Living with a unique name that is mispronounced.

[AliPG]

I've spent my whole life recorrecting people who mispronounce my name. Its 3 letters long but the 1st letter is often said wrong. The spelling makes it appear a certain way which i get why it would be pronounced wrong. At school it wasn't too bad apart from one teacher who got my name wrong every art lesson. This really annoyed me after a while and even annoyed the rest of the class. Called the register every week but stumbled every time. No other teacher did that. Same teacher pronounced my polish friends surname wrong everytime. I would rather however have a forename that can be pronounced easier.

I dread starting a new employer or hearing my name read out in public settings. When people actually get my name right without asking I'm almost surprised.

At my last job my name was pronounced correctly at interview and throughout my role, bar a couple of people I had to correct. I have now started a new job a month ago and from the get go my name has been pronounced wrong. I corrected interviewer who is my line manager 3 times at interview . She gets it right now thankfully. What I don't get is why on meetings when people hear my name they then still say it wrong. Are they not listening? I'm guessing they read it as it says which I totally get but it is still annoying. Should i just pipe up and say to everyone my name is pronounced like this?

For those who experience this please let me know how you feel and how you deal with this particularly at work. Sometimes it doesn't bother me other times it just grates me when I have told people what it is. I just had to message someone privately who introduced me at a large meeting but said my name wrong. Thing was he has sat on team meetings over the last month and heard my name being said a few times now. He did apologise and ask how to pronounce it which is fair enough. But he had no need to introduce me as all new starters had already been introduced in the 1st month which just annoyed me more and neither is he a manager. My manager said we have already introduced new starters.

Some people don't correct people but I don't see why I should be called the wrong name my whole life. When people ask me how to pronounce it it makes me feel valued and they acknowledge they could get it wrong. When people just keep ignoring it annoys me. It's 3 letters . When people ask if they can call me something totally different I find it ignorant and offensive. I know someone called Joanna and often people call her Joanne. It annoys her and her name is much more known.

I don't know if changing the spelling of my name will help or not for eg work. I'm halfway through life now.

Sorry just having a rant. Will probably feel better tomorrow but for some reason I feel upset today as it is embarrassing for both me and the person saying it wrong. Cant even concentrate on the meeting. It's tiring!!

My surname gets mispronounced all the time I usually correct them. Very annoying

I don't mind correcting people.once, after that it gets very tiresome.

When I was younger and starting out I was too shy to correct people and ended up just answering to the wrong name, even now I feel.awkward correcting it. I find it even harder when people get it wrong in email, it's literally right there in the address and my signature!

This.

My name is perfectly phonetic.

As they say on Catchphrase “say what you see”.

But I think because people assume it is “foreign” (ironically it is not) they just massacre it. It’s the extra letters that get me!

Well it's not unique as unique means one of a kind. So unless your name is Qqq or Yyy, then it's unusual rather than unique.

If it's something like Ivy but pronounced Evie or Fia pronounced F-eye-ah then I don't think you can blame people for getting it wrong.

I’m the same. 4 letters. I say it clearly and spell it. It’s not overly unusual but sufficiently so that I get every variation. Went to a race awareness course at work and was told that people mispronouncing your name or asking you to change it is a micro aggression. Went to a trans awareness course and told misgendering is a hate crime. Yet I have had my name mispronounced, been asked if they can call me another name as mine it “too difficult” and been regularly misgendered when they assume it is a male name and no one gives a shit. At 46 now I have learned to roll my eyes and move on.

Because he was doing it to lots of people. And it’s incredibly rude. Also, because really he needed to address it before the Director was so pissed off that he did, which would certainly have been far worse than my having a quiet word with him.
We work in a department that succeeds or fails on our relationships with colleagues and others. Unfortunately, calling someone by the wrong name, especially having been introduced to them with their chosen name, is one of those things that can straight away damage someone’s perception of you and the department and ultimately the thing we are all trying to achieve.
Why on earth (someone might think) should I, Gareth, do what you are asking of me and want to engage with you in this, when you haven’t even the courtesy to get my name right? When I just introduced myself as Gareth and you replied by calling me ‘Gazza’?
Sometimes managing teams and colleagues has to go beyond their work quality and output.

My parents saddled me with a name which I don't really like that much, but which I have always used for work/legal purposes, etc. Friends call me a shorter version of this. Some people change my (full) first name for something very similar, only a couple of letters different - it is waaaaay cooler! I go with that, and don't correct them unless it's necessary 😀

Your name is Bible?

People say my name wrong all the time at work.

