I don’t think there is any way to stop people calling me a completely different name to mine

[inmyhome]

And I really wish it did not bother me, but it does.

My name is very uncommon, but it is virtually identical in spelling to another slightly more common one. However, the pronunciation is different.

I am selling my house. It has been let out for over a decade with the same estate agents. They still call me the wrong name.

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times you correct people and there really does come a point where there aren’t enough hours in the day.

Weirdly, it’s only in the area I grew up in this is an issue. Has anyone else had this?

Your Sarah/Sara example is actually a good one. Most people in the UK would pronounce them differently. Sara would rhyme with 'car' and Sarah would be the typical pronunciation. Are you gonna tell us your actual name now? 😉

Well yes, they are different names.

I am actually pleasantly surprised that the thread wasn’t filled with people demanding to know my name. Rowenna.

So for context, do you mean you expect to have them pronounce your name as "Row enna" but they are saying "Row eena" and the "row" is as you would say in "row your boat"?

OP you have my full sympathy and understanding here. My name is Sinead (pronounced Shin-Aid - generally a known name thanks to Sinead O Connor). I have no issue at all with people not knowing how to pronounce it, but what I have a massive issue with is being constantly called Siobhain (Shiv-Awn). Literally 'my name is Sinead', 'oh hello siobhain'. It makes me so angry! Aside from both starting with a 'sh' sound they aren't even similar names. It feels like they just think 'irish name, CBA to remember it so I'll just pick any old one'. It is bloody rude and actually disrespectful.

correct , apart from ‘expect’

I fully expect people to get it wrong!

How is the first syllable pronounced OP? Row as in row the boat or row as in argument?

The former but that part is not generally the issue; it’s the enna / eena sound that is beyond most people!

I have this with my first name, it's constant. You have to correct them every single time. It should be awkward for them, not you, so just say 'no, my name is XXX'. Every single time.

If it's the same people getting it wrong then they need to be embarrassed about it, not you. Don't accept it, it's shit. Correct them again and again and again. I do this and people get it eventually. There's no way I would have accepted this from the estate agents you've been using, you're their customer and they can't even get your name right? Be frank with them, tell they they have been pronouncing your name wrong for x years but if they are to be selling your house they need to get it right.

My name gets abbreviated, there are a few abbreviations and I don’t mind any of them except one, which to me sounds like an entirely different name / person. Think Elizabeth, will go by Eliza, Liz, Beth, El, Els or whatever abbreviation you fancy but not Lizzie. It’s not that name, but along those lines. I really just don’t identify with the one particular abbreviation, to the point that if someone was calling that name I wouldn’t even turn around as I just wouldn’t ‘hear’ it as my name if you know what I mean. They just as well be shouting ‘John’ at me.

No matter how much I correct people and say I don’t use that abbreviation they fucking INSIST. I even have to correct my own fucking boyfriend sometimes. Fucking annoying.

Rowenna's a lovely name.

I think people's brains do naturally latch towards names they already know. We know a Matteus (Ma-tee-us) of Swedish descent and he says English people always default to Ma-tay-us. Even if they get it right initially, it's morphed into Ma-tay-us the next time they see him. I only remember it because I mentally assigned the image of a teapot to his face the minute I met him.

If it's happening with anyone you exchange emails with I'd put a line on your sig "rhymes with Sienna" or something. People's brains work against them with this. Most people's brains naturally lump things together, it's not just the person being lazy it's the brain trying to store things efficiently. Having it written in an email gives them an easy way to check back if they care enough, and if they don't, more chance that someone else around them has read it and remembered it right.

Children, and some autistic people, tend to be better at remembering names correctly because their brains don't map back to previous experience so much, so their brains are not trying to overwrite the correct name with a similar, more familiar one.

Well i would "expect" people to say my name correctly, and you clearly do or you wouldn't have made this post?

I have a name that comes from a UK constituent country. I grew up in a different area of the UK where it's not that common. There is a famous person with a name that sounds similar but not mine. I have to constantly tell people that's not my name. Some get it, others can't be bothered to say my name correctly. I've given up with some people. People also like to chuck an apostrophe in my name too, NO APOSTROPHE!

Although my name was rare when I was young it was pronounced correctly in the UK., especially when someone famous, younger than me, had the same name. However, I moved and for the last 40+ years it has rarely pronounced correctly even though I worked in the same place for 20 years and my neighbours of 40 years.

What we want and what we expect aren’t the same (eg lottery wins!)