Unreasonably irritated that only about 8 people call me by my correct name?

[Imnotcalledthat]

It’s unusual, granted but I didn’t choose it. Still, it isn’t hard to say.

A handful of friends and my sister are the only ones who say it correctly. Everyone else says a similarly spelled but very differently pronounced name.

Imagine if your name was Joan and everyone said Joanne ... it’s that sort of idea.

It doesn’t matter how many times you correct them.

Should I just give in and accept I’m a Joanne to most people?

I have an Irish name... english people insist on mispronouncing and misspelling it thanks to Dear Deidre in the Sun and Deirdre Barlow. The 'e' sound in Irish is noe 'ie' or 'y' it is an 'eh' sound. In fact there are few English words that end in 'e' and not 'ie' or 'ey' that are pronounced 'ie'. It irritates the bejasus out of me!!

My son is called Alex, just Alex, not Alexander. English men of a certain age in positions of power feel the need to ask if he is called Alexander or assuming that he must be called Alexander. When corrected, they invariably proceed to say that if he was Scottish that he would be called Sandy. It does make me want to punch them!

Call them another name every time they do it. That was how we stopped my MIL from using the wrong name for my DD. Her excuse was she couldn't remember so we started using the wrong name for her and after a few times she got angry and told us to stop, we just smiled and said we couldn't remember. She never did it again.

@1forsorrow - What an utterly twatty way to behave towards your grandchild. Great way of dealing with it, though!

"I order taxis and pizzas as Mary Smith."

I'm Jane in Starbucks and Jane Jones if I need a surname as well!

“Should I just give in and accept I’m a Joanne to most people?“

I get two different names that aren’t mine, depending on whether they’ve only heard it or whether they’ve seen it written down...

I just answer to them tbh, I correct people 3 times... after that it just feels mean, they’re not doing it on purpose.

"If you have a very Irish, Scottish, Welsh name, or even further afield, maybe a little forgiveness is needed when people don't nail it instantly, even after a correction or two. "

Because MN is just for England? I thought it was a British site actually? What if you live in Scotland or Wales? You're not foreign in your own country are you?

I wish there was a song like this for Welsh names:
www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+irish+names+song&docid=608026802878746307&mid=00D230B54D65A2E3924E00D230B54D65A2E3924E&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

I have a weird surname and it is constantly spelled and pronounced wrong. It doesn't bother me at all... I guess I just accept it and don't take it personally.

It isn't rude to ask them why they keep calling you X when you have told them several times it is y

And it will sink in more if you then use their own name - it would be like me calling you A even though your name is B.

And as for people who correct someone on their own name, well, they deserve the good old fashion head tilt and concerned voice ... What make you believe that I don't know my own name?

My names Sharna and so many people call me Shauna. It’s not as if my name is hard to pronounce

Same. I don't have a very unusual name but inexplicably people (including people who know me well) sometimes use the male version to address me. Or the French version on my name. It gets misspelt 99% of the time. I now try introduce myself by a shortened version of my name in person as well as in writing to any new acquaintances as it is getting very tiresome.

And what would you do when people use the wrong name for you in a group chat? I don't want to add to the traffic on let's say a school parents WhatsApp chat but it's really tiresome when people who hav known me for five year insist on calling me by a man's name

sorry for all the typos. have and years

I have a very short simple name (similar to Tina). So I get Tira, Tara, Tana, Tare (!). I just won't answer. It's not affectionate, its lazy.

People can be very sensitive over names.

i suspect the moral of the tale is call your child Jane, John, Elizabeth, Henry and you probably cannot go far wrong.

I often have read tihngs 100 x more than heard them eg I only read the news, I don't watch TV so a lot of words Ih ave never heard anyone ever say and therefore go back to things like latin roots, my French studies, my German A level to have a go at a pronunciation.

@Orchardgreen - asking how to spell a surname sometimes is the polite way of indicatinh they just can't remember it or couldn't make out what you were saying. It's also polite to check my surname has an extra letter that doesn't need to be there for pronunciation so I spell it out.

