Do I accept I'm Val?

[coppercolouredtop]

One of my neighbours is a lovely old lady in her 80s.
She loves my OH and they dog walk together. He helps her with anything she needs and she knows she is welcome at our house for anything I think!
She's lovely and how is lime to be in my 80s!

But
She thinks I'm called val!
I'm not.
I'm not that old! 😂
I'm not that bothered and will
Happily answer to val but it's not my name....should I correct her or forget it and be val!?
It made me laugh today . (Unless the OH has another woman called val!)

I’m Natalie to one of my clients. It’s gone too far to correct her, I don’t know why I didn’t in the first place?! But I didn’t. So now, on Thursdays, I’m Natalie

I'm often a Susan, to various different people, in different places and at different times in my life.

My name is not Susan, doesn't begin with S and doesn't sound like Susan.

My best friend is called Becky, and an elderly neighbour saw us out and said hello and I introduced her.

That elderly neighbour now thinks my name is Becky

My friend is called Marie. She is occasionally introduced as Our Marie by her family. 50% of people who know her call her Arrmarie.
She gets cards etc with Arrmarie. She's a practice nurse at a very busy surgery. The patients ask for Arrmarie.
It's cute.

In my first ever job interview out of uni they called me Gillian throughout, and then took me on a tour of the office afterwards. "Everyone, this is Gillian..." My name is Genevieve, and it was right there on my CV in front of them! I didn't dare correct them. Thankfully I didn't get the job 😂

This thread is cheering me.up. it is also reminding.me.that my dad ( sadly passed away a.fee years ago) used to call.my.mum a.name that was nothing like her real name (think Antoinette instead of Lucy) . He always called her that. He laughed and Mum just used to roll her eyes if we asked why and I still don't know why he did it

My friend’s father thought my DD was called Geraldine - a name you don’t find given much to children now and absolutely nothing like her actual name.

I am convinced my neighbour a few doors down is called a very pretty Scottish name - my NDN is equally convinced that it is an equally pretty but totally different Scottish name. She isn’t Scots at all. Her signature on her Xmas card is indecipherable but at least we agree that her husband is called Ben - she helpfully puts @ No 32.

I had a teacher at school who called me Laura for years.
What makes it worse - she taught me for a year and got my name right. A while later I was working in the library and I heard her saying: -
"Laura! Laura! LAURA! What's wrong with you, don't you know your own name?"
I was briefly flustered when I realised she was talking to me and didn't reply that it wasn't my name. I was Laura to her from then on, and she decided I was also a bit thick.
I was always to scared to correct her.

I have been Sheila, Sophie, Katherine and Becky over the years.

Sheila & Sophie - well my name does start with an S but sounds nothing like either.

Katherine - deputy head at school, I assume my friend Kate got called by my name.

Becky - I tended to drink Becks at uni, I guess people heard friends say Becks? to me and assumed it was my name.

I don't have a secret other name currently - I miss it.

Lots of people call me Fiona. My name is not Fiona. Oddly enough these people do not know each other, so i must just look like a Fiona.

"Oh, there you are Dave" tv watchers of a certain age only.

My neighbour insists on calling me a different version of my name (think, Francesca to Francis or Christina to Christine) but she can see it on Facebook, it's in the Christmas cards I write, it's on packages and mail that gets misdelivered and DH regularly calls me by my real name when we're outside having a chat. It's gone on for so long now I just can't correct her. She must know it's wrong by now surely?

DH's Ex-wife is called Susan. I am not. DH's parents tried to get my name right for the first few years and then gave up. I've given up correcting them and now answer to Susan. It really confused people when we were out in their hometown and his mum was calling me Susan when I'm clearly not Susan.

There was absolutely no animosity involved but a family friend never ever grasped that my mother's name was a variation on Magdalen and was not, nor ever had been, Merrylegs.

My mother just answered to 'Merrylegs' from this person - grief knows how the person in question was able to overlook the fact that nobody else ever called my mother this and, indeed, used a different name altogether.

Conversation with a regular elderly but "sharp as a tack" customer (Post Office):

Customer: What's your name again? I can never remember - no wait - it will come to me, ah I know! Sophie!
Me: Er, not it's not.
Customer: Yes it is, it's Sophie!
Me: No, it's Charlotte *.

Customer: Nope. It's definitely Sophie.
Me: It's definitely Charlotte - look, my name badge says "Charlotte".
and so on...

My across the road neighbour called my near neighbour Eva. So I told dh this but also that the card we received from Eva was signed Eve. I was puzzled. He said that Eve would know what her name is . It did cross my mind that my ATRN might be more right .

Eventually he said “now I’ll hand over to Helen” at which point a voice rang out from the back “her name is Susan”, I nodded in agreement and he said “I don’t think so”.

I just hope you entered him for Mansplainer of the year, because this is the best (by which I mean worst) example I've ever heard.

For six years I called a delivery driver Graham. I made coffee and tea for Graham. We talked about all sorts of things for six chuffing years. He left behind a vital object one day and I rang his head office to tell them to call him. They didn't have a driver called Graham. Turns out his name was Neil. Fuck sake!

I've been calling our NDN Roger for almost 12 years..... by DH told me only a few months ago his name isn't Roger its Steve. Mortified, apparently DH and Steve both just let me do it and thought it was funny.

A friend of a friend sends us a Christmas card every year addressed to me, DP, DS1 and "St John". DS2 is not called St John. I don't know whether to flattered or offended that she thinks we called him that!

Santa got DS's name wrong this year.

We didn't correct. DS was too excited to care.

DS is the least 'Santa's name' ever!
Yet DS will forever be 'Santa's name' at Christmas.

I love it.

My neighbour always calls my DD her actual name to her face, in conversation or any other time EXCEPT Christmas. Where she writes a completely different name in our card that is not even close to DD's. It's so odd!!

A while ago a local history society produced a book. In it was a group photo with my DM's name captioned as a member of the group.
So to surprise DM I thought I'd try and get a copy of the photo. Contacted the LHS secretary who said 'no problem Laura (not my name) I'll give a print to your mum when I have coffee with her on Tuesday'.
Hmm I thought, how strange, mum no longer lives there (she lives with us) how does she sneak out for coffee on a Tuesday? So questioned the woman further and she was adamant it was my DM she met every week and that DM had a daughter called Laura. We never did get to the bottom of this, but having read this thread, I know for certain a group of women meet for coffee every Tuesday. In the group there is one woman who thinks she is chatting with my DM and there is another woman too British to say pretending to be my DM!!

Tell her a story about a friend who talked to you. If your name is really Karen for example... You say...

“ Karen, she said to me one day, I don’t like Sainsbury’s... “

It could be any story but she’ll get the message.

The year we moved in we had a Christmas card from the neighbours listing their DCs’ names as 2 unisex names and Eric, so I wrote one back with the same names on. Over the year it became clear that the 2 unisex names belonged to 2 boys and the other child was a girl. Called Eric. Nope. Called Evie. Oops!