to think it's so rude to get someone's name wrong?

[JaneFonda]

My first name is hyphenated - imagine something like Mary-Anne but different names!

The amount of people who call me just 'Mary' when I have introduced myself with my actual name is frustrating, and, really strangely, I've been referred to so many times as 'Anne' - if I were to shorten my name to anything, it wouldn't be the second part of my name!

I can understand people struggling with difficult or foreign names that might not be clear how they're pronounced (my surname for example, I will never take offence to someone being unable to pronounce it!), but AIBU to think it's actually just rude to not call someone by the name they've introduced themselves as?

I don't think I am easily annoyed by things but this just seems like something that inexplicably annoys me.

FunkyPigeon why would you shorten someone's name and then revert to the 'proper' name if they ask you nicely? Surely it is appropriate to shorten someone's name if they say, 'my name is Susan but you can call me Sue'

I hate the short version of my name and would have absolutely no problem correcting someone who called me it.

I have one of those names which has a number of spellings (all correct) and it really irks me when I sign off an email and someone responds with an incorrect spelling - think K instead of C. It is there in black and white if you can be bothered to read it.

But not nearly as much as it irks me that they respond using a completely different name. My work colleagues think it is hilarious the number of times I have emails addressed to a completely different person (always the same one as well).

FunkyPeacock not FunkyPigeon [embarassed] at getting it wrong on a thread about getting names wrong - sheesh

I could have written the OP. I'm always amazed by people's responses to this issue. To say that hyphenated names are infantile and you can't be bothered with them is somewhere so far beyond rude you're gonna need a taxi to get back.

Most people don't name themselves- their parents do it. Most people arrive at a variation of their given name at some point- whether a diminutive, a nickname or whatever. Lots of people stick with their given name. It's simply bad manners to a) not listen properly when someone is introduced and b) decide to rename them because you don't like their name.

How many threads do we see on here where people are moaning because various relatives comment on the name chosen for the as-yet-unborn? I bet some of the posters saying "meh, put up with it" to this OP would have a hissy fit if their MiL refused to use the name they chose for their DC.

Laydee C (sorry I've got no idea how to highlight a user name) - because I'm not a mind reader so unless Louise tells me she doesn't like to be called Lou then I would assume that it's fine to use the more familiar abbreviation unless it am asked not to (obviously it would depend on the situation also). I suppose I included the word nicely because if someone was really arsey with me about something as trivial as this then I'd be tempted to carry on just to piss them off ;-)

I don't think wanting to be called by your name is trivial.

QT I'm trying to think what your name is, and thought to myself, 'Ah she must Superman then!'
I might retire to bed, my brain is broke.
Night Mary Anne!

YANBU - at all! It's quite easy to identify the posters who would drop the second name. As though they know better what you should be called - how pompous. All names should be treated with respect - especially as it's such an important part of one's identity.

I have a very unusual first name, people often get it wrong. After 46 years I don't bother to correct them now. I know my identity and who I am. If a name bothers you so much OP you have very little to worry you!

I can't actually believe how many people think that it's JaneFonda's fault for wanting to be called the name she was christened - because YOU don't like it? How rude!

My name is a Cornish version of a better known English name. People always try to call me the English name but I loathe it and always correct them.

I'm not a mind reader so unless Louise tells me she doesn't like to be called Lou then I would assume that it's fine to use the more familiar abbreviation unless it am asked not to

Why not assume that the name they have given you is the one they want to be known by? Or ask?

mrsdevere I have exactly the same issue as I haves 'foreign' surname, very unusual , and the first syllable is also the same sound as a one syllable girls name. I now always say 'my first name is over ' and my surname is 'themill'. But always have to spell it! I hate it when people say. 'Are you sure?'

I always try to call people by the names they tell me, with the pronunciation they say, which includes attempting Dutch pronunciations of G for one colleague.

