Do you have a name that is often mispronounced?

[JimbosJetSet]

...And does it annoy you? Or do people frequently mispronounce your DC's name?

I really like the name Louis for a boy. But I am wondering if we, and then him, are going to spend the rest of his life having to correct people when they pronounce his name with an 's' on the end... Are we condemning our future DS to a life of being irritated every time someone says his name wrong?

Everyone calls me Joanna or Joanne. I'm Josephine. It annoys me, but I just correct them. At scholol the Assistant Head used to tell me off for not replying, but if someone's shouting the wrong name across the playground how the fairydust are you supposed to know it's you they want?

Anyway, lots of my friends like using my full name because they think it's pretty and I like my name, so I'd rather be correcting people than be called a different name. Louis is definately pretty obviously pronounced 'Lou-ee', I really like it, go with it!

Yup, people end my name with an 'o' instead of an 'a' - I have a name beginning with A, the masculine version of it ends with 'o', think Mr Banderas! I'm fairly obviously not a chap, I think.

We're up in Scotland and our 2DD have Scottish names spelt the gaelic way. They are always pronounced the correct way but we get weird and wonderful spellings on party invites and such like! Doesn't bother me and the girls are always amused by this.

HugeFurry: this is a shame, I absolutely love your name!!! (one of my all times fav also vetoed by DH because he cannot stand the nn Toni)

I also have a Russian name that is always mispronounced and/or mis-spelled. It really annoys me when people say to me "Why do you pronounce/spell your name that way." Because that's the correct way. (And I NEVER use the long version - that would just be asking for trouble!)

I also have a long English surname that no-one can spell.

It gets quite wearing.

yes, it's always mispronounced and spelled incorrectly too. But then it's not English, so I guess it's to be expected. It doesn't bother me too much to be honest, most people like it when I tell them how it's really pronounced. And usually they make very nice comments about how lovely it is, so I can't be too worked up about it.

I have a friend who is married to a Louis, and he's always been Looeee. I would never pronounce Louis as Lewis.

My maiden name becomes much more common if you change the first letter.

Joyous in a world of scatty typists and alphabetic filling.

My DS often gets eye-dris rather than id-ris (he's an Idris)

Yes, and it drives me mad. I have a name that has 3 different pronounciations, and unfortuantely mine is the least common pronounciation, the Irish way. 99% of the time people assume it is the most common pronounciation and use that, which doesn't bother me too much as I guess that's what you'd think, but I hate correcting people as it feels awkward. The really annoying thing though is when people try to correct me on how to pronounce my own name (I once had an argument with the school librarian about it who insisted I was wrong) or think that I've decided to invent my own pronounciation to be different. It would be better if my name was really obscure so people would be more likely to ask how to say it rather than making their own assumptions.

Having said all that though OP, I do think the vast majority of people would pronounce Louis as "Lou-ee", and you would have much more of an issue if you wanted to spell it that way but pronounce the s.

One of my DDs has a name that can be pronounced in 2 ways, (we chose the less popular one) another DD's name has 3 pronunciations, (again we chose the least popular one.) We didn't do it on purpose to be distinctive we just really liked the versions we chose as they held particular significance to us.

Anyway it doesn't make much difference now as they are teenagers and both go solely by the abbreviated forms of their names. All our original thought and effort seems a bit wasted now,

Louis is definitely Lou-ee these days so I'd go for that spelling.

My eldest is called Jessie, she has a slight lisp.

I find it hilarious that on several occasions when she has been asked her name (especially on the phone) people have said "Jeffie?"!

FFS.

She doesn't find it as funny as I do BTW.

My name has a S in it and it infuriates me when it's pronounced with a Z, think tarbuck. My gran did it my whole life but she was the only one I would let get away with it.

People put the emphasis on the wrong syllable of my surname, which annoys me.

yes. My name is also that of a well known margarine. I get called Fiona, Lorna, Laura, Phoebe(?!) as well as other variants such as Florence. DH has a forrin name which nobody can spell or pronounce, and our surname is impossible. Hence DS and DC2 getting very common names that cannot be mis-spelled or mispronounced.

Oh, except apparently Oliver can be spelled Oliever, or Olliver, and can sometimes be mistaken for Roland. Seriously...

My Louis, will now respond to Lewis, and it still surprises me how people can't pronounce his name correctly. It does really annoy me, however adults are usually the worse offenders!

No two people have ever got my name right, there's even been discussions in my presence on how to say it :o

Same for my second name. People just give me nicknames which is great especially gossip wise as I can claim it wasn't me by using another variation,

no one can pronounce my surname if they have only seen it written down.
Everyone misspells it even when they have seen it written down.

i often joke that when i got married i becase MrsMateyM00doyouwantmetospellit?

my DD's teacher spelt DD surname incorrectly on DD's Spelling book, and got all sniffy when i pointed it out to her!

I teach a Lewis and a Louis. The first lesson I just asked them whether I was pronouncing them correctly and went from there. I think Louis, spelt that way, will cause fewer problems than you think.

You can't avoid the mis-spelling / mispronunciation of everyone anyway. I have a Tess (2yo) and it's already been spelt wrongly!

My younger son is Ciar (pronounced Kee ir) it's the Gaelic version of Keiran but shortened as the name Ciaran means the little dark one but we didn't think he'd be little (or turn out blond for that matter!!!) so we removed the "an". When we got down to two on the list, I got to choose the name and the OH choose the spelling.

Mostly people think he is a girl - he is extremely pretty for an almost 11 year old boy, but he doesn't look like a girl! The kids in his class all spell it wrong he gets lots of things with Keir on them and we always know when it's our turn in the doctors/dentists etc as there is always a little pause for they attempt a guess at pronouncing his name. I think i would have stuck with a more traditional spelling.

Incidentally we have friends who's son is a Luis and he still gets people pronouncing it Loo ey.

Not as often mispronounced as pre Rowling. But still the comments come. "ooh that's unusual" "who called you that". Coupled with an unusual surname, it drove me nuts when I was younger. Especially nurses who thought it was a point of conversation - it wasn't it was boring - especially the arsy one who once said "how unusual - where did you get that from?" and made a catsbum (a word I have learned from Mnet) face when I said "from my parents, just like everyone else." "As in Gielgud" never went down too well either.

Our children have two syllable names with no variants.

I am Marianne and I get called Mary Anne or Marion quite a lot.

Surname, yes, to the extent that I'm always quite startled when people either spell or say it correctly (unless in Ireland where both my surname and first name are very common, though then they tend to assume I'm Irish and Catholic - until they meet me!)

Yes, I have a name which is always, always mispronounced.

When I was a kid it made me feel a bit special and different. Now it just makes me feel annoyed - with my late parents for saddling me with it, rather than with the person floundering around the silent vowels.

my dd is Merryn and people often mishear and mispronounce it to begin with, we have had mary, mirian, marianne etc etc, once they know what her name is they seem to get it right! but i suspect it will be an ongoing issue for her, along with me callnig her a 'good boy' she may grow up with issues

Well, my name isn't mispronounced, it's lengthened incorrectly! I'm an Alexandra, but have always been known as Ali, and people assume that as I'm an Ali, my name must be Allison! I just ignore people that call me Allison as obviously it's not my name! But will answer to Alex even though I don't like it (for me!)
Also, my DD is Norah, and we thought that her 'biggest name problem' would be saying 'that's Norah with an h' but apparently, the bigger problem is that people hear 'Laura!' (which is a lovely name, just not what we chose!)