To ask for your best 'wrong name' stories!

[Butterfly98]

Posting here for traffic... an old friend FaceTimed this evening and was tipsy after some wine, she told me a funny story about a colleague she's had for 4 years who she's been calling the wrong name for all that time! He's got a reserved personality so was probably too polite to tell her! FFS the names aren't even similar, think John vs Thomas 🤣🤣
It reminded me of when myself and DH bought our first house years ago and our friendly elderly NDN told us all the info about the other neighbours including names, jobs, religions etc.. anyhow we sent Christmas cards to them all a month later including one to 'Dear Christian' and we often said hello, he seemed like a nice guy... It was only when we took in a couriered package for him almost a year later that we realised his name was Michael!! The penny dropped that he was a regular churchgoer so a practicing Christian!! I felt morto as it was like writing to our other neighbours "Dear Muslim/Jew"! Anyhow he saw the funny side and actually said he wondered why we pointed out his religion every time we said hello!! Again another one who was just too polite for his own good! Can anyone beat that with their wrong name stories?

My name is kinda unisex and I work in a somewhat chauvinistic sector. A few years ago I had a Skype job interview. I was ready, set up, said hello etc etc and the interviewer asked if my husband would be arriving soon. I said "No..." and then realized that they thought they would be interviewing a man. Needless to say I don't work for them now.

Not really funny but for some reason I really struggle with the names Catherine and Caroline. I have a neighbour called Catherine and I avoid saying her name at all costs as I just know I’m going to call her Caroline.

It’s only those two names. I don’t know why!

I worked for a large company, with many offices. Someone I didn't know rang me -

Them - 'Hi, I'm He Man!'
Me (thinking it was some being daft) - 'Oh, hi, I'm She Ra!'

Turns out it was a new employee I'd never spoken to before called Himansu. And they were too young to know about The Masters Of The Universe, so we couldn't even laugh about it. I was mortified

These are good 🤣🤣 @villainousbroodmare how awful, that company sounded very chauvinistic!

When I first bought my house, my then partner and I met an older couple who lived a few doors up. They told us all about the neighbourhood, who lived where, etc. Lovely couple, named Diane and Bert. The guy two doors up was named John, and we called him Jaguar John as the Chinese guy who lived the other side of us also said his name was John.

We sent them all Christmas cards each year, and when Jaguar John's wife died, I put a card through his door addressed to him and signed our names at number **. A while after, I was talking to Diane and mentioned Jag John. She looked confused, and then told me his name was actually Steve. I think I'd lived in my house for about 5/6 years by then.

Not long after that, Diane's daughter and I were chatting and I asked after Bert as I hadn't seen him for a while. She asked who Bert was. I said it was her mum's husband (thinking it was a bit odd) and then got told his name was Neil.

@Athenajm80 🤣🤣🤣

Mine, from years ago, is quite bad - I lived in a town where the white population is 96%+. My friend Jen dated a Chinese guy called Bob for a few months, his family ran a nail salon (relevant). This was when we were students so out on the piss all the time, and the barman at our favourite boozer was also a Chinese guy, called Steve.

One night we were out walking to the next pub and my friend said "look there's Bob" - she hadn't seen him in about a year. We went up to say hi to him and he said "Hi Glummy, hi Jen, how are you?". Jen said "Look at the state of my nails Bob you'll have to get them sorted for me!". He looked a bit confused, made very light "have a good night" small talk and walked off.

It was a few minutes later when I realised that it wasn't Bob, it was Steve - I was embarrassingly shocked at my own internalised prejudiced that I didn't think to tell two Chinese people apart and what's more it must have come across as racist as hell for Jen to say "I need my nails done".

We avoided Steve's bar after that

Disclaimer: names changed of course!

@GlummyMcGlummerson that's a good story! 😂

My gardener calls me the wrong name. Eg my name is Albertina and he calls me Tina. I have repeatedly signed off emails and texts and referred to myself as ALBERTINA, in case he somehow misunderstood or misheard and it’s part of my name. But no, he continues! It’s fucking maddening it’s a horrendous shortening of my name and I can’t believe he honestly thinks it’s fine - I think he got it wrong first and now sticks to it doggedly.

On Celebrity Bake Off the other night, Paul accidentally called Patsy Palmer 'Pasty'. Literally lost it laughing.

PASTY PALMER.

@crispysausagerolls could he be hard of hearing? Or maybe he thinks your name is Martina and shortens it to Tina?! Though he shouldn't shorten your name if he thinks you're not ok about it!

