To find it so wearisome constantly being called the wrong name

[fallingovercracks]

I should be used to it by now and mostly am … but wrote my name down at a toddler group and was called the wrong name, just had a woman on the phone calling me the wrong name.

I know people will say to correct them but it makes no difference, they just keep calling you the wrong name. I know it’s my issue but it does get so annoying!

My daughter gets this with another -el/-elle name. I spent quite a long time choosing her name and vetting it against all sort of criteria; it never occurred to me that people would simply call her the masculine version! I did consider that people might randomly put an -a on the end instead of an -e, which they also do. What I hadn't counted on is needing to correct the same people multiple times: get it wrong once, no problem; keep getting it wrong, I'll think you're just not even attempting to remember.

Yes....

I get it a lot. Say I have booked for a blood test, they will walk out and shout "Daniel (some variation of my surname which is usually wrong too)"

I introduce myself as Danielle to customers who say "hi Daniel"

I do pronounce it as Dan yell though, not Danni L but it's clear it's not Dan yull (hard to show in text!)
It's been bad enough that I've looked at changing my name

No people get my name wrong a lot, I get Kate, Katy, Kathy, Caitlin, all kinds of nonsense over the years. Usually by older co-workers and it's never bothered me.

No, my parents gave me a perfectly common name. Even if it wasn’t a common name, it’s basic respect to learn and use someone’s name properly.

Example

My email is Danielle, I signed it off with Danielle

I have an Irish name, it’s common in Ireland but unusual in UK. I used to get called the wrong name all the time but as soon as I moved to the NHS for work everyone makes a real effort to get people names right and if said wrong, they will be corrected by others. I work with African colleagues with much more unusual names than mine, people get on with it and just make sure they use their brains to try pronounce it right. My children will have names in line with their heritage and if people pronounce it wrong they’ll learn to correct them confidently. Not all language is phonetical and why should it be? It’s boring.

Also, I know a Madison who constantly gets called Melanie in emails and a Lauren who gets called Laura, it’s not only people with unusual names, people just don’t know how to pay attention.

I have a 'foreign' name (Irish) and I find that people generally make no effort to find out how to pronounce it correctly. I don't generally correct them though. It doesn't bother me, apart from one dickhead customer when I was working in burger king who wildly mispronounced it and thought it was hilarious and laughed with his mates while I had to stand there like an eejit. He was early morning pissed though so wasn't that surprised.

Is it your first name or your surname that folk keep on getting wrong? I have to confess to being blunt and correcting the person every time that get my surname wrong as it's unusual but very local to the area in which I live, and because I have a regional accent markedly different from the city where i live. Only family members get it right first time!

I’m Leila said Lee-luh and so I’ve had this my whole life!
TBH I’m just grateful when people try and say it how I pronounce it 🤷🏽‍♀️

I absolutely hate this. All my life people have got my surname wrong.

Let's say my name is Botham. I get Bot-ham, Bottom, Bothingham, Boat-ham. It drives me absolutely mad.

Recently at the opticians I arrived and told the receptionist my name- "I'm Emma Botham".

2 minutes later she calls me " Elaine Bottingham?"

I correct her and she replies " Well, it's close enough"

At the hospital I am on a list on a white board. Nurse says she can't find me. I say "there I am, Emma Botham".

She replies, "No, that's Bot- ham".

I know how to spell and say my name for God's sake!

I get this a lot my name is very like a Susan vs Suzanne situation but not those names, fed up of being called the wrong one. It is wearing.

You must have a very laid back personality!

My whole body tenses up when some one does it to me. But I know that relates to my relationship with my parents and their total disregard for my feelings being of any importance in any matter, not just them refusing to call me by the name I wanted to be known by.

Oh I get a lot of this. Not wanting to put myself but it’s like confusing jan for Jane. And it is very annoying!

I live in Denmark. Danes cannot get my official name right because it's the opposite of a very common Danish name. So I too have missed appointments because they come into the waiting room and say eg May Lucy followed by silence, then I say do you mean Lucy May? No no, it's May Lucy Female. No it's really not. I know my own name FFS!

My dad used to correct us for shortening each others names, and otehrs if they got our names wrong. None of us ever wanted to change our name so there were no issues like that. I'm not particularly laid back about a lot of things but people calling me by the wrong name isn't something that annoys me.

Not at all. They chose a lovely name for me and put a lot of thought into it. It's not my parents' fault that some other people are illiterate, lazy, or just rude.😂

I should add: my name is a classic name used in the UK and (with some spelling variations) most other traditionally Christian countries. There's no real excuse for people getting it wrong so often. And yet, last week I attended a work event where I was called Rebecca and Caroline. Neither of those are my name. I was wearing a lanyard with my name badge visible. My name was in the programme, and on screen while I was presenting. No one at the event was called either Rebecca or Caroline.

Weirdly mine has only been an issue I would say the last 4-5 years, it's like the male and female version are all just one name

I have an unusual/commonly mispronunced name and it gets bloody annoying! Especially as the common mispronunciation is the name of a notorious criminal, the school bullies used to have a field day with that.
Once is understandable, but if someone does it again after being corrected, it’s downright rude.

That sounds like an accent issue.

I have a unisex name with different spellings for male and female. The amount of people who get it wrong, even when sending me a message on Messenger FFS, where my name is clearly displayed correctly, drives me nuts. Even more so when it’s a relative of my DH when we’ve been married 30 years. Yes, Aunty Gwyn, I mean you!

A hurtful part of it for me was that my parents were happy to call my sister by the shortened form of her name because that's what she wanted. But they wouldn't do it for me.

I feel your pain, I’m called Sophia, I get called Sophie more often than Sophia, sometimes by people I’ve worked with for years….