Nicknames... particularly ethnic names

[buildingbridge]

Hello,

This is a problem that I've encountered time and time again but did not want to come across as "stuck up" or you know "she's one of THOSE".

I have an ethnic name, and people always shorten it!!! I just hate it. I'm sure this is the same for all names that may be a bit long or much difficult to pronounce . But, I started some training for my new job and this new colleague, who has just met me, begins to call me a shorter version of my name. I laughed and said "Ha Ha, I prefer (my full name)".
He took a double take and since then, is acting frosty towards me .

I just don't understand. I was not rude, I made it into a joke. I just don't want people to sue a shorten version of my name. None of my friends do this as they know I don't like it. Am I being a bit "stuck up"? How can I approach this in a nice way.

I will reference the right-on-ness and ethnic sensitivity of this thread every time someone posts about Irish names on the Baby Names forum, to be greeted by dozens of posters falling over themselves to assure the OP that English people will never, ever manage to get their tongues around Saoirse or Oisín, and they will be condemning their baby to a life of mispronunciation and sadness.

@CaffiSaliMali

You haven't done anything wrong, OP.

I have a Welsh name and get the following a lot:

"Mari? What kind of name is that?" - "it's Welsh for Mary" - "oh, I can't possibly learn that, I'll call you Mary"

No, no you won't. I always put my foot down in these situations now I'm an adult. Mari - Marry. It's not difficult, I'd rather you get the Welsh wrong and call me 'Marie' than just switch to the English version, that's not my name!

"Hi, I'm Eleri" "euh, ellery?" "No, Eleri to rhyme with Terry, not Ellery to rhyme with celery" "Euh? Ellie?" "No, Eleri" "Well, that's just too hard, I'll call you Ellie/Ellery instead then".

I correct people from 'Ellery' to 'Eleri' a few times, then just live with it. Most people get it right. I'm not comfortable correcting people repeatedly as I was told off at primary school for (politely) correcting a teacher who pronounced my name wrong, think 'Ellery' 'it's Eleri, miss'. I was told it was very rude to correct someone who gets your name wrong and it created a habit of not feeling comfortable doing so. I was 5 at the time and confused as to what I'd done wrong!

CaffiSaliMali Would you mind explaining how to pronounce Eleri - I don't understand how it rhymes with Terry because it looks like a 3 syllable word, but Terry is only 2 syllables. Are there some silent letters?

When I come across children with unfamiliar names when I'm covering classes, I do ask them how to pronounce it, and ask them to correct me if i get it wrong. I explain how to pronounce my name ( which is English but people get it wrong more often than not) and try to help them to find hooks, and they do the same for me. If it's a name I haven't come across before it can take several tries and reminders to get it exactly right,and to recall it, but I do feel it's polite to keep trying, and encourage the children to correct me, politely.
Politeness and sensitivity go a long way towards combating offence.

I like to think people are quite different on the baby names board about their opinion on a potential name from how they'd treat an actual person with that name, though, Jocundest.

Otherwise we'd all have people coming up to us saying 'eww, your name's rather archaic isn't it?', 'did you know you and your siblings sound like a Viking clan?', 'your name sounds sad - I don't like it at all' and 'your name has far too many syllables'.

I have a 2 syllable name I am not massively keen on it but it is my name. MANY will shorten it to the first 3 letters and I LOATHE It. I already have a unisex name and now you want to give me a male name? NO NO NO NO NO....

Some years ago I worked with a guy called Semyon when this was repeated to one of the girls there she dismissed it with " I cant say that I will call him Sam" I went " oh no you wont unless he tells you he prefers Sam you will simply have to learn to say so" She learned to say his name as He did not ever go by Sam. (or sem for that matter)

Use of names as control (conscious or otherwise) is really interesting, and pernicious. My great-grandmother (never knew her, she died when my DGM was in her early twenties) was "in service" in Norfolk as a children's maid/nurse in the very early 1900's. Her name was Celia but the family she worked for didn't think that was a suitable name for a servant so they called her Jane instead .

My DGM used to tell the story years later of how she was out shopping in the local market town with her mum as a teenager and they got hailed by said former employer who (a) still called my DGGM Jane and (b) assumed my DGM would be looking for a position in service too.

I think people need to stop worrying and getting stressed and offended about things that aren't that important. I have a long name that people constantly get wrong, which is odd as it is said how it's spelt. They can't say it if written down and it's rare that someone spells it correctly without me telling them. I get called one completely different name over the phone all the time as my name is easy to mishear.

It really doesn't bother me. It's easy to do and why should anyone care. There are many more important things to worry about. I don't even correct people now when they call me a completely different name over the phone unless it's vital to the communication. They just call me wrong name for the entire call.

My name is a bit weird in that there's no good or easy shortening. I wish there was as it would be quicker to say and write. I do prefer shorter names though. I like one syllable names whereas my name has three

People often shorten names as a sign of friendship. There's that jokey phrase "I call him Steve, no I know him so well I call him S.." Perhaps your colleague took it as a rejection of friendship?

Having said of that I would still try to use whatever name a person asked me too. It's just common courtesy.

And not being able to pronounce a name is not racist. People can't pronounce my name and I couldn't pronounce my. colleague's Russian surname and we are both white. This type of thing focuses us not on ensuring there is real societal change to make everyone equal but on really inconsequential issues like whether we use a certain word in a procedure. Easy out - oh look at all these changes we have made....while making no actual change to anything difficult. It's a distraction. Don't be fooled.

