re - my name

[heythatsnotme]

I have a bit of a complicated name, to say the least. I was named after a family member but my mum didn't really like the name, so although on my birth certificate, passport etc. my first name is X, I have in fact always been known by my middle name Y.

Y is from a different cultural heritage and a lot of people seem to find it immensely difficult to pronounce. They usually just start calling me an 'anglicised' version of the name which unfortunately is one I really do dislike, although it seems to be universally loved on Mumsnet :)

My surname is a variant of a far more common one. As such, it isn't remotely unusual to have to correct people on all three of my names.

The strange thing is, the mispronunciation seems very much limited to where I grew up. As a child, I didn't have the confidence to correct people and so was generally just known by the 'British' version of my name - although people just calling me a random word with the same syllables and the same letter isn't unheard of either. As soon as I moved away people 'got' it immediately.

At any rate, I've recently returned and I really have got to the point where I dread introducing myself as people just keep shouting the wrong name back at me. The circumstances which have brought me back are pretty upsetting ones; I went to see a counsellor but had to stop when she kept calling me the wrong name - it just annoyed me, and made me feel cross.

I really don't know why I am reacting so strongly. I even put the phone down on somebody once as he said 'sorry, I didn't catch your first name' and I just felt too tired and exhausted to go through it all.

Has anyone else with an unusual name experienced this? I know I'm over reacting and am being unreasonable but I am not sure why (why I am reacting in this way I mean.)

All three of my names have at least two accepted spellings (my first name has about 8), and hardly anyone can spell OR pronounce my surname right first time. (A very common mistake is to put a random capital letter in it that should not be there.) I vary a lot in how much fuss I make about it - sometimes I just can't be bothered. It matters more to me the more likely it is that I'll be spending a lot more time with the person. If I do say something, I usually say something like, "Can I just confirm that it is spelt blah-blah-blah, without a capital B?"

It does have its funny side occasionally - I used to work with a little boy who pronounced my surname wrong every day, I'd go through the correct way with him and he'd solemnly say it back to me, then come back the next day saying it wrong again. I eventually I saw him with his mum, he called me Mrs Rightname and his mum said, "No, it's Mrs WRONGNAME! I'm so sorry Mrs Wrongname, I keep telling him it's Wrongname but he keeps wanting to call you Mrs Rightname for some reason - I don't know where he gets it from." So I smiled sweetly and said, "Maybe it's because I keep trying to teach him it is pronounced Rightname." Neither of them ever got it wrong again.

You are not bu to feel annoyed and fed up about the fact that your name is making things difficult for you.

I have changed my first name by deed poll in my thirties. My original name is foreign and I have only ever had problems with it. Much happier now!!

It took people (old friends, dp parents) a while to get used to my new name but anyone who wasn't willing to accept my new name was ditched as a friend because I had very sound and personal reasons to take this unusual step. Not to support me in this meant that they didn't care that much about me anyway.

Is there a nickname you could use instead? If not, I can only recommend changing your name by deed poll it's very liberating and fun!

I actually think everyone should dh age their name to whatever they like and even change it several times during their lives...

Oh, I think a name should be a bridge not a barrier.

I have a last name that is a relatively common name but is usually spelt in one of 2 different ways and mine is a third less common way. It is also potentially an insult which people bandy about - though generally not around me more than once!

I automatically spell my name after saying it now. I could have changed it when I married but I didn't because I actually really like it and it's just me. I didn't give it to DS though!

In your case I can understand why constantly correcting the way people say it must get very, very frustrating but you have 2 choices basically. First, change it to something else or second, accept that some people are stupid and just can't get it. You could always start missaying their names too and see if that gets the point across.

I think you've got to find a way of dealing with it that works for you. It sounds like it's going to continue throughout your life so you need to either decide it's not going to bother you from this point onwards or correct them every time they get it wrong.

Don't take it personally, I have found that some people seem to have major problems with names in general and will do it to everyone, not realising how annoying it is. But don't spend your life being angry about it, because the only one suffering is you really.

"I think you've got to find a way of dealing with it that works for you. It sounds like it's going to continue throughout your life so you need to either decide it's not going to bother you from this point onwards or correct them every time they get it wrong."

sadly i think that's the answer

and you'll always get sympathy on here when you feeling like punching the next person who gets it wrong after you've corrected them twice

Oh i so hear you. Ive got a ridiculously common english name and live abroad in one of those countries that is supposed to be amazing at speaking english. Ive been here precisely 7 years and a day. So far 6 people have pronounced it properly. Whats even more annoying is that these people are usually looking at my details which includes my national insurance number which shows that i am forrin!

I have a fairly uncommon first name, and a bit more common middle name. My dad used to always call me by middle name, which riled me right up as I don't mind my first name, But to a young child its a bit confusing when only one person calls you by your middle name!

I spent years through school being ridiculed for my first name; and now even into adulthood I do still get faces when I say my name. It's a real name, honestly, but the way people go on about it is very annoying!

yanbu!

That's what people react like when I say my name...it's a classical though unusual name and it's like it doesn't even register that I've said my name. Even people that I've known for years will get my name wrong and seem to have no recollection that we've had this conversation about my name every time we've met.

To add to that it doesn't work phonetically in English (like phoebe doesn't) and looks like a misspelling of a different name, so if anyone has seen it written down first they call me that other name no matter how many times I correct them.

