AIBU to ask why parents give deliberately unusual spellings of otherwise common names?

[Ihateasthma]

Why do parents give their DC names which sound normal but differently spelt to the normal way?

Maddyline for Madeleine
Febee for Pheobe
Pheo for Theo

You have shot yourselves in the foot from day one as you get angry, roll your eyes when others spell their names the normal way. If you gave DC the normal spelling- you wouldn’t react like this

Then when the DC are older they do the same thing and say “it’s spelt ….”

When Michael Portillo’s parents applied for his Spanish passport, the officials translated his name to Miguel and put his mother’s surname on the end of his surname, as per Spanish convention. I actually love the ‘we know best’ ness of this 🤣

Or Chevone, or Shevaun..... I've seen both 😣

Both DH and I have spent our lives spelling out our comparatively normal names as they are traditionally spelt several ways like Claire or Clare. We did not want to lumber DS with any kind of name he had to spell everytime so his name had one way of traditional spelling. It can be spelt all kinds of way but we didnt want that.

These parents havent got a clue of the life they are setting up with their non-traditional spellings.

Oh dear god that's horrible.

I say that as something who actually has an education and named my daughter Chloe 🤷‍♀️

So everyone can tell they are thick

I suspect I have a case like this close to me (nothing outrageous or unique but definitely not what they were aiming for) and I think she just didn’t spell her kid’s name correctly when she aiming for the name lol.

It only came to light when I gave her a present with her name and was told it was wrong.

Oh OP… seriously. Read your own Op before pressing post!!

It could also be cruel to make fun of people’s names but instead of reiterating it’s a ridiculous thing to do, people are expected to consider the bullies. Often It is juvenile adults making fun of names in front of their kids and the kids doing it at school.

Well, my daughter is called Elisabeth.

I'm from Germany originally, but have lived in the UK for many years.

The UK version Elizabeth with z still looks weird to me, so we choose the s. Not to stand out, just because we like how it looks.

I knew of a Why-vone-eee: how do you spell that? Y-v-o-n-n-e. Oh, you mean iv-on? No, Why-vone-ee!

Illiteracy, mainly.

I also find stupid spellings very irritating, but I think the examples you've given are pretty extreme.

True

Of course we can (and do!) say exactly that!

I am a registrar.

What we can’t do is refuse unless it would cause universal disgust.

I’ve sadly registered several Issacs rather than Isaac because the parents refused to believe me that it wasn’t the usual spelling 🤷🏻‍♀️ 🤦🏻‍♀️ But of course we do mention it.

We can also refuse some other things. Punctuation instead of a letter for example.

Cos they’re chavvy oiks.

See also people who can’t say their own child’s name correctly.

Unless of course Eefun who used to go to school with my DCs was genuinely called Eefun. I suspect though that he was Ethan and it never occurred to either of his parents that giving a child a name you can’t say properly makes you sound thick.

Pheo? Dearie me.

Given the extremes of what I've seen I don't think thats an unusual spelling, plus it's clear phonetically. I'm talking Renna for Renée territory.

It’s U-neek-ossittee innit

How does Pheo even work?

Oh that’s good. I asked the registrar this question when he was registering one of my kids and he said he wouldn’t comment on a misspelling as they’re not allowed. I did think that I wouldn’t be able to resist if I were one and would probably get in trouble. Good to hear you can advise, even if it’s ignored.

Years ago I remember having two children called "Emily" in a class. When I was making sure which Emily was which, one of them introduced herself as Emily with the ridiculous spelling. (Emaleigh).

She hated the fact her parents had given her a weird spelling of the name.

I’ve never come across anyone naming their child anything like that.

Thats not an unusual spelling though its just a varaition like Rebecca , Rebekah
Sophia , Sofia etc

I used to run an early years setting, and without sounding snobby it was always the less educated parents that did this. And their entry forms/contact forms were often barely legible, so I always assumed that it was poor spelling.

We had an Issac. His older brother was Henrey. As spelled by Mum.

Wow