To find this ignorant

[whistlingtea]

I have an unusual name (and I know the way things go on here: I'm not going to disclose it!) It isn't a foreign name (not that that should make any difference) or hard to pronounce. It just isn't one frequently heard.

New people have recently joined the company.

They can't (apparently) get it right and their way around this is to call me any name that sounds vaguely similar. The most common one they've come up with is a pop singer with a slightly tarnished reputation but I've also been called two names that are not even close to mine (almost like someone introducing themselves as Annabel and being called Rebecca - because they 'hear' it incorrectly they come up with nicknames that are weird) and I've heard them saying to clients 'just call her ...'

IT'S DRIVING ME FUCKING BANANAS.

My name has been a source of irritation all my life to be honest because people persist in using a very similar but still different one (think Isobel/Isabella) but this is beyond anything I've had before.

The worst thing is I really don't think they are intentionally being rude. They just genuinely seem incapable of getting it in their heads that not everyone is called Sarah or Clare or Becky or something.

There are no nicknames I can use that I'd want to.

AIBU, and what the hell can I do? I really don't want to spend the next however many months being referred to as a pop singer I don't even LIKE!

I've had this all my life with both first name and surname. My first name is Marianne and I get all sorts of variations on it. The one I hate most is Mary Anne which the stupid registrar put on my birth cert because he mis heardy mother. She actually went to the trouble of having a note added that it was incorrect! (Long story...she had to produce my baptismal cert and swear an affidavit.) My surname is very rare but pronounced exactly as spelled (think similar to Mulligan) but people seem to become word blind when they see it. My married name isn't much better, again pronounced exactly as spelled, two syllables easy peasy but for some reason most people get it wrong. *sigh...if im reincarnated I'm going to ask to come back as Mary Jones or Paul Smith!

I use to work with this guy called andriano I was calling him andriana for ages before he corrected me and told me how to pronounce it did not get it wrong again

user1473106504

Did you realise at the time that you were calling him a female version of the name?

I think the OP is called either Rhiannon or Talita.

I have a standard normal first name and a surname that is a word in English. My first name is somewhat dated (most people with it are 30+ years older than me) so people always call me the same vintage of name, even if it sounds nothing like it e.g. Doreen, Valerie, Sandra, Phyllis if my name was Pamela.

I don't know if that is better or worse. At least we can both pretend they have got me mixed up with somebody else.

OMG I love that sketch. So funny but also sort of sad with the deeper meaning behind it.

I once had to take an employee aside and explain that not pronouning someone's name correctly is disrespectful and I didn't care if they didn't have the same name in her country. She had been told the correct way to pronounce it and if she continued to ignore that and presume she knew better she'd better be prepared to face the consequences of what amounted to bullying. Renaming someone when you have been told repeatedly the correct name is bullying behaviour.

Op they sound infuriating.

I will admit to being absolutely useless with remembering names and if someone introduces themselves I have usually forgotten what they said their name was by the time we've finished shaking hands . There was one particular lady who worked with my DD and although I could remember roughly what her name was, I could never remember if it was actually Laura, Lorna or Lauren. My strategy is to avoid using peoples names as much as possible unless I am actually certain of it. I also have a neighbour who has a name which is the same as mine but which has 2 different spellings. In spite of it being my name too it took me years to remember if she used the same selling as me or the other one. It isn't deliberate and I don't consider myself to be thick - I am just rubbish with names - and I meet a lot of people. I am in awe of school teachers as I've no idea how they remember the name of every child in their classes.

I also have a surname which is 2 syllables and is said as it looks. But you wouldn't believe how many people get it wrong - changing letters in the middle to make it a number of more common names. Sometimes I correct them, sometimes I don't bother - depends who they are and where we are.

Having said all that though OP I would definitely remember the name of someone I worked with on a regular basis and would make sure I got it right. I think you need to actually make your colleagues look stupid by insisting that they use your correct name each and every time they get it wrong. Try "my name is XX not YY, now repeat after me XX" until they get it right.

The OP isn't. The celebrity name is NOTHING like mine

I'd just start calling them Bob-short-for-Kate from now on.

Could you hand them your business card and ask them to use it as a reminder in case they forget the spelling of your name when talking to clients? If you're in an office stick it to their monitor. You've asked them politely, now be more blunt.

