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?

A friend has always spelt my (ex)dh's name wrong. She writes Anasty instead of his proper name - very similar but e instead of a. Makes me laugh - I've never corrected her but obviously have always spelt it correctly in correspondence with her.

My sister is called Joanna had someone at work write ‘thanks Joan’ that annoyed her no end. I’m Alison and to this day my uncle spells it Allison’

They can't be bothered otherwise they'd look it up on their system. They're lazy.

OP YANBU. I nearly cried when DDs name was incorrect on her coat peg at nursery 15 years ago. It took until she was in Year 8 to get every person in her world to spell ISABEL not Isabelle or Isobel or Izzy or Issy. the way we wanted it to be.

My child isn’t aware of the email I sent and I haven’t mentioned it in front of him, so that’s not an issue

The room leader confirmed it’s spelt correctly on all of their official records and apologised and said she’ll speak to all of the staff in the room about it. I’m sure they’re all rolling their eyes 😬 But hopefully that puts a stop to it… now we just have school to tackle in future 😅

It’s not an unusual name in the slightest. And the spelling we use isn’t unusual either.

My surname is Smyth.
I am forever asking school to change the kids name pegs/book names at start of school year.

Why shouldn't they be bothered,it's their name being spelled incorrectly.
It's really annoying when you have to keep telling teachers the correct spelling.

My son has a child with the same name but different ending.
They kept spelling his name wrong.
So in the end I started to do the same to them,stopped pretty sharpish .

Yes I correct friends and family, they say oh sorry and then the next birthday or Christmas card comes with the wrong spelling again…

This is appalling,it's important.

You keep telling us OP that everyone you know keeps spelling the name incorrectly despite being corrected by you so you clearly have chosen an unusual spelling of a name despite saying you haven't

This thread is pointless and going round in circles

Because if you're Kathryn, it will be spelled Catherine at times. Whether because people have only heard it, or because people know multiple Catherine/Katherine/Kathryns and lose track of who uses what spelling or just because people sometimes do things that aren't perfect.

Life will be easier for Kathryn if Catherine doesn't particularly irritate her. If she finds it really annoying to the extent that she resorts to passive aggressively misspelling other names then life will be that tiny bit harder than if she moves on with a little eye roll.

Surely we all want our children to go through life with as little annoyance as possible, and enough resilience that the little things don't get under their skin.

Glad nursery are correcting it OP, I'm sure they aren't rolling their eyes at all.

About 99% of threads on MN are pointless… maybe get off this thread or MN altogether if you’re bored?

I haven’t chosen an unusual spelling FWIW… it’s like Isabel/Isobel, Zack/Zach

Bloody annoying and yes they should get the spelling of his name right (tbh so should family and friends) but hopefully it won't confuse him
My DD2 has a name with 3 ways to spell it but we use the most common one and yet all through nursery they got it wrong. Thankfully when she started school they were able to spell it correctly. Perhaps it was easier for DD as the first few letters of her name were the same but she wasn't confused by it.

Two issues here for me.

I wouldn’t want my child to keep seeing mis-spellings of their name when they should be trying to get their head round the correct spelling.

Second, and I may be called out for being ‘over the top’ here, I hope the Nursery, who have a duty of care for a child, would be able to give exact, correct, details in an emergency. If they can’t give correct DOB and name to emergency services they aren’t (imo) taking their duty of care seriously. Might be worst case scenario but they do happen.

At this stage I would write a complaining letter to the manager and follow up with complaint in writing every time they get it wrong. That should focus their attention. Verbal corrections are clearly being ignored

There are different ways to spell many names (Rhys / Reese, Elliott / Eliot, Aiden / Ayden, Steven / Stephen) and OP should definitely insist that nursery are using the right one so he can learn to spell his name correctly.

This would piss me off, I have 2 children's who's name is often spelt wrong. My youngest has a unusual name so can cope with that. Pretty funny interesting pronunciations also. My eldest tho has a fairly common name and it's often spelt wrong, repeatedly, even by the school.

YANBU, an assessment report is an official document and all names ought to be double checked for spelling. On registers and anything like coat pegs and trays it absolutely must be spelt correctly and you'd be right to complain if it isn't.
The only place I'd give them a little leeway is on your son's drawings. Often children hand their drawing to any passing adult who won't necessarily know how to spell their name and will use any common spelling. In a busy nursery class it might have been written by a parent volunteer or a work experience student.
PS in my nursery I have a Jayden, Jaiden, Jaeden, Jaden and Jaydon all within one toddler room :)

Parents have the responsibility to pick a name for their child and if they pick one with alternative spellings this happens.

I've got a name that isn't Karen but is similar. I'm in my 50s and it is still changed to Karen more often than not. Including a building society to open an account when they'd had my application form and passport!

I'm afraid you, and your child, need to accept this and if you have more kids and dont want it repeated, learn from it.

I have a European colleague with an easy 5 letter name that often gets misspelled. After gently correcting (British) colleagues to no avail, he’s started spelling the perps names wrong as well, much to their annoyance.

I have a name that has multiple spellings and even a name that is similar but completely different than I get called all the time - it’s so annoying and I’ve been correcting everyone since I was old enough to realise. I’m happy to say though that in school and official settings it was always spelt correctly and this is the least you should expect. YANBU

This drives me mad. Youngest DS's name has two variants - one just a t and the other th. He has LD and health issues and of course nursery and school, so loads of files and correspondence. Name spelt incorrectly Every Single Time despite being told of error. I just rinse and repeat!