My full name is Nellie. I have had people swear up and down (and I imagine that if I handed them a bible, they’d swear on that, too) that it’s short for something, even after seeing my birth certificate. I’ve even had people insist on calling me by what they see fit to be my “real” name.
My parents both work at the college that I attended for a semester. I have my mother’s last name (she kept her maiden name) A professor, whom I’ve known my entire life, never once called me by my real last name, much to the confusion of the class.
They dealt with this in a great way when signing a lease for a car. The salesman asked “I hate to ask this, but I have to… are you married?” My father said, with an absolutely straight face and without missing a beat, “Yes. Just to different people.”
Interestingly enough, after saying my name, people seem to think it’s Natalie. Where they’re getting a “T” in there, I don’t know. Could be my accent, but I somehow doubt it…
Or, of course, I just don’t know what the heck my name is.
I have been lucky enough to be named a nickname. My full first name is Shelly. When I was in school, teachers would automatically call me Michelle. Every year, my mother would get a note asking her if I was in fact telling the truth.
Five years ago I worked with a woman whose name was Tanya and she got real indignant when I called her “Tahn-ya”. I had, up until then, never heard of that pronunciation of that name. I tried my best to respect her wishes, but it came out “Tahn-ya” each time. I felt so bad but after 40 years of “Tahn-ya” I just couldn’t make my tongue say “Tan-ya”.
In a strange coincidence, she was just hired where I am working now. She won’t even look me in the eye, so I guess she still has resentment. sigh
When I was in school I knew a guy whose last name was Taliaferro, pronounced TOLliver.
So when a woman of that same name came to work at my company a couple of years ago I thought, Aha, I know how to pronounce that name.
I was wrong. She pronounced it “TaliaFAIR-uh” with a kind of Spanish lilt. She also explained what you could tell about someone with this name, depending on which pronunciation that person used.
And then of course was the inevitable story about how people told her she was pronouncing it wrong . . .
I used to live in a town with a Taliaferro street intersecting a Bolivar street. You could tell the newcomers because they said “Talia-FAIR-oh and Boe-li-vahr” insead of “Tolliver and Bolliver”. I know, though, that in Mexico the Boe-li-var was proper, and I always figured Taliaferro was TaliaFAIR-oh in Italy, but us Texas tend to lazify names.
My tongue must be deformed or something because both versions come out sounding the same!
Same here. I’ve always liked the name Joel, but I really don’t care much for Joe so I’ll always lengthen the L when I introduce myself or quickly spell it out before they have a chance to retort, “I know how to spell Joe!”
I understand about people insisting they know better than you what you name is. My first name is Larry. Not Lawrence or Laurence or any other spelling of the proper name. Larry. My parents gave it to me, duly inscribed on my birth certificate. It’s mine, and I like it. But throughout my life I have run across people who insist that Larry can’t be my proper first name.
When I was getting auto insurance one time the salesman began filling out the form, asking me questions and filling in the answers. He asked my name, and since I know my name, I said Larry G—. The moron started writing L a w r… “No, it’s Larry,” I said. “It’s on my birth certificate that way.” He scowled at me, because he was writing in pen (in triplicate, I think) and he had ruined the form. People just don’t listen.
I have a brother whose given name is Ted. Not Theodore. Ted. We called him Teddy until he was about fourteen and refused to answer to the “baby name” any more. But Ted it is. Now he’s added another “d” so his name is Tedd. When I’m trying to piss him off I pronounce both his "d"s, so it sounds like a stutter. But that’s just a joke between brothers. He has the right to be called whatever he wants, and spell it any way he wants.
As for pronunciation difficulties, here’s a good one. My sister-in-law is named Nadia. She pronounces it Nah’-dya, as does her father and almost everybody else who knows her. But her mother calls her Na’-dee-a (flat “a” as in “nag”). Go figure.
Oh, and welcome to the boards insomnia4AM! I hope you brought some hamster food.
*Originally posted by DesertGeezer *
You’re an insomniac, too?
You bet I am!
My fathers name is Tony. Just Tony. He went through the same garbage I did. Apparently, he didn’t have much of a say when I was named.
I work with a woman named Jennie. I admit that I automatically thought that she was a Jennifer.
There’s also a woman there named Felisha. Fell–ish–ah. She has gotten tired of hearing Fell–eesh–ah, so now she goes by her last name. It makes it easier, and she doesn’t have to correct anyone.
I have a friend named REENE. REENE is her full first name, it’s not short for anything (all though she was named after her aunt Maureen). It is pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with (well…it rhymes with) weenie. Obviously she is constanly called Renee, people are always spelling it Renee, but usually correcting them one or two times fixes the problem. USUALLY. A perfect example…When I went to her college grad party I went and looked at the cake and felt horrible haveing to tell her that instead of REENE they wrote Renee. “Congrats Renee,” she wasn’t that annoyed with it, she went on to say “I know they HAD the correct spelling, my mom ordered the cake and wouldn’t screw up my name. People do this all the time, they just think they’re so smart, they look at order forms and say ‘oh look she spelled her own name wrong, I’ll just correct it for her’” As for me, I would have asked to see the order form, and made them fix the cake, or not paid for it.
