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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be annoyed over the wrong spelling on my DS's name

126 replies

PizzaSlut · 06/12/2011 23:21

He's 4 and we're just receiving the first lots of christmas cards from school.

The amount of parents that have spelt his name wrong is astounding. It's very common and has a really easy shortening that we use so surely it can't be that difficult to address him correctly.

Or AIBU?

OP posts:
Nancy66 · 07/12/2011 12:18

The number of people who can't spell and are totally clueless about grammar is shocking.
Chances are the people who can't spell Samuel can't spell a lot of other words either.

ShowOfHands · 07/12/2011 12:22

Oh gawd I'm dreading this, dd has a Connor/Conor and a Keiron/Cieran/Kieran in her class. I know I'm going to get it wrong. Wonder if the teacher is allowed to give out a class list.

MuddlingMackem · 07/12/2011 12:23

OP, I think that YANBU, at all.

I recently had to write down a woman's name, guess she was late fifties/early sixties. I asked her her name and then asked, 'Is that with or without an 'e'?' She then said, 'With an 'e', thank you for asking, most people don't bother.'

My daughter's name is her first and middle names as we use both. The number of times that it's written with a hyphen between them, instead of a space, and with no 'e' at the end is really annoying. I mentioned this to the aforementioned woman and she agreed that it was worth getting annoyed about, as she put it, the incorrect spelling isn't her name, is it?

DorisIsTheDarkDestroyer · 07/12/2011 12:29

I was a child of the 70's and had one of THE most common names of the decade. I still had misspellings of may name every year....

DorisIsTheDarkDestroyer · 07/12/2011 12:30

my (I don't sound like the queen)

ABatInBunkFive · 07/12/2011 12:47

It wouldn't bother me too much i get far more annoyed when they come home from school with certificates and reports etc with the wrong spelling on that is just pure lazyness.

I also have a name that people insist is pronounced a certian way or it must be spelty differently on you birth cert, um no i think i know my own name lol

PresentsRibbonsAndMerrySantas · 07/12/2011 12:47

my name is always spelt wrong and so is dd2, it don't bother me at all. have you seen some of the names out now, i would need a baby name book next to me to spell them right, but saying that i cheat and ask the teacher for a full list of dc's in their class so copy those spellings and i never shorten names, because i hate my dc's names being shortened although they have names that should not be able to be shorten but people still do Hmm

DartsAgain · 07/12/2011 13:28

I've given up with the spelling of my own first name. I've seen so many variations, so I can sympathise.

mmmSprouts · 07/12/2011 13:31

DH's family all spell my name (Melanie) wrong, its not a hard name, they just get the vowels mixed up, or omit a few vowels for the hell of it. it is never spelt the same two years running either. I've been Melaine, Melini, Mell, Meleni, Melani...you get the picture. Annoying, but the thought is still there with the card.

Seona1973 · 07/12/2011 13:42

ds has a Jaimee (a girl), an Emilie, and a Reece (I mis-spelled it as Rhyss on an invitation) in his class. One girl is called Amy and there are even other spellings for that e.g. Aimee. My name was not often spelled correctly as a child either. My SIL deliberately makes up weird spellings for her kids names so they will never get anything with the right spelling on!

chipmonkey · 07/12/2011 13:44

Moomins my ds3 is Tom, deliberately Tom as I didn't like Thomas but do like Tom and one neighbour insisted on calling him Thomas. I did get very annoyed about it.

Seona1973 · 07/12/2011 13:45

I also sent a card to one of our neighbours and made it out to Jenny and Steven but of course it was actually Jenni and Stephen!!

fuzzynavel · 07/12/2011 13:53

well my son's name is Rhys and he gets called Rice Grin

Moominsarescary · 07/12/2011 15:16

chip ours is Tommy after his grandad who died new years day this year a few months before he was born, he wasn't a Thomas either luckily, As I'm not keen on Thomas but like Tommy or Tom, which he will probably be called when he's older.

Moominsarescary · 07/12/2011 15:18

fuzzy my ds2 is Cory and gets called curry, but that's just kids at school being bloody mean!

fuzzynavel · 07/12/2011 15:24

Moomins - should pair them up then Grin

Anyone called Nan?

fuzzynavel · 07/12/2011 15:25

naan, nann,

Sod it, one of thems got to be right Grin

TheyCallMeMimi · 07/12/2011 15:43

My name is an anagram of a much more common name, and some people think it's a short form of a longer (more old-fashioned!) name, so being caled the wrong thing is nothing new. DD's name is similar to a name which was very popular when she was born, so teachers used to call her that instead (there were 3 or 4 girls with the popular name in her class). DS has a name which can be spelt 101 different ways. A colleague has the same name (different spelling) and said he'd never, ever give a child that name because he was fed up spelling it out for people! Live with it, and be grateful for the card.

supermama212 · 07/12/2011 15:50

my name is spelt right but if people meet me for the 1st time they say " so are you Bethany or Bethan?" ( this has higlighted it in red as misspelt !) My surname - griffith always becomes griffiths/n ( if u have seen posts which my dd has last name pike , she has exs last name - changed mine to maiden as i want sod all to do with the abusive cow)

Halbanoo · 07/12/2011 15:58

My own family (apart from my parents and grandparents) still have no clue how to spell my name...35 years after my birth, so nothing surprises me. It's a common Irish name, with a "different" spelling variation. Not hard.

My son's name is constantly butchered in school. It ends in -an, but the teacher spells it with -on.

Life goes on, however.

zukiecat · 07/12/2011 16:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BreconBeBuggered · 08/12/2011 11:01

MIL isn't good at spelling, but knows I'm usually pretty reliable. She regularly rings me up when she's writing out cards for her friends, to ask me how their names are spelt. This would be no problem if I'd ever met her friends, or seen their names written down. But at least it means she has someone else to blame for any mistakes.

Gubbins · 08/12/2011 11:43

I'm Brigid/Bridget/Brigette/Bridgette/Brighid/Brigit/Brigitte. It's never crosed my mind to get worked up about it, and consider someone guessing the correct spelling first time round a matter for congratulation.

lurkerspeaks · 08/12/2011 13:44

My name has two common spelling variants.

People who know me well repeatedly use the wrong one. Often in e.mail when the correct one is staring them in the face in my address.

TBH. I've given up complaining. Life is too short at least they are using the correct name.

lurkerspeaks · 08/12/2011 13:46

Oh. I've also been told by people in call centres that I'm spelling my own name wrongly or that I MUST be called something else.

A bit like the Tom/ Thomas situation.

That annoys me. Genuine wrong choice of common spelling variant doesn't.