To think people should just pronounce her name the way she has asked them to?

[Grandies]

A few weeks ago a relatively young new employee joined my workplace, we aren’t on the same team, but we sit close together and I’ve gotten to know her quite well. She isn’t British, and she pronounces her name her slightly differently in her home language than in English. It’s not a massive difference and it’s a short name (such as it begins with E, in her language she would pronounce that “Eh” while in English the name is most commonly said with a more “ee” sound at the start) and the second syllable is pronounced the same. She still corrects people when they get it wrong and it clearly matters to her.
Last night I went to the pub with some colleagues and some people were making fun of how much she corrects people with her name (she isn’t rude it’s just if they say her name she responds with the correct pronunciation). They were also talking about the fact we have others in the world place who’s names get mispronounced and they just let it go. They also noted it’s hard as the name is pretty popular in the uk and pronounced a different way. It wasn’t a nice conversation, and it spiralled a little into stereotypes of the country etc. I called it out, noted that it was really inappropriate to talk that way about someone and left. I’m unsure as of yet if it’s worth reporting to HR.
I personally believe we should all try and pronounce peoples names as they want them to be, regardless of if they correct you or not, but especially if it’s relatively simple and they do correct you.
My husband disagrees he thinks she will need to realise sooner or later that she is in the UK now, and if her name is pronounced with the “ee” sound here she will just need to get used to it.

AIBU?

Is it Eva? People should listen, it’s not hard.

Completely agree with you, well done for standing up for her.
Its also bizarre that the are proudly, knowingly mispronouncing other names in the office…

It’s her name. She gets to pronounce it how she wants and people should respect that. Her name doesn’t change just because she has moved to a different country.

Bet it is Eva

Good on you for calling them out. But no need to report to HR - give them an opportunity to stop being dicks

Its rude to deliberately mispronounce a name.

Its nasty to make fun of her and talk about her behind her back.

It wasn’t a nice conversation, and it spiralled a little into stereotypes of the country etc. And yes you should report this to HR

Well done for being a decent person and calling this out

I thought Elena. People are dicks

Agree its not hard. She could start pronouncing their names wrong , Powl instead of Paul etc etc

Deliberately mispronounce one of their names. They won’t like it up ‘em

I have a friend called Naomi.
It is pronounced nay-omi and she gets irritated when people call her Ny-omi.

IMO it is disrespectful to mispronounce people's names when you know how they should be pronounced.

YANBU.

I am guessings its Eva. I have a friend where the pronunciation is eh-va not ee-va and none of us have any difficulty calling her eh-va. You work with some real twats if they can't make the effort to pronounce your colleague correctly.

It reminds me of somewhere i used to work where my dick head manager called my colleague Jesus "jeezus" every single time, as opppsed to "hey-soos" which was the correct pronunciation.

They are rude. People in my team seem to have issues pronouncing names even when other people and person themselves pronounce it a certain way, they still say it wrong. I always make an effort to get names right. One Irish lady, so many people get that wrong, but she never corrects them bless her.

Ee-lena or Eh-lena?
It's seems a subtle difference, as opposed to a big difference.
I m not sure it's worth making yourself the target of ridicule over, rightly or wrongly.

Why anyone would intentionally mispronounce a name is beyond me.

Yanbu a name should be pronounced however the person's whos name it is states

Thank you everyone.
It is Eva, she’s fairly young and office is still massively skewed towards men, so I sometimes wonder if that’s playing a role as no one seems to struggle with pronouncing any of the men’s names but 3 of the women (out of 10) get their names mispronounced or misspelt relatively often (such as a Sara who still seems to get called Sarah and an Abi who gets countless emails with Abby/Abbie even though her name is right in front of them, spelt for them!)

You're so right

Oh course people should pronounce someone's name the right way

And how can that NOT be important

While i think its rude to deliberately mispronounce someones name i also don’t understand why people get so hung up on how their name is pronounced! I have one of those names that is spelled one way and pronounced another, i genuinely couldn’t give a shit how people pronounce it.

Good for her for standing up for herself.

It’s incredibly rude not to pronounce people’s names as correctly as possible, and the pronunciation she’s asking for shouldn’t be difficult for most English speakers anyway.

It is rude to not even try. Having said that my own mum can't pronounce my own daughters name right (there is an S making a Sea sound in it and she says it like a Z / Zee sound). Have tried for years and she can not hear the difference. I had to just let it go now it is the weirdest thing! But not done maliciously. I think some people really have an element of tone deafness. But for the whole team to act this way is horrible. Please continue to use her name the right way and correct others on her behalf too.

Eva pronounced “her” way isn’t even that unusual in the UK. Sometimes name pronunciations can be hard for people to remember, but if they’ve remembered well enough to spend an evening mocking her for it, they could put the effort in to saying it right in the first place…

It is important and they are being twats.

(Also, and this is entirely irrelevant, in my head, Eh-va is a lovely name and Ee-va is not. Gavel.)

YANBU. It’s really fucking rude to repeatedly get someone’s name wrong.

This is a very common microaggression. Report to HR

Exactly.

I worked in a very multicultural town, and though I tried really hard, it was close to impossible for me to prove some names exactly as pronounced in their own language. But Eh-va isn't remotely one of those kinds of names. There's no excuse for getting that wrong.

Last night I went to the pub with some colleagues and some people were making fun of how much she corrects people with her name (she isn’t rude it’s just if they say her name she responds with the correct pronunciation). They were also talking about the fact we have others in the world place who’s names get mispronounced and they just let it go. They also noted it’s hard as the name is pretty popular in the uk and pronounced a different way. It wasn’t a nice conversation, and it spiralled a little into stereotypes of the country etc. I called it out, noted that it was really inappropriate to talk that way about someone and left. I’m unsure as of yet if it’s worth reporting to HR.

She's German, isn't she? I know a German Eva - in fact I didn't know it was pronounced Eh-va in German until I met her. Unlike your dickhead colleagues, I was able to process that information and say Eh-va ever since.

I actually think that is worth reporting to HR. It sounds a little like bullying - multiple colleagues ganging up on her to tell her she's wrong for wanting her name to be pronounced correctly - with a side order of prejudice.

When they say it's hard for them to pronounce her name correctly, are they admitting how phenomenally stupid they are? It isn't remotely difficult to say "Eh-va". The only reason they aren't doing it is because they don't care, because they don't respect her enough. If Eva was responsible for their next promotion I can guarantee you they'd find a way to say the syllables "Eh-va".