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.

I don't think it's impolite or calling anyone out to correct them on how to say your name. I think you are overthinking it. Wait for them to say your name incorrectly in the meeting...that's your in.

Boss: Hey, Lilah, can you give us next quarter's projected budget?
You: Thanks, Jim. Just a reminder, my name is LAYla, with a long A. And next quarter's projected budget is looking on track blah, blah, blah.
Boss: Geez, I'm so sorry, Layla. Thanks for letting me know and I'll remember for next time.
Boom. Done 😊

Correct them! Don’t stop correcting them. It’s your name and their responsibility to learn to say it properly. Otherwise you “simply won’t know” they’re talking to you when something needs doing.

If you have regular Teams meetings just raise your hand and say something like, ‘Thank you for making me all so welcome. Since I came I’ve had lots of different variations of the pronunciation of my name and I just want to clarify that it’s xxx not yyy’. You could ask the chair of the meeting for a minute as the beginning of the meeting just to tell people.

If you all use Teams. Edit your status to say ‘if unsure, my names pronounced…’ and set it to show whenever someone messages you. But you should definitely correct people one way or another.

i knew a Kristy who always got called Kirsty, people did correct themselves after she pointed it out but were just more used to Kirsty so that slipped out first.

Definitely correct them as soon as possible, otherwise others, who call you by your name will drift into calling you the wrong name.

I've gone my entire life answering to half dozen name similar to mine.

Here's another way to think about it, since you're worried about being impolite...

Not correcting them is effectively saying that you don't think they care about getting it right and you think they'd rather say it wrong. It's saying that you think they'd react badly to being corrected. And it's kind of saying you're not even fussed whether these people know your name or not, like they mean so little to you.

Frame it to yourself that way, and you can see that correcting them is the respectful and pro-social course of action!

Can you prime a colleague to give you an opportunity to explain by actually asking you in a big meeting? e.g.
"Let's take some more opinions on bla bla bla... Anna? Have I pronounced your name correctly? What are your opinions (on bla bla bla)"
Then that gives you an opportunity to explain about the correct pronunciation before giving your input on bla bla bla.

I often get names wrong ( even after being told ) and I would much rather someone corrected me please

Hang on you say it's 90% of people getting it right - and only three who don't? Fgs don't make a big fuss - the three who are getting it wrong will hear the others pronouncing it the correct way and will change their pronunciation.

You just need to correct. A student in my class just smiles and says it's...

She does it lots with different people as she has a name which has an unusual pronunciation. I am not offended. People would prefer to get it right. I think if you are relaxed and smile about it no one will be offended.

It’s not rude! It’s your name. People should absolutely be saying your name correctly.

if I was saying someone’s name wrong I would really want to know, I wouldn’t want to disrespect someone like that.

My experience is that, if you don't correct it, more people will pick up the wrong pronunciation, assuming that they'd been wrong.

I'm the only person in our team who pronounces our Italian colleague's name (Beatrice) in the correct Italian way. She's been in the UK so long now it just washes over her but I always made a point of saying it right.

Definitely tell people how to say your name properly.

I correct people all the bloody time in the past few years. My name has a masculine and feminine version, and it's not a hard one
Only started about 3 years ago and happens if I'm stood in front of them or my name is written down

Me "hi I'm Samantha"
Other person "hi Samuel"
Me "no it's Samantha"
Other person "oh sorry Samuel"

Something I've seen in an email signature is someone with an unusual name putting into their signature under where they have their full name typed out "Pronounced: Han-nah #StartsWithAName " (just using your example). It helped a lot when I was speaking with this person that I knew how to pronounce their name as there are loads of new and unfamiliar names joining our company.

I didn't take offence and it really helped a lot.

Could you do something like that in your signature? So every email going out will have it (including to internal recipients)?

2023shady· Today 09:25

Yup! Or: Oh, but everyone calls you SannerBoo!

Half an hour later, Hey, SannerBoo...

My mother did an OU degree in her sixties. At the ceremony, when they announced her name they utterly mangled it. It was so disappointing. We all thought how simple it would have been to have an option to have pronunciation on the speaker's list.

I run online groups and noticed some people include how to pronounce their name in brackets. Is it a possibility to change your screen name (you might have to go via IT if it is pre-set on Teams).
My name is forever being spelt incorrectly and I remind people of that all the time. Nobody got offended just yet, if anything, they are apologetic

Yes grits teeth is invariably spelled wrongly, too. I'm currently on a ship and the usual letter is missing - they copied it from my passport!

I think it depends.

For example, if your name is actually Hannah but you are being called Anna by your French colleagues, you may need to accept that the H sound just doesn't exist in their language and so whilst you think it is easy to pronounce, it may actually be very hard for them to pronounce.

If your name doesn't contain any sounds which are difficult to pronounce in their language then I would correct them.

I am in a very similar situation with a first and last name which are very common in my country but not common where I live. I started using a different diminutive of my first name because it is the name of a very famous person who everyone in the world has heard of and I expect people to pronounce it correctly. When it comes to my surname, I just have to let it go though. They will never be able to say it.

Just all him up and tell him . Don’t do what one colleague did here and write an article all about the importance of getting a name right (that part was ok) but then slated everyone for getting her name wrong despite not telling anyone they had. That backfired I still to this day don’t know how her name is pronounced properly.

You've just summed up my life. I have a name that is pronounced wrongly all the time. It's bizarre as I didn't have this issue as a child. I told other kids what my name was, they said it like that.

As an adult, I introduce myself and even say my name is and it rhymes with .

Nope, they still all day it wrongly. I've been working in the same place for 13 years and even though they all seem to get it when I go on about it, they still use the mispronounced version.

I can't even tell you how much it irritates me.

Correct them now. We have a senior person at work who kept mispronouncing the new, more junior person's name. The new person didn't like to correct the senior person as they were new & more junior and thought they'd realise the issue over time. It's now 18 months on and she's still never brought it up directly with the more senior person. A few of us have tried to correct the more senior person ourselves but, as the new person has never done so, the more senior person is convinced that the rest of us are wrong and her way of pronouncing the name is correct. More junior person is now too embarrassed to correct the more senior person as it has gone on for so long! It's getting really awkward as the more senior person often introduces the more junior person and so gives the wrong name so then the rest of us use the correct name or sometimes directly tell the person who's been introduced but that makes the more senior person look w bit draft!

That's really bad. When I graduated they asked me how to say my surname precisely so that didn't happen! All of us with unusual names were asked.

I work with a lady with an African name common in Ghana that sounds like Miriam but isn't. It rankles me more than her when colleagues mispronounce it as Miriam. She doesn't make a big thing of it but does have to correct it. I am sure it is tedious, but agree you should correct it now, before it spreads through people mispronouncing it in front of one another and others assuming that is the correct pronunciation as they've heard it from others.