He is not hard of hearing. It’s so annoying!!! It’s also a nickname that isn’t really used for my name!

10 years ago I was pushing my DS down the road in his pram on my way to meet a friend.
A middle-aged lady stopped me, said DS was beautiful and asked his name. I FORGOT and the first name I thought of was MALCOLM so that's what I said. I then see my friend approaching. Lady smiles and it turns out this lady is my friends aunt and she turns to my friend and tells her how beautiful MALCOLM is. My friend looked dumbstruck and said he's not called that! The aunt looked shocked and both looked at me. I didn't know what to do so said 'oh it's his middle name'.
I didn't invite this friend to the baptism and I still feel on edge when I see her ( not often she moved away )

In my early 20s me and my best mate looked like twins at a distance. Same height, skinny, long hair and we borrowed each others clothes. We had a huge network of friends and acquaintances and from time to time people would shout "hi Sharon" to me at a distance, me not reacting as not my name and vice versa. We both got told off many times for "ignoring" people claiming one of us was somewhere we weren't. Easier when we were out together as people know the difference then.

At my grandfather’s internment, the vicar kept referring to ‘she/her’ and none of us dared stop the ceremony to correct him that ‘Francis’ had actually been a strapping 6ft 2 mechanic, who served in both the arm and navy.

It provided much needed light relief at the end as we all chuckled to each other about how pi$$ed off said grandfather would have been because it was his childhood church.

Due to my deafness, I often mishear and once thought the neighbour’s dog was called ‘Disney’, when it was actually ‘Izzy’, plus the nearby dachshund wasn’t called ‘Farquaad’, as in Shrek, just ‘Parker’ 🤭

I’d actually been impressed that his elderly owner had named him after an animated character.

My name is Christina. The amount of times someone gets my names wrong, I get extremely snappy now. For example -

Woman rang me to book a nail appointment

• “Hi is that Catherine?” No.

Walk into nail salon

• Appointment for Cristian? No.

Writing my next appointment card.

• Christie. 1pm. Again no.

I stopped going as it’s just beyond rude to consistently get someone’s name wrong on 3 occasions.

My parents had a neighbour called Jane...only her name was Sue.
They only found this out when she moved house
Then they referred to her as "Sue-Jane".

I went through a phase at about 4 of wanting to be called Sarah - I'm 48 and still hate my name I'd much rather be Sarah even now.

My mum was calling her neighbour the wrong name for years. The names are similar though..eg calling her Maddie but her name is Mollie . Tbh her previous neighbour was called a longer version of the name eg Madeline so I think its stuck in her head.

Id correct her all the time but she would still get it wrong. One day we had a laugh about it and she mentioned that the neighbour has never once corrected her lol.

Also a friend of mine had a baby a few months ago and I have no idea what his name is. She told me, I forgot, I can’t ask again and She NEVER referS to him by name. Anywhere.

My window cleaner calls me Jackie. That’s not my name. He’s been calling me it for about 4 years now...

My friend had a baby last year. They hadn’t thought of a name so while they pondered it, their 4 year old kept insisting to everyone that the baby was called Toast. The baby is now nearly one. I see them on a fairly regular basis. Can I remember Toast’s actual name? Nope. And nor can anyone else.

My ex spent his whole childhood and part of his adult life thinking his cousin was called Col. It wasn't until 'Col' had a car accident and ex was writing a get well soon card that his dad pointed out to him the cousin was called Carl!! We couldn't believe he had gone 25 years without realising. Surely he'd seen it written down before?! Col's not even a name! He genuinely thought we were having him on!

He definitely wasn't the brightest crayon in the box though.

I forgot the best one...
My mums Bro became a granddad (a month early) - he was very proud - you could see his puffed up chest from space
My mum told me the second coming baby was called "Annabelle"
I bought some small babygros, a lovely blanket and a tiny baby-proof teddy, wrapped them all up and dropped them (and a couple of cards and a bottle of champagne) off with the new grandparents...

Mum got a phonecall from a slightly annoyed DBro...

The baby was Isabelle, not Annabelle

oops...

@FenellaMaxwell @crispysausagerolls

I had to scroll back on a friend's FB timeline for about half an hour recently, when going to visit a friend and her six-month-old baby, referred to by all as Sweetie...

I once called a woman Susan when her name was Sarah, I felt such a fool when I was corrected