Its because so many people work there i think

Without sounding racist, I've noticed people of certain ethnic groups struggle with my name. They say Aisobel instead of just Isobel as most people know it. I get this often and I'm just used to it.

Incredibly rude. Someone's name is so personal and it's really important to get it right. 99% of the time people just aren't even trying.

I have a name that was totally normal in my country of birth and absolutely not one that anyone has heard where I live now. 4 letters, not tricky but have heard it all.

My biggest annoyance is in emails when they write back and let the autocorrect decide what my name is. It's in my email address and my signature and I sign every email so that's just laziness.

My name has several different ways people go depending on where they're from - Italian and French people say it in a delightful way and I just let them carry on. Scottish people do not and I correct. For a few times. Then I give up.

And I have a rhyming option too - 'my name' like 'Sheila' or whatever.

My neighbours somehow mispronounce it and never quite learned how not to and I just live with it now. They are lovely in every other way but apparently have this one issue. I'm pretty used to it several years down the road!

Yes i use to hate it but the older i got the more i loved it.

I feel your pain! I'm 54 and people have mis-pronounced my name my whole life No matter how much I correct them, they just can't get it right. It annoys me in a meeting when some people pronounce it correctly and others don't, it's as if they think they're right! My name rhymes with cherry, but people tend to rhyme it with fairy!! I've given up now 😂

Surely the thing that matters is whether or not they are trying to get it right? Saying Isobel with an accent is not the same as not bothering to read it properly and calling you Isabella or Isla or something or deciding that (on first meeting) you’re better suited as Bella.

But Porsch is a better mispronunciation than
Por-Tea-ah. Or Poreeta.

Exactly the same here. It's an Irish surname, has a lot of consonants, and British people just freak out. I can literally see the fear cross receptionists' faces. If they just slowed down, and said every letter, they'd be grand.

OP, loads of people I work with have a "Say My Name" in their signature with a phonetic spelling and even a recorded pronunciation of their name. I'd also put that on the top of your CV.

Correct people in person and real time. In the meeting, it would have been fine to say, "Just to jump and and say, it's actually "Kee-a" not "Kye-a". Thanks!"

Possibly. You’d have to ask poor Portia (perhaps you are one) being called Porsh all day long might drive her completely mad!

Don't be tediously literal. Everyone knew what the op meant 🙄

I have a very normal name, and people often misproncue it (think adding a 'y' onto the end). I always correct people for two reasons:

• its almost always men who do this, and i think it either consciously or subconsciously infantilising me
• i work in a place that is mutli cultural, and it really annoys me when people dont get names right. I have had lots of discussions and often people whose names are not typically 'western' end up changing or answering to wrong names and it really upsets them. Names are a big part of your identity. So by me, a white senior (in status) woman raising my name (and also asking discretely how to pronounce names if I am not sure) then I am raising the profile of names being important

I agree that putting how to pronounce phonetically is a good idea.

I think I am going to add my pronounciation to my email.I love this idea!)

A friend toyed with calling her child Ava, but spelling it Eva. Luckily she saw sense and Eva spelling is now Eva pronunciation . My own dd has a very traditional and biblical name, which is always pronounced properly but over the years we have seen some strangely complicated spellings.

If I work with someone who consistently mispronounces names, it indicates to me that they are poor listeners who don't care about details. It's fine to get a name wrong a couple of times, but multiple times is not acceptable in my book. In the past it's been one of the key factors in me deciding not to promote someone, mainly because it was a symptom of a larger inability to stay across details.

I worked in a shared office with a man with (what seemed to me) quite a simple African name. It's not at all common in England but it's very easy to pronounce. He told me it, then said 'but I go by Mike,' obviously because no one ever pronounced his actual name correctly. I always said his actual name and I could see how pleased he was, which made me sad because the thought of no one actually bothering to say my name seems awful.

I have a name that is almost impossible to get wrong, but people misspell it all the time and sometimes shorten it, which infuriates me. I will say if I have a nickname, otherwise call me my actual bloody name!

OP I’m fascinated to know what your name is!

I think you just need to keep correcting people and low-key reminding them you’ve told them before. “It’s May-a, remember?”

Adding pronunciation to emails is a great idea. In bold for repeat offenders!

To add to the Ava/Eva chat, I knew a Russian Eva that was pronounced with a short E sound like Evva (similar to “ever”) 🤯

I have a very unusual Welsh name. People mispronounce it all the time, it's fine, normally I correct them they realise it's simpler than they thought and it's quite a handy ice breaker.

BUT I have had people tell me I'm pronouncing my name incorrectly because it's vaguely similar to a Greek name. It is not Greek, and it's my name, I know how to pronounce it. 🙄