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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Asking people to use my preferred name?

265 replies

Biancadelrioisback · 06/10/2020 12:32

My first name is quite long and old fashioned so for the last 17 years I've been using a shortened version.
At work, everyone knows me and uses my shortened name (even clients) except for one colleague who refuses. She likes to use 'proper' names for people and refers to me by long name plus middle name as it 'sounds better'.
I've addressed this with her multiple times and with my manager as it royalty fucked up a negotiation with a client as they felt like they were being passed around.
All they say to me is "well it is your name so..."
I mean, yes, it is my name, a name I didn't choose. I ask to be called X instead. No one else has a problem!
My manager even suggested that I legally change my name. I certainly don't want to do that as it is a family name, it means so much to my parents and I quite like having a name and then a 'formal' name.
So AIBU to keep insisting they use the short version? I rarely answer to the long version as no one ever uses that.

OP posts:
beinggood · 08/10/2020 14:45

She really doesn't get to decide whose names sound better long or short version, with or without middle name. It's respectful and professional to call people by the name they asked to be called by. She knows you don't like your long name and that is why she's using it. Call her by a short version of her name every time as that's what she doesn't like and just say it sounds better. If there's no short version just rhyme it.

cannockcandy · 08/10/2020 15:05

I would ask her what she would do if you had a colleague who was trans, would she use their birth name or their preferred name? If she says birth name tell her that's illegal and a hate crime. Hopefully this will make her realise she is being a massive tool!

DumpedOnFromGreatHeight · 08/10/2020 16:51

Surely your manager should be pulling her up on this.

Ask her why she is so obsessed with you and your name - make it sound like you think she is a bit stalkery and hopefully embarrass her into being normal.

Nothing7 · 09/10/2020 07:13

Some really good suggestions here, and sorry you work with such a tool! That would drive me bonkers! I have a similar issue with my sister and my son where he prefers to be called his shortened name, and I prefer it too though I do love his full name but think calling his full name is sometimes a bit too formal. My sister refuses to call him his shortened name but she’s very temperamental ... 🙄

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 09/10/2020 13:49

If she's so set on 'romantic' names, keep calling her Heathcliff or Mr Darcy.

IntermittentParps · 09/10/2020 14:06

keep calling her Heathcliff or Mr Darcy.
Grin Please do!

sapnupuas · 09/10/2020 14:17

This thread pushed me to, again, correct a colleague who always spells my name wrong.

Her response was to send queries she'd usually send to me, to my boss instead. Who in turn sent them to me.

My name has four letters - it's not difficult!

ToffeePennie · 09/10/2020 14:27

I had a similar issue OP. My name is a complex Germanic name which doesn’t lend itself easily to English pronunciation. Whilst I was applying for jobs I would put my full name but tell everyone to call me a shortened English form. Someone at my first workplace had a total freak out and when they met me for the first time they decided I was an imposter who had used someone else’s name to get the job. She was mental and made my life miserable until I went to HR.

IntermittentParps · 09/10/2020 14:45

Brunnhilde?

Jenny70 · 09/10/2020 15:14

If your chosen name is then your legal name, then aren't IT are also wrong in identifying you as your full name? If you got married and changed your surname, IT would happily change it to the new surname, I'd be guessing.

Your legal name is the name of your choosing, not the name of your birth. Deed poll completely unnecessary.

Your colleague needs to be told again it is not acceptable to use her version of your name. It's not twee, romantic or anything. It's disrespectful, confusing and incorrect as you do not go by your name of birth, you are known as your legal name, which is XX.

DGRossetti · 09/10/2020 15:23

If your chosen name is then your legal name, then aren't IT are also wrong in identifying you as your full name? If you got married and changed your surname, IT would happily change it to the new surname, I'd be guessing.

I worked with a lady whose maiden name had an apostrophe in it. When she started she really gave the support team a hard time about making her email address correct. Then she got married, but decided to keep her maiden name professionally. Which the IT support director only half joked was a good thing, as it was not being changed after the fuss she made ...