My daughter had a name which can be pronounced two different ways. Not quite the same as you but it does piss me off when people say oh this is x and I say no it's y and they still pronounce it x. I've just said her name out loud ad they sound completely different so ffs get it right. Feel a bit like I've made a mistake with her name but I've loved it since I was 18 so don't want to change it

Hi Alis my name isn't three letters long but it's good to know that there's someone else using the same technique as me. I like that my name is unusual because ironically, once someone knows how to say my name they don't tend to forget it that used to get me into a lot of trouble when I was little though

Ha! I bet Bump.

I asked her why she did it, rather than just flatly saying her name and she said it was because correspondence would often go walkies as people tried to spell the name having only heard it. Some of my colleagues (not all Welsh) were saying it wrong, for months. I was a bit at that.

I actually sympathise with people who struggle to say someone's name correctly. Sometimes it is genuinely hard for people to pronounce an unusual sounding syllable or they may not be able to "hear" part of the name clearly. Of course I understand your frustration and people should make an effort to try to pronounce your name correctly. From the posts here though, I think it's clearly a common issue, and it doesn't come from bad intent. Add on top the typical British fear of looking silly, some people, when they struggle with pronouncing a name are probably too embarrassed to say so.

I lived in Japan for a while and few Japanese people could pronounce my common, English name because one of the consonant sounds is tricky for native Japanese speakers.

I recently met a woman with a very unusual name that I'd never heard of, when she introduced herself she immediately mentioned that her name rhymes with "different word" which helped me pronounce her name correctly from the start. I appreciated her tactic and she clearly adopted this approach after many people mispronouncing her name. Would it be possible for you to do something like that to make your life easier?

non-BrEng-natives actually pronounce and spell my surname correctly, because they don't assume it's the more the common spelling and pronunciation. foreign accents are different though - my first name has its own pronunciations in a variety of languages, and that's fine with me. you do lose your adaptability to new sounds as you get older, so i'm sure that's part of it

I like the 'rhymes with' idea from Rainbunny hope it could work for you OP.
I met a chap a few years ago, his name was Chundun. It popped into my mind when I read this thread. He introduced himself as 'Hi My name's Chundun, it rhymes with London' and despite me generally being hopeless with names, I remembered it and got it right from the word go.

My name only rhymes with fairly obscure things, I tried it once, the person I said it to didn't know what the thing it rhymes with was, lol

Thank you for replies.

It doesn't rhyme with anything and there aren't any nicknames that lend itself to the name either. It has to be said though that it isn't a hard name to say - it is its similarity to the Anglican version of it that confuses people. As someone has said, it's when you say it out loud and people repeat a completely different name back at you that makes me

I understand why people have advised me to change it but my name is a part of my cultural identity as well as being a name my mother gave me - changing it would feel to me like a rejection of her, a rejection of my culture and a rejection of my past. So apart from the fact I quite like my name :) it is important to my identity - which I suppose is why I hate people deciding to change it!

My name is relatively common with lots of variations. People pronounce it however they like. I work with a lot of non-native speakers and they adapt it to the similar version, (if it exists) in their own language or they say it in their own way in their own accent. I'm fine with that.

Our ability to make certain sounds is pretty much fixed by late childhood so just as it is rare for a person learning a foreign language as an adult to have a mother-tongue - type accent so some new names, (esp if coming from a foreign-to-them language), will be impossible

I can understand the frustration but doubt there is any malice behind it.

There isn't any malice but although my name isn't British it certainly isn't remotely hard to pronounce. I am English born and bred, as was my mother. This isn't some impossibly complex name - people just decide it is the one they are familiar with.

I accept that isn't malicious but it's unbelievably frustrating.

I did have a friend once who was called Sara, (to rhyme with Lara/Cara), and everyone called her Sarah, (to rhyme with Carer/Bearer). It drove her mad!!!

I knew a Kelvin who was almost always called Kevin, (before Kelvin was as well known as it is now) and a French friend Jeanne who hated being either Jan or Jean - neither anywhere near as attractive as her actual name.

It is just, unfortunately the way language works. We process words quickly and fit them into the scheme that we learned as children.

It must be hard to live with it every day though.

sara's a tricky one because it seems to be a bit of an even split as to the pronunciation. if i had only ever seen it written down, when i spoke to them i would ask straight out how they pronounce it if they hadn't already said

I understand what you mean op and it is a bit weird really that people insist on doing this. We had a group of builders in my workplace a few years ago. One was called Andreas. All the other builders called him Andrew because they "couldn't remember Andreas" or, by their own admission "couldn't be bothered with the Andreas"!!!! How hard is it?!

Good thread for anyone choosing an unusual name.

I had a surname that I always had to spell out. I only realized the other day how easy my married name is, when I had to spell out my maiden name pita!

It's strange and I do realise I'm being silly for letting it bother me: my dad's first name is unusual but he used to just laugh when people got it wrong.

My name is really simple, fe but not actaully, Susan. Most people I encountered growing up, going through school and work in the UK would say 'oh, so that's short for Susannah" and either write Susannah or call me Susannah.

Apparently I was the one with the attitude problem because I dared to correct people.

So glad to be living overseas where my name works and people accept it as a valid name in it's own right. So glad in fact that I am happy to use the Spainsh version.