To think this is a bit poor.

[Highlandfling80]

At the end of the year dds school does various Awards. Most do not involve a certificate but your name appears in the newsletter.
Well my Dd received 5 Awards but on 3 of these her name was spelt wrong.
Now I know this is trivial and the end of term is busy and the odd error is expected.
However to me this is a bit sloppy.
Aibu

We have the same problem OP. Our surname is often spelled incorrectly, despite being a local place-name. They spell the place wrong too!

I don't bother fuming. You get used to it after a while. I try to pre-empt and check that registers etc are correct before they award the certificate or medal.

Heyrobot - at school you would have been expected to learn the spellings of words which everyone might feasibly use every day. The fact that people didn't 'bother' to learn how to spell a foreign surname that they will never need to use ever again once you'd left, is really not in the same ballpark.

wowfudge - dismissive? Of a total non-problem, a name which the OP admits is not the usual spelling, and will not be a huge problem out in the real world in 20 years time? Yeah, sorry for being dismissive

My name can be spelt at least 6 different ways, with 1 classic way. The classic way is what I usually receive when people don't ask, It doesn't get to me though.

Now my bank spelling my name wrong when opening an account with them, even though I spelt it out twice to the lady, and then they added a mrs to it when I'm a Miss... Now that did get to me as I was refused a credit account somewhere else as It looked like I was defrauding the place using an alias, or tesco refusing to take my cheque for my food shopping as it said Mrs on my bank card but Miss on my cheque book..Took me weeks to get the bank to rectify their mistake!

OP schools often get first names wrong but a surname is far more serious, have you pointed it out to the head/secretary.

vvviola:

Yes, I do know that Niamh is a correct spelling and I also know it is Irish.
My point is that that proper version of the name is sometimes phonetically spelled as Neave or Neve. Ergo it can be tricky to keep up.

My DD is Eva, and has received various certificates in her 4 years at school. Not once has her name been spelled correctly. 3 letters!!?
She's had Ava, Eve, Evie, Aoife, and once, Evan!
She thinks it's funny that her little, traditional, fairly common name can be misspelled so often. She now brings home each award with glee so we can play the guess-the-name game!

ptumbi:

People should never not "bother" to spell a name correctly or to pronounce a name correctly. What a totally ridiculous argument.
No wonder the office bods make mistakes if that is the attitude. What a joke.

Ptumbi - it was a school with fewer than 300 kids. I had siblings so they would be using the name for over a decade. I have many clients who are with us for a year and never again but it's sloppy to spell their names wrong or pronounce them incorrectly because I can't be bothered. How did they not feasibly have to use my name every day?

Furthermore, ptumbi, your implication about not bothering to spell a foreign surname correctly on the grounds that you won't use it often, is bordering in being racist.

Correction:
(See? It can be done...)

"...bordering on being racist."

"ptumbi:

People should never not "bother" to spell a name correctly or to pronounce a name correctly. What a totally ridiculous argument.
No wonder the office bods make mistakes if that is the attitude. What a joke."

I agree. Tell children that these mistake don't matter, that a low standard of work is ok and you are then sending them out into the world/workplace with the same attitude.

Getting it right does matter. I see young adults who are shocked when work has to be redone due to carelessness like this.

Niamh is the proper spelling

I don't think it is trivial, op. People get my name wrong a lot and it bothers me. Maybe that is unreasonable of me, but it's how I feel. My name is so much a part of my identity that when people get it wrong I feel on some level as if they have 'me' wrong, too.

Agree ailith, there were Katherines, Kathryns and Catherines and it wasn't too much trouble to get those right. Those kids didn't get the alternative spelling on their books and certificates. I did.

Giraffes:

Yes, Niamh IS the proper spelling! We know.

If this is secondary school I would make sure you put them right on this or they will enter her for GCSEs with the wrong spelling which will subsequently appear on her certificates. Could be a problem if colleges/ employers don't believe the certificates belong to her.

I also think it is pretty poor not to check the spelling for the awards list as she worked hard for those, makes it look like the school can't be arsed!

My university typed my name incorrectly onto my degree certificate back in the 80s, still annoys me.

My Dd17 got a sports award from school a couple of years (for representing at national level), obviously (as always!) her name was spelled incorrectly, but this time they spelled the name of her sport wrong too!

Pearl - didn't realise that, where do the schools get the info for their legal names file? Would it be possible for these to be typed in wrongly and this not to be noticed?

Clearly my university did not have such a system.

I have an unusual first name, with the traditional spelling. However it's an awkward spelling, so often spelt wrong.
Surname is fairly common, but with a more common almost identically pronounced surname. Will always be spelt wrong if you don't say, and about half the time even if you do say.
Dd1's name an unusual alternative spelling has become popular since we named her. Most people spell it wrong.
Dd2 is fine.
Ds has two alternatively spelt names and gets about 50/50 on right /wrong.

Not something I get worked up about. Interestingly dd2 is probably the one who gets most worked up about wrong spelling, despite having it least an issue.

Sorry ailith, misread you, and thought you were saying Niamh was the unusual/phonetically spelled version. Blame it on not enough coffee yet today

Tbh I think all derivations of the name are equally acceptable. Think Haywood Hayward type name. I accept Dd probably won't want to keep newsletter and they at least it right on whole year attendance certificate. Her 1St ever.