Hard to pronounce surname - do you have one?!

[Jamesonwhite]

I'm getting married later this year and will be taking DPs name. It is extremely hard to pronounce and spell. I'm undecided whether or not I will keep my maiden name as my name at work to make life easier (or will it just be more complicated having 2 names?!)

Anyone have a hard to pronounce surname? How have you found it?

I was at primary and secondary schools with a girl with part-Polish heritage. I couldn't spell her surname decades ago and I probably couldn't now but I knew it was pronounced 'Coo-ee-ow-ee-ak'. My home city has a significant Polish-descended population.

Mine isn’t long, difficult to spell or ridiculously hard to say (it’s four bloody letters!!) but apparently my Yorkshire accent makes it difficult to comprehend. Or they make it into something else.

Essentially I don’t think it matters how long or complicated your name is. People will still manage to mispronounce, mishear or misspell it!

I had a long hard to pronounce maiden name and now have a short hard to pronounce married name. Both start with a vowel which seems to throw people.

I’ve always had to spell my surname but at least it’s quicker now.

I was the other way round. I had a hard to pronounce maiden name that I had to spell out at least twice every time some asked. So annoying.

One of the best things about marrying dh was his surname - straightforward, and one everyone can spell. If I had a simple maiden name I’d keep it rather than change.

Mine is easy to say but difficult to spell if you don't know how to. I just spell it out if they need to write it down. People still get it wrong.

This is an infuriating thread, not knowing any of the names to which people are referring!

Mine is only five letters and a very common word in the English language but see the amount of people that apparently can't spell it....

My married name is only 5 letters and very easy to say but no one can spell it. I have to spell it out a number of times and have all sorts of random spellings used.
My name before I married was very long but two regular English language words. No one could spell it.

For a while I had a boyfriend with the surname Last. We lived in the north. I am from the south. People would spell it Larst.

Dp and dcs have, it’s really fraustrating as I have to spell it out every time. It was worse trying to match names up with it when we had dc. I hate it. I’ve got a good old strong English boring surname. Really do hate it though.,.

Yep - very hard to pronounce & spell. Funnily enough my married name is easy to say & spell but I keep my maiden name still for work as I am established in my career with that name.

Yes. It shouldn’t be but, apparently, it is. My maiden name was just as bad though. Only 4 letters in both.

Mine looks complicated to English eyes but is really quite simple IMO (well Arabs are fine with it anyway)!

When giving my name to people it's "My name is Contessa Isonadietdammit that's I-S-O-N-A-D-I......". I have decided that my full name for phone calls, interviews etc (i.e. anywhere where it's read out by someone who doesn't know me) is Contessa Errrr. I usually pipe up "That's me!" and then check I'm right

It really is not a major issue in my life, and I love my name!

My surname is French and people always struggle with spelling it. They do often pronounce it fairly well though in fairness. I found it a bit annoying at school as people always asked me if my parents were French (they aren't and I think I'd have to go back a few hundred years to find a French relative).

Saying that though my partner and daughter have an English name which is much easier to spell and he often has to spell it out on the phone to people.

I didn't take my (ex) husband's name...worked out well in the end!!

My maiden name was unusual, but pronounced exactly as spelled, so shouldn't have been difficult. People struggled though - there are other similar sounding names and people just tenses to hear the first syllable and then their brains would fill in with what was most familiar to them. Say you had the names Calman, Calmont, Calmott, Calmore - you constantly get called Calman as people haven't heard the others as much.

Then I got married and took DHs name. Irish in origin but perfectly common and familiar throughout the UK. Unless you live in a welsh-speaking part of Wales when one of the syllables had a completely different pronunciation with Welsh phonetics. I just think of myself as having two names now - the Welsh one and the English one.

Added to this an unusual first name (but again similar enough to a more commonly know one for people to assume you said something else) and I've spent a fairly large chunk of my life spelling my name's out to people!

I have an Italian surname. I rarely come across anyone who gets it right.
People often give it go and ask me if they said it correctly. If it's someone I won't see again I sometimes just say yes, even if it's totally wrong, just to prevent the awkwardness of them repeatedly trying again and again and still not getting close.

The weirdest bit is when I hear friends i've known for years say my name out loud for the first time and I have to say "How do you not know my name yet!?!"

I do love my name though. Purposely keeping it to pass on to DC

Yes, I have a very long Greek surname that we only use the first half of. It sounds like a name in is own right.
Nobody wants a14 letter surname that needs spelling out!

I have one of the most common surnames you can get and it is still often mispronounced

@CrinolineQueen

You're not the only one. It's a horrible phrase.