Business card

When I very first got with my DH, his best friend hated me and decided what better way than to screw my name up. Now my name does sound very similiar too another
Think gemma and emma.
So I'll be gemma
He would greet me as hi emma!
Partner would be like no gemma
When they'd have phone calls he'd be like so how is em/emma each time we would correct him. It was his grin each time he called me the wrong name. So 6 months in and the twat still was referring to me as Emma/Em.
We arrange to meet him in a pub to meet his new girlfriend. Friend boldly announced this is my girlfriend caroline, my partner then says hi elizabeth! Cue confused face from caroline, her partner says no mate caroline
My partner responds with so how have you been Kimberley? How did you & x meet? He's told me so much about you chelsea.
Each time my DH called her the wrong name he grinned at his friend. By this point Caroline looks really confused and probably wondering how to escape. DH then says you haven't introduced the ladies to each other
His friend responds " Caroline, this is gemma"
He has never gotten my name wrong again.
Sometimes being nice doesn't work, we tried for a long time only when we did it back did he get the hint.

Wasn't there a thread on here a while back where the OP's DP kept calling her the wrong name, like Sarah instead of Sara? Could be worse, Whistling.

When I was at school my headteacher had a moment of memory loss and said to a group of parents 'Tracey will show you round'. I'm not called Tracey. I smiled and said 'Tracey won't, but Bastards might'. He laughed, a lot, and called me Tracey at every opportunity for the next six months til he left.

I met him again ten years later when he was running a training course I was on. Without missing a beat he said 'Hello Tracey...'

On the servants being called a random different name, I discovered from a chat with my dad that this happened more recently than I'd thought. His DGM, my DGGM (died during WW2 so neither he nor I ever knew her) was first a housemaid and then a nursery nurse in one of the local "big houses" in north Norfolk in I guess the 1910s. Her name (Lydia) was deemed unsuitable for the help and so she was called Jane at work instead.

Icing on the cake was 15 odd years later as she was doing some shopping in Fakenham with my then teenage DGM she was hailed in the street by her former employer (the wife) who (a) still called her Jane (b) sized my DGM up and (c) asked when DGM would be going into service!

I would want to get it right so I would keep asking you.
I wouldn't make up names in place of. How rude of them.
YANBU

OP, I think I'd let it go tbh. (Why is it that important to you?)
I work in an office where there is someone in a similar situation. She keeps correcting people and now she is often referred to in conversations, even meetings, as "Isobel-not-Isabella" (to use your example, not her name), accompanied with obligatory eye-rolling. Not worth being noted for this.

It's more like 'belinda not britney' :)

I would always have said it is rude, but I have a good friend who is Nigerian and I cannot pronounce her name. I think I get pretty close, to the point where I cannot actually hear the difference between how I pronounce it and how she pronounces it, but I'm told its still not quite right!

I worked with a group containing a Karen, Keron, Carron and Corrine. It was nightmarish and my Norn Iron accent didn't help but we muddied along until Keron lost it one day and shouted "It's fucking Keron, alright?"
And from then on she was known as Fucking Keron, which whilst not entirely fair, differentiated her very well!

I have an unusual name too, 2 syllables, pronounced exactly as it's spelt, but still people insist on using similar sounding names. Last person that did it regularly got called by a different name that started with the same letter as his everytime I spoke to or about him, this ranged from similar sounding boys names, to girls names, names of pets (think Mr Tiddles) and occasionally just random words that started with the same letter. He got the point quite quickly.

I just tell people they can call me what they want as long as it isn't rude.

I have a very common surname that has two spelling variations. So all the time I was growing up I spent spelling it out so that people got it right. It turns out that it is only spelt that way in the first place because my great grandfather could be bothered correcting a mispelling.

I think you and I share a first name, OP,. Lots ofpeople (not friends or family) invariably pronounce mine the same as the 'slightly tarnished' pop singer says hers. I want to say no, my way is much classier

I agree - this needs to be pinned to the top of the Baby Names section as a warning...

Years ago an ex boyfriend and I used to socialise with his friend and his friend's girlfriend. This girl called me Paula, Pamela, Patricia, Penny... none of which are my name. My name begins with a Ph.

I think she did it to show superiority and belittle me.

This is a form of subtle bullying. Report them to HR.

" This is a form of subtle bullying."

spot on. I have noticed that people do this to belittle the name owner - kind of 'you are so unimportant, I am not even going to get your name right'. A 'friend' of mine used to do it a lot.

Some people used to find my surname hilarious. Suppose it is Fitzgerald...several people used to go 'Fitzgibbons or whatever your name is' and then laugh uproariously. Possibly there is some latent anti-Irish thing going on there, and it is fucking annoying.