...to expect the school to spell my child's name correctly?

[QueenofKelsingra]

DS1 has a name that uses an accent on one of the letters. to be clear, this isn't some stupid attempt to make a name 'modern' or whatever, we are a bilingual family and DS1's name is from my husband's country. The accent is important, it changes the pronunciation of the name. His name is similar to an English version barring the accent and the change of one other letter.

everything that comes home is missing the accent, at least half has the wrong spelling completely (so the English spelling, not the foreign one).

I have spoken to the school twice and they just look at me like I'm making a fuss over nothing. AIBU to expect them to make the effort to get his name right?? i like to keep his school things - nativity programmes etc - in his memory box and it is annoying me that it all has his name spelt wrong!

So AIBU??

It's not "Little England", all I'm saying is that if it's such a big deal with the accent, then bearing in mind the area you're living in, you should take this into consideration. I'm not for one minute saying everyone should have what might be perceived to be an English name, such as Emma or Tom - for example, my friend from Slovenia's son is Filip. No doubt she chose the name because she liked it, but she's not run into any practical problems in either country. My friend Siobhan doesn't complain about any missing accents, and I'm well able to spell my friend Eoghan's name.

Sadly, due to our pitiful MFL teaching, accents are a mystery to most British people.

I tend to leave them off because I cannot remember which way they go.

I completely understand where the OP is coming from. Having had the same problem for most of my life.

One way of dealing with the problem is to misspell/mispronounce the other person's name, until it annoys them. After all it's near enough the same as their name

OK, it seems a bit petty, but it does work in the long run.

Getting a letter wrong is clearly unacceptable but I'm not sure where I stand on the accent, I know children whose names on their birth certificates are in Urdu and Chinese - would you expect the school to write their names in that way too? In these cases the parents haven't expected that, they've adapted the names to forms that use letters in the English language.

YANBU OP - at all. The accent is part of the spelling - end of. The school should be able to write it correctly, every time. Sounds like sheer laziness to me (unless, as others have said, their original records were incorrect). Doesn't excuse them repeatedly ignoring you though, which I'd find most insulting.

Incidentally, I'm an expat and DD has attended an international school - so names from all across the globe - and mysteriously the school office here doesn't appear to have problems with accents, whichever language(s) they originate from.

To take this a step further, is your DC going to be expected to receive incorrectly named GCSE certificates in the future?! Can't see many of the apologists here being quite so happy about that scenario...

YANBU. If they leave the accent off its as wrong as mis spelling it any other way. If they don't know where the accent is is Word, then they should LEARN!!!!

Its totally unacceptable to think that their way of spelling the name is 'near enough'.

How ridiculous to suggest as someone has upthread that we should all choose easy English names!

My DS has a name that can be spelt 2 ways and we have chosen the one that will be easier for them to learn phonetically. Doesn't stop people spelling it the other (more common) way though and that is driving me mad!

YABU about the accent. There will be loads of people in the school that write your child's name at some point! you can't expect them all to know about the accent and remember to use it every time. They have bigger things to think about.

The spelling is a reasonable thing for you to be irritated by, but I don't think it's worth making a fuss over, especially if you know there is an English way of spelling the same name. Apart from the teacher and the secretary, no one else probably even realises you spell it differently to know they need to check. Why would they?

A lot of the time names are written just to identify a picture or a piece of work. If they manage to achieve that, then the alternative spelling is doing a good enough job.

But why does the DC deserve such little respect? His own teachers can't be bothered to spell his name properly! And Woo - the accent is part of the spelling...

Does the accent change the sound of the letter? Can someone give an example?

Genuine question.

if they can type Zoë or piña colada they can type his name.

handwritten stuff - absolutely no excuse to not getting it right!

they should respect his name, spelling & pronunciation - no arguments there.

