Helping ny dd write her xmas cads has made me realise that over half her class have mispelt names

No Rebekah is, Rebeckha is just stupid, should be pronounced Rebec-Ha with that spelling. We have a Luise at work, is that foreign?

Is Rebekha not from the bible?

But with Katherine, we're all used to the variants by now, and would be alert to possible other spellings.

With the name Chloe it wouldn't occur to me that there was a possible alternate spelling, so I wouldn't even think to check (which with Katherine I would).

When people reinvent an old name their kids are going to have problems. And it looks bloody stupid!

Good point about emails although Kathryn/ Katherine / Catherine / Cathy etc are all email bounce problem names and those ones are all common enough!

Deliberately misspelling a name seems a fairly odd thing to do to me. If you don't like the way a name looks, or think everyone will mispronounce it then there is a simple solution. Choose a different name. If you want to be different, choose an unusual name. I have an unusual name, and I get lots of positive comments about it. I have a friend with a weirdly spelt, but fairly common name, and she gets frequent e-mail bounces and her name spelt wrong (well in truth right) on an everyday basis. Plus she never has any positive reaction (although I've only heard a couple of people ask her to her face ask why the spelling is so weird). So there is no gain to the child in having a stupid oddly spelt name, only negatives. Seems a strange thing to wish on your child.

Erm bump will be Zak if it's a boy - we don't like zachary.

I guess these differently spelled/spelt names will eventually become 'proper' names in their own right...but in the meantime, some of the newer spellings remind me of vegetarian foods - not quite the real (i.e. meat) thing but nevertheless sharing many features of the real thing (i.e. veggie sausages are still long and cylindrical)

best one I ever heard was my ex hairdressers son called............................................Love'elle

not a spelling one but just returned from the pre school christmas party and realised we have a Lemon in the class!

I used to be a spelling pedant.

Now I have a dyslexic daughter and I have changed my views - it's just not really that important!

People can surely spell their own names however they choose.

It's not wrong, you may not like it but it's not wrong. A table and chair are still going to be table and chair whether they're a side table, a dining table or a picknic table. A girl called Chloe is not going to be the same as all girls called Chloe. Personal names come from somewhere I bet some people in Victorian times thought it rather chavvy to give girls flower names.
As for looking really think in later life at least they'll only look it

I find the argument of 'why can't people spell their kid's names the way they want?' really bizarre. Because it's incorrect that's why and because they make themselves and, later on in life, their kid look really thick.

It's like saying I am going to spell'table and chair' as 'tabbell and chare' because I prefer it that way. IT'S WRONG!

Chloe really is a pretty name, kinda makes me wish i'd gone for bub no 4 Although typically it would have been a boy

My daughters bf is called Reece and i spelt it that way for years before i actually looked at a card he gave her and found out it was spelt Rhys. I guess i just figured him being a mixed race boy from Sarf London, his parents wouldnt have spelt it the welsh way

I've also seen a Charleigh which is think is a pretty variation, although i'm fully prepared to be flamed to death

argh Kloe is just god damn awful! Chloe is such a nice name why spoil it

could just about live with the others

The most recent name spelling to make me cringe was a guy I went to school with naming his dd 'Mikkaylah.'

I can't stand it when people do it. I'm sorry, it's not origional, it's just silly. What's so wrong with liking a name, and using it's proper spelling?

your name fits this thread perfectly.

my dp is called zak and is forty...please please tell him how he should have been spelling his name all these years.thank god i found you.

I have an Elli, sort for Eliana.. so adding another "e" as well as an extra "l" doesnt seem entirely logical.

In my son's preschool class, there is a Frayer. I do think that's an unfortunate choice of spelling.

I must admit I'm not too fussed by names having differnet spellings. I've got one myself and it's common old Katharine. There are at least 10 different ways to spell it. All it means is I have to spell it out each time but that doesn't really make life unbearable.

I can't see the problem with Abbey. I used to play with a neighbour of my grandparents called Abbey back in the 60s. I thought that was the logical way to spell it if it isn't short for Abigail.

Umlellela - ah, of course, yes!

ok some of the names are not so great and the spelling is not the 'norm', but really so what....
does it really matter?
if someone wants to call their child kloe, well good for them.

i personally think its really rather snobby to think less of someone because of how they spell their name. and because there are so many zany spellings of names out there now it wont be so big a deal to our children.

Some of those names are just variants, not necessarily new. Reece for example is the standard Anglicized form of Welsh Rhys, so in England is not that surprising a spelling. I've certainly met a few (all kids, I think it's one of those names that had a popularity boom 10 years or so ago). Some are possibly shortenings and some are indeed weird.

However names are not a good way to teach spelling, as so many have a number of variants, even before the modern trend of spelling "any way I darn well please".

It's Welsh,innit but?
Rhys

How s Reece supposed to be spelt? Not really come across that one before.