This is a combination AIBU and WWYD on something that is fairly trivial on the face of it, but makes me a bit cross and sad. (Though actually I can't see what can be done.)
My DS is almost 15 months old. We live in a different country to my parents, but visit frequently and talk most days on Skype, so they can see DS, who is their only grandchild. All involved have English as a first language. They have just been visiting us, and it was generally lovely. BUT I realised that, 15 months on, my mother still continually mispronounces DS's name. I knew she mispronounced it right at the beginning, when he was born, but DH and I told her (gently!) how to say it, and I thought it was resolved months back.
But now I realise it was only masked by the fact she usually calls him by a short form of his name most of the time. Which is fine, obviously, though everyone else calls him his full name, but when she talks to other people about him and uses his full name, she says it completely wrong. To the point where people don't recognise it.
It's not just a single error, but THREE, for heaven's sake. Difficult to explain without saying the name, but she pronounces a 'th' as 't', switches one vowel sound for another, and puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable. I only realised it was still going on when two people I know slightly from the park and who had met my parents out with DS while they were visiting, mentioned it yesterday, and were clearly worrying they had been calling DS the wrong name all along. (We are newly moved here so they were worried they had picked up the wrong name.)
I won't say the name here, but it's Biblical, perfectly ordinary, phonetically pronounced and though not used much in this country, is very common in other parts of the English-speaking world. No variants, no alternative spellings.
I gently corrected her near the end of the visit, making a joke of it, but she's still doing it, and i realised on the phone to some relatives in our home country that extended family we don't see regularly are saying it wrong, because of how my mother pronounces it in their company! I don't know myself at this point what the problem is. No one else, from close family to people we meet on the street, has ever had a problem saying it. Some kind of mental block? The fact I don't think she liked the name when we originally announced it?
AIBU to be frustrated that my mother can't/won't pronounce her only grandchild's name correctly? I think it would have upset and confused me as a child to have my grandmother calling me by the wrong name. I would never have called him by his lovely name if I'd known this would be an issue, but it's far too late for that now! Any thoughts?