To correct my boss (and colleagues) on my name?

[capresesalad]

So I've recently started in a new team at work and my boss and a few of my colleagues keep pronouncing my name wrong.

It's fairly common in the country I'm from but very very unusual outside of it and it's one that people tend to either know or they don't. It is difficult to spell and I'm not particularly precious about it being spelt wrong (although on teams or email I do feel it's polite to take 30 seconds to double check the name).

But it's not difficult to pronounce. I know that's easy for me to say but its said the same sounds as other quite common names. Think Anna being like Hannah.

I told my parents about it and my dad told me to correct him sooner rather than later before it sticks but my mum says to leave it.

Other people pronounce my name correctly and I've introduced myself to him or said my own name a few times. I don't want to be rude or difficult but it does bother me.

Do it now before it sticks.

I think people would prefer to know how to pronounce it correctly than find out months or more down the line that they had been getting it wrong all along.

Definitely correct!

I'm a bit worried about how to do it. We're all remote so the only times it really comes up is on big teams meetings with the entire team. Do I private message them? Do I interrupt the meeting to correct them? Do I just clarify in a general sense in a whole team meeting?

I have explained how to pronounce my name to my boss before when I did my interview but I don't deal with him day to day so I'm guessing he's forgotten. The other colleagues who say it wrong don't really interact with me as much but i obviously don't really like being referred to by the wrong name regardless!

Don't interrupt the meeting.

Either PM them, or a few people I know with names that aren't common or clearly phonetic put an email signature with pronunciation in it which I thought was a rather neat solution?

A colleague of mine has a link 'how to pronounce my name' in her email signature which links to an audio file. Would something like that work?

Tell them before it sticks.

I like the audio file idea, when I see the pronunciation written phonetically I’m often struck by how it depends on accent.

I have lived and worked abroad for a long time and my perfectly ordinary name is ‘too difficult’ for some, I do insist (the sounds exist in local language, it is objectively very easy).

I saw that River Island are recruiting and ask on the application form how to pronounce your name which is nice.

I tend to explain it as "x name without starting letter" both in person & written because X name is very common and it accounts for accents.

I have seen people with explanations/links in their email signatures which could work for other interactions but I don't tend to email my colleagues or boss, we do pretty much everything over teams meetings so I'm not convinced they would see it.

Absolutely correct them - no one will want to purposefully pronounce your name incorrectly!!
Where I work a number of people have started to write their name phonetically in their email signatures which is also a way of highlighting that this is important to you

This is genius!

Next time someone says "Perhaps Anna could give us an update on her projects" or "What do you think, Anna?", you have a good opportunity to just say in a low-key, friendly way "I've been meaning to say to everyone, actually, it's Hannah, yeah, Hannah with an H at the start. No, don't worry about it, I get Anna a lot! I should have said sooner. But yeah, it's Hannah. So, my project update is...[bla bla bla]".

It doesn't have to be a big deal at all! But obviously, pick your moment, i.e. don't correct your boss in the middle of a big meeting with his bosses present! If you do it during a smaller more informal meeting, the people present will then start saying it correctly to others. There's a "Genevieve" who started at my work a few months ago and was universally called "Jennaveev", until her boss started referring to her with the French pronunciation, and when questioned explained that this is how our colleague pronounces it. Everyone got the hang of it quickly enough.

If my name for example was Sara but pronounced Sarah I would just tell people. It’s your name. If you say nothing it’s going to be weird if you eventually tell them further down the line.

Your video or picture on Teams call will have your name under it. Is there any way you can change your settings so that your name appears as "x name, pronounced without starting letter"

When they say the name I would say "sorry keep thinking that you are talking about someone else because my name is pronounced..."

I would do this in the meeting, I don’t see the need for all the advice above about enail signatures etc

Like Whiskerson said, in meeting just say “just wanted to clarify, my name is XXXX. Some people have been saying YYYY and I dont want them to be embarrassed later”

it would be a weird bunch of colleagues who didn’t appreciate this

Definitely correct them, I would want to be corrected! I find it very annoying people who can't be bothered to learn a name properly, I'd be mortified if I was one of them.

This is probably the best way to really get my message across but I'm worried about seeming like I'm single them out or upsetting my boss in anyway right when I'm just starting out! You're probably right though and I just need to bite the bullet

I'd say 90% of the team say it right and it's maybe 3 people that are getting it wrong but one is obviously the boss so its possible they're taking the lead from him.

So you need to correct them. I've had similar problems.
Most people are okay but there have been a couple, one who seemed to then go out of their way to deliberately mispronounce my name, and another who took offence and reported me to HR for being rude enough to correct them when they pronounced my name wrong. And yes, it became my problem for having a 'foreign' name...

Definitely correct them.

The other thing I'm worried about is that it's possible they don't really care... again maybe being unfair but if I was saying something differently from everyone else then I would double check so I fear there's a bit of wilful ignorance? And if I go out of my way to correct and they still get it wrong then I've made all that fuss for nothing

You can put it in your Teams Status.

Your dad is right, correct them as soon as possible. I failed to correct my boss when I started. WrongPronunciation stuck and everyone I work with uses it now. I am now introducing myself as WrongPronunciation to new people and it's too late to go back.

I would suggest speaking to your boss privately. Just saying it's a bit awkward but you just want to let him know the correct way to say your name as it has been bugging you.

I think the people saying it wrong are either

• convinced the others are wrong and standing firm in saying it the "right" way for you (I was briefly this person for my colleague "Genevieve" when I thought some people were just pronouncing her name in an unusual way for no reason), or
• tone deaf and just not very good at picking up on these things, but will be happy to be corrected (but probably slow to get it into their heads even then!)

Do you ever have one to one meetings with your boss? Could be a good opportunity to slip it in without the worry of embarrassing him?

@AgreeWithPP I think my dad is encouraging me to learn from a similar mistake he made not correcting a neighbour. WrongNickname (think Rob instead of Robbie) has been in action for 30 years now and it's obviously far too late. He HATES WrongNickname and grumbles every time

Do you ever have one to one meetings with your boss? Could be a good opportunity to slip it in without the worry of embarrassing him

One to ones with my boss are rare, he heads up the team but doesn't do the day to day managing. I do have a manager who he catches up with most days and whom I have a lot more regular contact with - would it be cowardly to go through my manager and maybe ask them to mention it?

Manager does say my name right fortunately!

That sounds like a good idea! Not cowardly at all, just sensible. I'd also say, even though I'm completely on the side of correcting people, that you'll do yourself a favour by making peace with the fact that some people might never get it right. It happens to me - my name is a less common variation of a more popular name, and all my life I've had people calling me the more popular name. It used to upset me, now I just let it go. There are one or two colleagues who just persist in getting it wrong and I just roll my eyes and take it as a reflection on them. Everyone else knows what my name is.