Nursery keep spelling child’s name wrong

[QueryAutism]

Child has a name that has multiple legitimate spellings, at least 4 that I can think of, but it’s a name that’s popular across Europe and tends to be spelt slightly differently in each country. We have used the second most common UK variant, which is only slightly less commonly used than the most common variant.

It’s spelt wrong all the time by family, friends and strangers. Fine, a tad annoying when it’s family or close friends but whatever.

Nursery persistently spell his name wrong. I’ve told them this multiple times. It was spelt wrong on his peg and I had to tell them 3 times before they finally changed the label. It’s spelt wrong on his drawings. Then today we had an assessment report from them and it was spelt wrong throughout. He’s been going there for almost 2 years.

Aren’t they supposed to be the ones helping him to learn to recognise and write his name? Surely it’s going to confuse him seeing it spelt wrong all the time.

I think I’m going to send a polite but strongly worded email in response to the progress report. Surely his key worker should be able to spell his name at the very least? Am I being unreasonable?

My name is a very common name, but women are generally 10-25 years older than me with that name. I worked somewhere 23-26 years ago and throughout the time, there were 6 of us with the same name, fortunately all had different surname initials. I was the youngest by at least 10 years.

There is a version of my name with a different spelling and pronunciation. Get both of these sometimes.

Now my surname, its has about 4 spellings and I have to spell it out to everyone. Its the mispronunciations that grind me. It's a village in Lancs and they pronounce it the same way I do for my surname.

We’ve had this with one letter wrong - think Anthony or Antony. You’re making me feel guilty - we just let it go, but it was at a sports club not nursery or school. I think most of his certificates are in the wrong spelling. The group leader is dyslexic so we’ve not made an issue of it.

I changed nurseries for this exact reason. My daughter has a similar name with many accepted spellings and when she moved from toddlers to preschool they changed the spelling and I couldn’t get them to change it back. I asked, I complained, I wrote in and when it was STILL wrong on her peg, I gave notice. I just thought that if they couldn’t even get her name right then what else were they getting wrong? She’s 18 now so I’m confident in saying it made absolutely no difference in the end, but it felt extremely important at the time. 😂

At nursery a child will be learning to recognise then spell their name so it is essential that the correct form of it is used so the child recognises it correctly.

The name should be correct on the system and staff should learn it correctly. It's not like a friend who seldomly has to write it and accidentally picks the wrong alternative each year on a card which is mildly irritating but not of lasting wider consequence.

While I agree (and have experience of) unusual spellings mean that other people are always going to be getting it wrong, we aren’t just talking about other people here. It’s his nursery who spend more time with him than virtually anyone except his parents and whom should be teaching him to recognise his name. Them being able to spell it and making sure it’s right when it’s in places he will see it is a basic need for them to do that. And getting it right in a report to parents is basic professionalism. There is no excuse after the first few weeks. I would be raising a fuss, OP. It’s not good enough.

Ds has an unusual name. He is named after his grandfather who was not English as it is the tradition in their country. The first half of the name sounds like a traditional English boy's name though it ends with an I not a y. I have always called him by this name and in the early years used to write his name with the y spelling but now use the i one as ds prefers that ( he is 20). Ds likes his full name (8 letters) but accepts most people will use the shorter 'English' name.
There is no hyphen in the name but when he started reception I noticed his peg and work sent home had his name spelt English name then the next part of his name with a capital letter - think John A instead of Jonathan. This persisted for a couple of months despite me telling them It was worse in year 3 when I was looking through his school book and saw repeated comments from the teacher 'well done Michael' - she could have looked at the name on the front! His name doesn't even start with a M and doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to the name Michael.

YANBU.

I think this is so beyond rude and I work at a nursery! I work with staff members that pronounce names wrong continuously and I correct them EVERY time.

My name is Kellie as opposed to Kelly and I get this ALL the time and honestly it still infuriates me every time, particularly when people are messaging me on Facebook and can see my name right there!

My DS is called Casper, and it regularly gets spelled Caspar by adults who see it written down a lot. I do correct it if it's a teacher - it's important that teachers model good spelling. Otherwise I just tell him that sometimes people can be a bit spelling-blind, and just to deal with it.

@Needmorelego Good on your daughter Let’s hope she doesn’t have to keep telling people how to spell her name correctly

my name as a few ways of been spelt and people including family members still spell it wrong best thing is they spell it the more complicated way 😆

I think it says a lot about the person spelling it wrong. I know you have to pick your battles and all that but if someone is not even going to check which spelling it is, or, giving the benefit of the doubt, won't listen when corrected after unintentionally getting it wrong then I don't think they think much of you if despite you correcting it because it's important to you, they just don't bother.

