To think DH needs to tell his barber his real name?

[ReligiousEel]

DH has been using the same barber for more than a decade. He goes about once a month. They chat when he’s there, about football, families, holidays, the usual stuff. We once bumped into the barber in the supermarket and said hello and had a very brief chat.

All fairly normal. Except the barber thinks DH is called Chris. He’s not called Chris, not even close.

I asked DH why the barber thinks he’s called Chris and he doesn’t know. He just knows at one of their early appointments the barber called him Chris and he didn’t correct him, as he didn’t think it was important. Now, more than a decade later, he’s still calling him Chris.

I suggested to DH that he tell him his actual name but he refused. He said it didn’t matter, he’s just the bloke who cuts his hair, and the ship has sailed - he’s just going to have to be Chris to the barber forever.

AIBU to think he should tell him?

A friend of ours has been in a tennis club with a group who call him Matt. His name is Adam. This has gone on for TEN years. He is also not planning on correcting it now.

Hilarious 😆 but if it doesn’t bother your DH I wouldn’t worry about it

Tbf we had a neighbour who I called Betty for years and it was only after she died I found out her name was Margeret. I don’t even know where Betty came from and she never said anything 😂

Oh no... he shall be Chris forever more.

My Mum did a regular job at a restaurant as a contractor - the owner thought her name was (lets say!) Pamela, when in fact her name was Penelope.

She signed her name on the job sheet Penelope, every time. She had introduced herself as Penelope originally but somehow, he had misheard...

He still called her Pamela and when we went out for meals there she would hiss at us 'don't correct him! Just let him call me Pamela'. So he did, for about 15 years.

He came to her funeral and was still quite baffled by it all, he asked me if Pamela was her nickname... I just mumbled something and moved on!

When I was young (9) there was an old gentleman at our local church who thought my name was Lila. By the time I’d cottoned on to what he was calling me, it was far too awkward to correct him. He’s used to get me to help with the retiring collection every week. He called me Lila until he died (and I was married with kids lol).

I’m with your DH and wouldn’t bother.

"They're going to call him Rodney... after Dave" comes to mind.

I never use my real name everyone calls me by my nick name have done since the day i was born.
When my real name is called in doctors dentist etc i dont turn my head for a few seconds.
when im asked my name by others its always my nick name that comes out.
But in our family no one uses their real name.
Name a birth is given then you get a nick name and thats what we use.

Old neighbours misunderstood ‘babe’ being called by the cars as Jane so I was forever known as Jane to the neighbours. Christmas cards came and we finally signed them with the names they thought we were. Elderly and not worth them thinking they have been wrong for years.

My friendly Corsican newsagent/corner shop man was very proud of knowing me by name. For about fifteen years.
"Va bé Debbie!"
I just let it slide. I don't know where he got Debbie from but one day I just told him my real name and he wasn't in the least bit bothered.
He remembers sometimes, sometimes not.

For years I called my barber Ruth. Turns out her name's Kate.

It doesn't matter, surely.

Your DH isn't bothered so there's no need for anyone else to be.

I'd leave it alone.

This is brilliant. No point in telling his barber now.

Could be worse my great nan met a man called rod and dated him, they were engaged and he went to fight in the war, she wrote him letters etc, he came back they married and it wasn’t until after the ceremony she was laughing asking him are they officially married because the priest said Todd not Rod and he said yes they are married as his name IS TODD not ROD. She asked him why he hadn’t ever corrected her and he told her because she was perfect in his eyes and she could never be wrong. My great nan always called him Rod and it was her special name for him. he even signed all presents and birthdays cards from him as rod 😂

If you don't correct it straight off it just becomes to awkward and you have to go with it. I've been going to my brow lady for a few yrs now. She's Persian so there's a bit of lost in translation occasionally. She was asking me where I'm from and I said UK, she heard Ukraine, I tried to correct it but she didn't pick up on it. Now we have a brief convo every appointment about the situation in Ukraine It's gone on to long now to back out.

Our neighbour calls DH Alan. His name doesn't begin with an A. He's called him it for five years and DH signs his Christmas cards as Alan now. DH has just got some work shirts with his actual name on them, that's going to be confusing for our neighbour.

This story is so beautifully sweet!

Years ago I knew someone called Mary who was known as Polly, it was not a unique pairing, other women called Mary were known as Polly, apparently at one point it was common for certain names to have alternative/nicknames associated with them: I will try to think of other examples but an obvious one is if someone had a surname of White, they would be known as Chalky. But other alternative/nicknames were nothing to do with the surname.
The woman I knew was probably born around 100 years ago (long deceased) so maybe it was a thing then....

We live around a green where everyone knows everyone (alhough not very well), and exchange Christmas cards etc. New neighbours moved in and DH got talking to them and came back and told me their names...the man was called Carl apparently.
At Christmas several of the other neighbours ask DH what the new neighbours were called, so he told them.

For years Christmas cards were sent, with Carl's name featuring on many cards to them.

His name was Alistair... we only found out after they moved out!

Her middle name, and the name she preferred?

I’m guessing he introduced himself as “Al”, short for Alistair and it for misheard as Carl

Be grateful that it is just the barber, OP!

When my grandfather was admitted to hospital, we used to get suspicious looks for calling him the 'wrong' name. He used what was thought to be his middle name (R), but his otherwise unused first name (G) was what he was often registered under at the hospital. A nurse, who had known him all her life, saw G as a mistake and corrected it to R.

On finding his birth certificate in a stack of paperwork, it turned out that his middle name wasn't quite R.

This made registering his death very interesting, because some things were filed under his official first name, others (including his passport...) under his assumed middle name, and his birth certificate said another middle name altogether...

Mind you, many of his siblings used the wrong name, too. My mother didn't know that her uncle S was actually called T, and thought that she'd turned up at the wrong funeral because they were celebrating the life of J, not D...

Your great nan is CLASS.

The thing I can think of it being a wartime/services thing. You didn't really make the grade unless you had a nickname and even the wives and girlfriends had nicknames. Their origins can be quite obscure but they only stick if you're a good'un.

Mary might have been known as Polly because she talked a lot, "Polly Parrot" in a very nice way. "Oh, pretty polly!" etc.

Still the same today.

My dh plays a sport every week. For about 15 years, someone at the club referred to me by the wrong name. Not just a bit wrong - a completely different name!

My dh thought it was hilarious and would play up to it eg if the man asked how ‘Jane’ was, dh would say ‘oh yes, she’s great thanks’.

The man died about 10 years ago, still thinking by name was Jane.

My dh is a twat!

Polly is a very long standing traditional NN for Mary, just as Peggy is for Margaret and Betsy for Elizabeth.

I used to go to a gym and one of the women there always called me Julie. I have no idea why. I kept thinking, today I will tell her my real name but I never found the courage!
I don’t go to that gym anymore and luckily haven’t seen her since.