I'm usually pretty good at remembering names, but if I get someone's name wrong from the outset, it's very difficult to fix in my head. (Which is why I'm still feeling bad for introducing Sally as Jane - trouble was I met Sally and Jane at the same time. And now I can't remember if that's actually her name or the wrong name, the wrong way round, so it'll probably happen again next time, apart from I'll be hesitating because I've got confused... We were all wearing name badges, too.)

i agree with vixxen, I think it's because anne is hardly there at all that hyphenated names with anne seem ok to me, but anything like Sarah-Louise or Emily-Rose from and adult...! I'd find that one name too many I think

I find people almost have a compulsion to get names wrong. My maiden name was a name which isn't that common but isn't uncommon either, and people with that name always spell it the same way. Nevertheless, people were constantly introducing extraneous vowels and producing all sorts of bizarre versions of the name which they cannot possibly have seen elsewhere. DH's surname is a very common one - not quite in the Smith and Brown league, but close to it, and therefore when we got married I decided to change to it just because I was so bored with constantly correcting misspellings. How wrong I was. People still constantly get even that surname wrong, and again the versions they come up with are just bizarre - think something like Wite for White, or Smyithe for Smith. So I've given up trying to correct them and just answer to whatever they choose to call me.

i have to put an 'a' on the end of my name if I'm booking a table at a restaurant, otherwise, I don't think they hear where the sur name begins.

Someone I have known and worked with for 12 years STILL calls me by a name similar to mine, but not mine IYKWIM. Infuriating, but I laugh about it with DH. However someone else recent in our lives also does the same and I feel like correcting her frequently.

Why would you be so over familiar with someone you've just met though?! If someone introduces themselves as Louise then presumably you've just met them and calling them anything else is rude and just weird.

Yanbu op, at all.

Why can't an adult have a name like sarah-Louise?! If that is what they have been known as all their life then that IS their name. FFS.

QT's name is Wonder Woman, obviously.

Or possibly Green Lantern...

YANBU JaneFonda.

My poor daughter. Sounds like if the people on this thread are representative of the population in general she's going to be spending a lot of her life correcting people.

She too has a 'Mary Anne' style name, and it's with an 'e' and without a hyphen. The number of people who write it Mary-Ann does my head in, but at least they acknowledge the Anne, unlike the ones who just call her 'Mary', which just sounds so wrong, because it's not her name. We didn't like 'Mary' on it's own, we liked 'Mary Anne', so that's what we called her, and it's who she is. The only person who gets to decide to drop the Anne is DD, and so far she very much hasn't.

It's downright rude and cheeky to decide to shorten someone's name because you don't like the full version.

I think if you want people to start using your whole name, it needs to be written and spoken as one, rather than as two or hyphenated.

So Annalouise rather than Anna Louise or Anna-Louise. Having two names, hyphenated or not, looks disjointed, and also sounds disjointed if you are pronouncing them very separately from each other.

My first name is hyphenated.
I hate the bloody hyphen so never use it.
Nobody except my family know its hyphenated, and they know not to ever use my full name.
I have spent 38 years trying to forget the hyphen.

Cor blimey, there are some overbearing replies on this thread Really, people, nobody has to change the pronunciation, spelling or configuration of their own name to suit you! And how on earth do double-barrel haters cope with French names, for instance, which are more often hyphenated than not? Perhaps you need to tell the whole of France to change their names to ones you find more convenient

All that said, OP, I think YAB a little bit U. Since it bothers you, just calmly tell people, as often as necessary. FTR, I have a slightly uncommon name, which people are always assuming must really be one of several more common ones instead - dunno whether they think I don't know my name or have a unique speech impediment If they don't get it after two corrections, I just answer to the incorrect name. It's only a label, altering it doesn't alter me

I know a Mary-Jane. When people just call her Mary my brain doesn't associate it to her (she doesn't mind either way though).

I'm not sure it's rude as in on purpose, but it is a little irksome. As others have said, just gently correct them, "Sorry it's Mary-Jane"