I have a common name that people mix up with the similar name, of the Marie / Maria type. I don't mind people getting in wrong but will correct them. What's more awkward is when people get it right and then somebody else corrects them to the wrong name (it happens ridiculously often). I don't really want to be calling someone out in a meeting for not knowing my name, but they've just told everyone in the room a different name so then others will start using it thinking they were wrong! I tried "Thanks but Marie is fine, I usually use that rather than Maria." and it felt even more aggressive than "No, it is Marie actually". Does anybody have a good line for that situation?

@Branches1 - contact them individually and correct them initially, then sign off every post you make.

Gwenhwyfar I bet you were salivating at the opportunity to make that point.

For those aggrieved Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Manx, Channel Islanders, Scilly Islanders, Hebrideans and any others i've forgotten, I do humbly apologise that my post did not make clear that my post was from the perspective of an English person. How the F can a working class 18 year old form Kent be thought of badly for incorrectly pronouncing Dyddanwy or Gwylfai

My name starts with an I and 99% of people who respond to my emails and texts assume it’s an L (why would I write my name with a small L??)

Belly - yes my DD has this exact problem! OK her name is unusual and may be unfamiliar, but it is a girls' name. If I encountered an unfamiliar name in an email etc I'd look it up, or check with the sender. And if it starts with a capital I (because it's a NAME so starts with a capital), why do they change that to a lower-case "l"? - it's weird. It also results in a bonkers-sounding name that is even stranger than her actual name :o

I’m Scandinavian. Years ago when I worked in London there was this man called Eugene. It’s pronounced so differently in Swedish you wouldn’t know it was the same name. Eh-uuu-shee-n. He never realised I was saying his name. It was weeks before I realised mistake.

Your choice is either to correct people or put up with name being mispronounced.

I correct people every time they mispronounce my name. Some people need to be told a few times others only once. It's almost a reflex for me now, people usually react well and it doesn't bother me to correct them.

My maiden name was one which i had to repeat a lot and one which was spelt wrong even more!

My married surname is a 6 letter one. Irish in origin, which i can remember asking DH to repeat, and then spell on our first date!

I'm not ing now! 8 years into the marriage I don't even ever bother letting anyone try and spell it. I say the name and then robotically spell it out. sigh.

Oh and my first name is one which has been given twice on this thread as an example of a pain in the arse sort of name to get right as well!!

I dread people asking my name tbh.

I sometimes can't tell whether I'm pronouncing a name correctly or weirdly copying someone's accent. I have a friend of a friend called Marie, but she's Scottish and says it MAR-ee and I can't tell whether that's the same as what I would pronounce as Mar-EE but just in her accent, or whether the name actually required the emphasis on the first syllable. It's hard to ask without sounding bonkers, so I try to do a halfway thing that doesn't sound like I'm taking the piss but doesn't sound like I'm ignoring her pronounciation either.

My names Sharna and so many people call me Shauna. It’s not as if my name is hard to pronounce

This is an interesting one. I have a rhotic accent (most of Scotland, Ireland, and North America) so I would pronounce the "r". Someone with a non-rhotic accent (most of England) wouldn't. In a non-rhotic accent, it would be more like Shah-na. So is it possible the difference is in accent?

I get both - people always misspell my first name - even though it's part of my email address and email signature. My surname seems to cause even worse problems - I have worked in my job for 21 years and still they can't pronounce it. I have got fed up with correcting them and given up. In Doctors, chemists, etc I just answer to anything that vaguely sounds like it and I'm usually right

That meme in the second post is my life. My name comes with many different spellings, but my main gripe is when people at work in particular get my name wrong in emails.

Seriously, my email address, signature, and email headers in your Outlook haven't given you a clue?

It's astoundingly rude.

The worst was when a customer emailed me after a lot of back and forth and as such seeing my name spelled correctly on repeat, yet addressed me getting the spelling so wrong it didn't actually resemble any of the accepted spellings, asking me to call him.

I had to cool down before I could pick up the phone. I was fuming. Seriously angry.

I feel your pain OP. When people you know still can't pronounce your name correctly to your face you have every right to either return the favour or ignore them. If the latter, wait until they call you out on ignoring them and calmly respond that you heard them call for [wrong pronunciation] and assumed that's who they wanted to speak to.