On a wider note of changing email address to match real life (married) names ... a lot depends on what you do. If you've been dealing with a lot of people you've never met (very easy over email) then unless you start putting footers explaining the situation (and that then trusts recipients read them) you can confuse a lot of people.

You can alias email addresses, so if someone did want to use their married name, their maiden name could be aliased to that so that anyone with an old email address would still get through.

I worked with one chap who had his first name CAPITALISED in the address book to emphasise he didn't like it abbreviated. Not sure if he went as far as ignoring emails not addressed properly.

Jenny70 · 09/10/2020 17:01

Yes I was just making the point that IT can change the email without compromising security procedures.

NewlyGranny · 09/10/2020 17:51

If I had a surname with an apostrophe, I'd hang on to it, too! How classy...

De'Ath, D'Arbanville, D'Arcey...

DGRossetti · 09/10/2020 19:06

@NewlyGranny

If I had a surname with an apostrophe, I'd hang on to it, too! How classy...

De'Ath, D'Arbanville, D'Arcey...

Well, you'd think. Be prepared for a lifetime of trouble with programmers who think they know best and write code that refuses to accept an apostrophe in an email address. (Like one place I worked for). And the fix was a weeks work, as apostrophes are "special" in computer code.

Second only to programmers who feel the need to write their own postcode validation routine. And get that wrong too.

Oh, and programmers who insist on recapitalising peoples names ... So MacDonald becomes Macdonald.

BessMarvin · 09/10/2020 20:10

@NewlyGranny

If I had a surname with an apostrophe, I'd hang on to it, too! How classy...

De'Ath, D'Arbanville, D'Arcey...

O'Brien
LouiseTrees · 09/10/2020 20:32

I think you phone or email the client and tell them that’s your formal name. You report her to the manager again and you tell her you have legally changed your name (but don’t actually do it).

mogtheexcellent · 10/10/2020 09:52

I have the full non apostrophe french name think de Mog instead of D'og. its way more confusing for people as my surname will often be in the Ds instead of the Ms where it should be. My work email is first [email protected] so I am listed under the Ds.

Does mean I am one of a kind though. Literally as the last person with my daughters name died in 1154 and there has been no one with my name.Grin

RuggerHug · 10/10/2020 10:05

BessMarvin O'Brien is a great name Wink

If she continues after the suggestions here OP I think it's reached the stage of a public 'Are you hard of hearing or just stupid? My name is X, everyone else manages it and you've been told several times now Gobnet'.

VettiyaIruken · 10/10/2020 10:09

Google short version of or nicknames for her name, pick one and use it.

MyVisionsComeFromSoup · 10/10/2020 10:18

DGRossetti - I have a d-b surname which also has different capitalisations - when I look at my credit report, I have all sorts of "aliases" as different computer systems accept different things. I also have to remember which system likes which version of my surname, as some are happy to have a space rather than a dash, but some need it all run together. Can you imagine if there was an apostrophe is there too!

OwlBeThere · 10/10/2020 10:40

She sounds like a belligerent weirdo. YANBU.

DGRossetti · 10/10/2020 12:22

Weirdly, just had a medical letter today, and DW commented "How come they've put our surname without the capital" (since my real surname is of the form ... LeSur, only Italian ...)

Which is what happens when you fill a form in BLOCK CAPITALS as requested, and some smart-alec runs it through an "app" that only knows about a subset of Anglo Saxon naming conventions ...

OwlBeThere · 10/10/2020 12:38

My daughters name contains an â. This gives computers the horrors 😂😂😂

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 10/10/2020 16:27

I know it's a phenomenal amount of hassle, OP, but do you think you could legally change your name to a symbol, like Prince, and threaten to sue anybody who tries to dead-name you? MN would be ever so grateful if you could....

BessMarvin · 10/10/2020 19:34

@RuggerHug

BessMarvin O'Brien is a great name Wink

If she continues after the suggestions here OP I think it's reached the stage of a public 'Are you hard of hearing or just stupid? My name is X, everyone else manages it and you've been told several times now Gobnet'.

Oh yes I've no opinion on the name at all really it just made me think about the maid from Downton Abbey and didn't fit the pattern! Grin