do you think nurses/midwifes/registrars [ professionals involved - should be able to tell parents of new baby how actually to SPELL it?>

[slartybartfast]

in my job I come acorss some strange spellings of childrne's names and wonder, Why didnt someone tell them?

Apparently Oprah Winfrey was supposed to be called Orpah but her dad registered her incorrectly!

I don't get too bothered about spellings but I do find it odd when parents give their child a name that isn't obvious as to how it's pronounced and then get the huff when others mispronounce it!

There are a lot of professionals who couldn't spell to save their lives.

Intervention like that would be the first step on a slippery slop towards "state-sanctioned names". And wouldn't that just be HORRENDOUS.

Haha! SlopE even!

No, you just say "thats an unusual, lovely" and dont think about it again.

I know someone whose father was drunk when he went to register her sister...Peregrine. He just liked the name. The registrar didn't say anything. Should registrars intervene if someone comes in pissed to register their child with some ridiculous name? I think maybe they should say they can't register the child there and then, and ask the parent(s) to come back in a few days when they're less drunk when they've had time to think.

Can't a registrar say something like, "okay, just to confirm, this is different from the usual spelling of this name, right?".

My dad spelt my sisters name differantly to how my parents had intended. Its the same name, but a less common spelling, think Rachel instead of Rachael.

Ds1 has an odd middle name, its a family name, its not an obvious pronunciation, the registrar asked if were sure that's how we wantwd to spell it. We smiled and said yes, so I don't think that checking would be a bad idea.

I think it depends.

If I were a registrar then I would not question something that was obviously deliberate (Mikayla, Dayzee etc), nor would I question an unusual but know variant (Rachael, D'Arcy etc).

However, I would question something that is just slightly different and looks like a genuine mistake (Neveah, Phoebe, Abagail etc). Just to make sure that was what they wanted.

Buttons33 please please send her a pm and ask her to double check as you've only come across it as Niamh just in case she hasn't realised! At least then you'll know you've done a nice thing and she can register it properly when the baby comes...

and if she does want it spelt wrong uniquely then she can't turn around and say she didn't know!

I think the professionals should ask.

lots of people cant spell and their Dcs shouldn't bear the burden of that.

I know a Callum whose Mum pronounces it Kay-lem. I often wonder if she saw it written down and imagined it was pronounced like that or decided to do it deliberately.

As a registrar I used to question the spellings of names all the time. People can be very insistent.