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?

Betty is a diminutive of Margaret

Surely it's a diminutive of Elizabeth?

I was called Susan by a man in the small town I grew up in for years - my name is nothing like Susan. I just smiled and carried on with my day.

My GF was very surprised in his late adult life when he got a copy of his birth certificate to find his middle name, which should have been Loveden, had actually been registered as Duncan!

My great-uncle's middle name was Moyes...only when we went to register the death, the registrar told us that his middle name was recorded as Morris.

The family theory is that great-grandpa was inebriated when he registered the birth.

I lived in America for a while and still have no idea if my neighbour’s name was Greg or Craig due to the way he pronounced it. He’s even in my phone as Greg/ Craig.

No it isn't. It's a diminutive of Elizabeth.

My grandmother Mabel was known to all and sundry as Peggy (or just Peg).

Our new neighbours (the side of their house is at the back of ours) called me Allison on our Christmas card. I'm not sure if DH put my real name or Allison on it when he wrote ours out, but they've hardly spoken since. 🤔

When my cousin had her daughter, her dad (my uncle) phoned my mum and told her the name, weight etc... mum and baby doing well.
I bought a card and gift, wrapped it and left it with Mum to pass on...
Between my Uncle and Mum, one of them and they both blamed the other got the name wrong.🤦🏻‍♀️
3 syllables and the first part was wrong, the middle and 3rd syllable were identical.

I have no idea why anyone wouldn’t correct someone if they have your name wrong or check exactly what some one’s name is. It’s not hard? Insane behaviour.

My friend works in a pharmacy next to a café. She goes into this café at least once a week. The café owner is pretty terrible with names, she constantly forgets mine, but remembers what my child is called. My friend has a long, slightly old fashioned name. The café owner calls her something wildly different. Friend is too embarrassed to correct after 7 years.

Some years ago, a woman I worked with called me Jackie. It's not even close to my actual name. I corrected her a couple of times and she apologised - apparently l reminded her of a friend called Jackie. Most days she still greeted me with "Morning, Jackie!" and I simply replied without correcting her. She was a lovely woman, just absent-minded. I don't work there anymore anyway.

Also Sadie for Sarah. Very common around here in the past.

I would just continue to be called Chris. Who cares

Meg is the diminutive of Margaret.

My nan was Ethel but known to everyone as Sis.

Oh and forgot to add Molly was her dogs name 😆

My dad's mum was Mary, called Polly. I couldn't say Polly so she was "pompom" to me all her life. I lived in Newcastle I wonder if this was a north east thing to use Polly instead of Mary

He's right not to correct him @ReligiousEel . He can only tell him after his last hair cut with him, whether that's because the barber is retiring or your DH no longer has hair.

A lot of traditional names have lots of diminutives because years ago so many people would have the same names, meaning different diminutives were needed.

It was a (sort of) rhyming thing mostly, with diminutives stemming of another most obvious one like

Mary > Mally > Molly > Polly
Margaret > Maggie > Peggy
Richard > Rick > Dick

Age 8, a girl misheard and thought I was called Ruth. She lived nearby and our schools would play each other at sports. I saw her fairly often, buy never knew her well enough to correct her. I’m not called Ruth. In fact, my name doesn’t have any of the same letters.

It's in the Lord Peter Wimsey books, 1930s and very posh, his sister is Polly, for Mary, so not regional though maybe a bit dated!
I was at school with a Polly, we were both born in the 60s and her mum got a few confused looks when she said her Polly wasn't really Mary.

I have this with a hobby group who all think I’m a year younger than I am 😬 I didn’t bother to correct it early on as it’s always nice for people to think you’re younger than you are, but now I’ve been going for over four years and I really wish I’d said something! Feels too late now!

I lived overseas when my DD was 7. The teacher (not her main teacher I think it was the language teacher) read her middle name off the register rather than her first name. We only discovered this at parents evening in March.

When questioned my DD was quite happy with the situation, she knew who the teacher meant. All her friends called her that name in those lessons as well.

I actually have this with a woman at work! She’s called Helen but she reminds me so much of a woman I used to know called Sally. It’s been two years and I still struggle not to call her Sally, in fact I did it just the other day. She was very nice about it 🙃

In the early 90s we moved to a house near a fireman. All the kids called him Sam. It was only quite recently we found out my dad had been calling him Sam as well because he thought it was his name, not because small children were calling him Fireman Sam.

Eta: we didn't move away, he had been cheerfuly saying "Hi Sam!" for about 30 years.

Aw this is so cute