I would get the impression that they couldn't be arsed and don't give a shit, if they're that dismissive of something so small I wouldn't waste my energy on trusting them with something even more important about me, they just aren't that bothered about me.

I have a name that can be misspelt, most people check, and many when they wrongly presume are happy to be corrected and will try to get it right, though some persistently get wrong regardless, the latter could make a bit of effort but they don't so I won't waste energy on someone who can't even bother with something as spelling my name right. I won't necessarily make an issue out of it but their card is marked!

This happened to my dd at pre school I let it slide a couple times then like you said I sent a polite but firm email ensuring they spelt her name correctly as it's her identity

Can you write a firm letter saying it is important all staff write it correctly?

Having said this my daughter has an easy name eg Emma, she’s been called Esme, Amelia,Ema,Anna - FFS it was only because she spoke early that she insisted and corrected every single time …. Same with other children

Oh I'd definitely say it and I'd be asking them to reprint the report but I'm a petty. My son has an Irish name complete with silent letters and I still expect nursery/ school staff to get it right. It's a bit rude to continually spell someone's name wrong

You have no idea of the challenges the member of staff is facing. Your child is going to learn to react to this issue which will undoubtedly come up again and again. React to it sure. But your child is watching how you react to it

That would drive me INSANE! Your name is your identity. I'd definitely complain. I work in a school & we always ensure the children's names are correct & that we're using their preferred version, ie, some like their name to be shortened & some don't, some are known by their middle name, etc. It's not hard - it's just lazy & quite rude to keep getting it wrong.

I agree to get a print out of the nursery records. We had a persistent issue with our surname and school. Admittedly it is a pain to spell, European and lures people into thinking they know how to spell it. We were firm with school because they are reinforcing the spellings and they need to spell it correctly. In the end it was spelt incorrectly in just one subsystem of the records but that kept respawning the incorrect spelling each year. Some other teachers even once the records were correct believed they knew better than the records how to spell it.

Some teachers totally saw the issue with the incorrect spelling and were as frustrated as we were, others just thought it was a fuss about nothing and really resisted correcting names on books etc. Those teachers would also react very badly if the dc pointed out the error in class. The teacher's reaction to the error being highlighted turned out to be a good marker of the quality of teacher.

Ask for a print out of the school records when he starts and highlight the issues you have had at nursery.

My children are all older now and we just joke about how far wrong some spellings are.

My name can be spelt two ways. I don't bother correcting people unless it's on something official where it might matter. A young child who is learning to spell her name does need the people around her to spell it correctly though. I'd send a polite but firm email. I think you're probably fighting a losing battle though. People should get these things right, but in my experience they don't.

Aside from the rudeness of it, a learning goal of nursery is to recognise and start to spell their own name. Are nursery going to teach the child to spell their own name incorrectly?

Absolutely say something! And yes be very firm!
When mine was at nursery once they put pictures of them trying to learn to spell their name
My child's name spelling is the right spelling of her name and not out there.
Nursery had added an extra letter in her name in pictures!
I was so mad. It's so easy to get a child's name right and so important when they're learning.
I commented and rang them up and they apologised and put it right

Not good enough imo. Having to tell them three times to change the spelling on his peg is sloppiness on their part too. I’d honestly consider if this nursery is good enough to look after your child if they don’t bother listening to you and act on it after repeated communications.
I say this as someone who has had to check and double check registers when I know it’s a name with various spelling forms so that I spell it correctly as it just looks unprofessional otherwise.

My DD is 14 and school are still spelling it wrong - not always but certain teachers. She even got a certificate for a course completed at school and it was spelt wrong. It’s infuriating. Not sure what else to do though. It’s almost as annoying as all those people who shorten my name when I’ve never shortened it. I send an email and sign off with my full name and people reply with a shortened version. People are just rude and don’t make the effort.

My kids surname gets mis spelt occasionally by school which I find annoying too… this isn’t the name but situation something like its Donald so everyone assumes it McDonald and puts a Mc in front…

Learning how to spell correctly is not considered important nowadays (by many, not me) so generally people don't bother to learn. Added to this there is spell check which auto corrects sufficiently for most purposes. You can't of course spell check names. I think it's incredibly rude, yes and the nursery should get it right but I also think your family and close friends should make an effort to get it right. Other than that your child will get this all their life.

Every time you drop or collect please start mispronouncing the nursery workers names just slightly. When they correct you explain that you "didn't think names were important here at nursery as they have spelt your son's name wrong for 2 years?"

My name can be spelt just two ways. It's incredible how many people get it wrong when it's on my email signature.