Where I live EVERYBODY shortens every name. It’s just how we talk I suppose. It’s not meant rudely, in fact it’s a friendly thing.

Sorry - how is Eleri pronounced? Elly? Erry? (Am struggling to rhyme it with Terry).

I’m not sure, as an Australian I would find it strange for you to react that way to a nickname. But its our culture to shorten everything! Giving a nickname/using a shorten version is a sign of acceptance. People we don’t like get called their full name!

I was taught to call people what they asked you too. I worked in a multi culture workplace. Some people preferred surnames and honorific, or honorific then surname. Some were known by first or middle names, basically someone says hi call me Bob, you call them Bob. If you don't know ask. In an email follow their lead or ask.
Ive got a name with a roman background that can be said by most European people from various countries as they have an equivalent. Asian language people have difficulty but try. The only person who lengthened it did it as a joke (I had known him for a long time). Also I was called by my maiden name affectionately as I'd known a few in a previous workplace. Now that confuses people.
The only people that nickname me are my husband and my dad :-)

Everyone shortens my name or, worse, makes it the version with an "ee" at the end. I have made the point again and again over the years but it doesn't get through to some people because the nicknames are so ingrained, thanks to a famous TV character.

However, I lived abroad for a while and the natives in that country butcher my name so I always introduce myself to them as their language version of it. More often than not they react with surprise and either make a concerted effort to get the English pronunciation right or they just call me the butchered version anyway... 😕

I would assume the second e in Eleri is silent if it rhymes with Terry. So Elri.

Not Welsh, but I think that when a poster said Eleri resembled 'Terry', she meant the stresses. So not ELLery to rhyme with celery (stress on first syllable), but with the stress on the second syllable -- Ell-ERR-i.

Someone Welsh will be along to be more specific, but I think that stresses tend to work differently in Welsh as they do in Irish -- see every time a BBC newsreader says 'DONegal', rather than 'DoneGAL'.

YANBU to correct anyone who gets your name wrong. OK there are people who might struggle with some sounds from other languages but you can tell when they're trying. To not try is a dick move. I'm not sure I'd call my name "ethnic" though. I'd just say where my name originates from.

I hate this. I have a slightly unusual name, but one I think most people have heard of. Let’s say it’s Christine (it isn’t, and is more unusual but shortens in a similar way) - I’ll say “hi I’m Christine” people often reply “hi Chris” and then look at me like I’m mad when I reply “no, I prefer Christine”.

And people often call me Christina instead or Christopher 🤦🏻‍♀️ Even though they have known me FOR YEARS!

@DazzleCamouflage

Not Welsh, but I think that when a poster said Eleri resembled 'Terry', she meant the stresses. So not ELLery to rhyme with celery (stress on first syllable), but with the stress on the second syllable -- Ell-ERR-i.

Someone Welsh will be along to be more specific, but I think that stresses tend to work differently in Welsh as they do in Irish -- see every time a BBC newsreader says 'DONegal', rather than 'DoneGAL'.

Has Eleri Morgan (who is clearly proper Welsh, with translating and all) - and everyone seems to get her name right.

I've got a common English name with a totally accepted diminutive version, which I prefer anyway

Got a friend or 2 who takes the diminutive and shorten it to the first syllable

Many English people pronounce my Irish name incorrectly and continue to do so as they 'always thought it was pronounced THIS way'. I even had someone from a call centre tell ME I was pronouncing my name incorrectly! I politely pointed out that it is my name and I do know how to pronounce it.

OP - you did nothing wrong. The guy is a dick. Stick to your guns.

I even had someone from a call centre tell ME I was pronouncing my name incorrectly!

It amuses me when callers from foreign call centres give their name as a one-syllable "English" one ...

I call people by the name they used when I first met them. I have been at the same workplace for 18 years. The lady I work with was introduced to me as ‘Jennifer’ most of my colleagues now call her ‘Jenny’ but I still use ‘Jennifer’. Same with ‘Robert’ who goes by various nicknames at work, but I still use the full version. (Not actual names, but similar).
Someone I used to work with had a name which was difficult for us to pronounce, simply because of our accents, think along the lines of we were using a ‘oh’ sounds when it should have been more along the lines of ‘oooh’. It grated on him, so he asked us to use a shortened version.
The only names I regularly shorten are immediate family, when I use all sorts of shortened versions of their names.

Welsh person here - I would pronounce Eleri with the stress on the second syllable. So it doesn’t sound like celery.... it’s El- EHH-rri. Where I am from we would stretch out the second syllable and then roll the ‘r’ sound at the end

Sorrybuildingbridge! I didn't mean to derail the thread, but seems there's a lot of us out there being randomly misnamed.

To everyone who asked about Eleri.

The El part is pronounced Elle. The the ERI part is like the ERRY of Terry and Kerry. The Welsh name Ceri is pronounced Kerry.

Imagine saying Terry but with an El where the T is. el-ERRY.

In some Welsh accents it will sound more like 'el-AIRY' to rhyme with fairy and hairy.

My dad remarried when I was 6, to a woman with the same first name as me. By getting married to my dad she then had the same first and surname as me. I felt like I had lost a part of my identity. So from that day I have been known as a shortened version of my name. I never introduce myself with the full name, only the shortened version.

Some people insist on calling me by the long/ full name. It drives me mad. Even when I correct them they still do it. I had to get very cross with one person in particular to get them to stop doing it. At one workplace, after being there for years, when they changed the emails over to a new set up, they gave me an email address using the full name. I had a total strop and made them change it!! Childish I know, but I got my point across!