I'd certainly take it up with the teacher.

my DS2 is Samuel. we call him Sammy - and put on school form that these are the two names he is known by.
(there was a section to fill "prefers to be called:............")

in year to the teacher started calling him Sam.
wrote that on letters and his books, everything.
I told her that he is not a Sam and I'm not happy about this and would she please refer to him as either of the original choices (as it is not up to her to choose any nicknames, plus neither Sammy nor us like him to be called Sam)
she apologised and said she didn't realize it mattered.
job done, all happy

I can't decide if YABU. Completely misspelling is definitely unreasonable, but the accent? Accents aren't a part of the English alphabet are they? If you had a chinese name would you expect the school to use Chinese characters - I think that would be unreasonable. It may be their IT systems don't support it or their staff training has higher priorities than how to type foreign characters. At the same time my gut feeling is - it's just an accent, surely they have enough pride to work out how to get it right. So on I'm the fence.

sorry, those came out weird...

In French, accents totally change the sound of an 'e', so Mélanie is pronounced almost like "Mey-la-nie" while Melanie would be Meuh-la-nie.
It does make a difference to the child if one vowel sound is mispronounced.
I've spelt my DS's name a non-French way, and while I expect the school to spell it right I don't expect them to pronounce it the British way. It's hard to shove an English sound into a French sentence, so I fully understand that they pronounce it as you would the French equivalent, which is spelt differently.

I agree with you OP. Our names are pronounced and spelt in a certain way for a reason. To let people spell it however they like is suggesting you're not bothered what people call your son, which of course is not true. I was 9 years old when I got a certificate from school with my first name written as Gary. I have a female Welsh name and was mortified that teachers could be so stupid.

as the owner of an accented name it pisses me off when people miss it off. none of my school docs (or my bloody degree) ever have the accent on and it is annoying. it totally changes the pronunciation of the name, from a bundle of letters into, you know, a name. the only teacher who ever spelt it right was the one with the same name!

as an adult, people who spell it right get more consideration than those who don't.

My sons name is the same as French kings not oxford based detectives! grinds my gears when people pronounce it wrong

The English language doesn't have accents. I don't speak Spanish.

yanbu my dcs school can't spell dd's name, either her first or her surname

despite me correcting it on everything i ever have to send in to them

really fucks me off

I really wouldn't expect the school secretaries to be of a good enough standard on a computer to figure accents out. I'd like them to be, I'd hope them to be, but expect? No, no more than I expect a doctors secretary. Unfortunately in our area they probably wouldn't/couldn't.

I have a DS with a slightly unusual name (but there are people in the public eye with this name, so it's not completely unknown). When he was at primary school teachers were forever spelling it incorrectly which drove me mad as it's not difficult to spell. They spent 7 years spelling it wrong, I gave up correcting them in the end. Interestingly, at secondary school hardly any of the teachers have misspelled it, despite there being much less pupil-teacher contact.

Councils & Dhss are just as bad for misspelling names.

I think if your child has an unusual name or spelling, YANBU to want the teachers and staff who work with your child regularly to spell their name right. Equally, you should expect certificates to be spelt correctly (having said that, my name is misspelled on my GCSE certificates and it hasn't held me back. Common name, but they spelled it with an -a ending instead of an -e, like Anna instead of Anne).

However, it is easy enough for other staff members to make mistakes when they don't write the name regularly. In fact, they may never have seen it written down and only heard it before (for example, a dinner lady wanting to send a quick note home). And we often have children with the names that sound the same, for someone who doesn't work with the children regularly it must be a nightmare trying to remember who is K- and who is C-, and who is -ie, -ee, -ey or -y! I can think of a few names that have 3 different spellings in our school.

And like I said before, if you have recurring problems with names being spelled incorrectly, check the records! We have had instances of names being spelled wrongly from the start, this means that every register or class list or letter home will have the incorrect spelling on, and even if you correct the teacher you're fighting a losing battle, people automatically assume the computer is correct and will change the spelling back!

Vole - precisely! In fact, are you me?!