

I'd tell them. I grew up knowing a Mellisa rather than Melissa who spent 28 years correcting people with the spelling before finally giving up and changing the spelling by deed poll.

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