I was listening to the Lionel radio talk show one night, and he was insisting that Colin Powell’s first name was Collin, not Colin as in a :
And hey, out of curiosity, was Andy Kaufman’s last name pronounced? I’ve heard two pronunciations.
You keep saying that and it’s still not the act of mispronouncing the name that is the basis for the OP here. It’s the act of ARGUING when they say, “It’s pronounced this way” as if the person doesn’t know how to say their own name.
How do you think I feel, I spell mine with a “j”. 
If I saw the name “Bietz”, I would think, and say, “beets” as well. But if you said, “actually, I pronounce it ‘bites’.”, I’d remember to call you by “bites”.
If you had responded to my ‘beets’ with an attitude, I’d be irked. But if you responded politely, hey no problem.
If you had politely responded and I (I wouldn’t, but theoretical situations here) had insisted on lecturing you on how your name is supposed to be pronounced “beets”, then I can understand that you’d be irked.
As long as you say that it’s how you pronounce it, or how your family pronounces it, it’s all good.
My uncle’s last name is Stawiasz, pronounced “STAH-vee-ash”. He has a brother in the same general field in the same area, who pronounces his name “STAY-witz”, and a cousin who pronounces it differently than either of them. Mainly it’s to avoid confusion to clients who will probably hear of both of them. Different pronunciations are easier to mentally separate. But the “STAY-witz” guy doesn’t try to say that it’s the “correct” (as in, the Polish) pronunciation. And anyone who tries to lecture him on how he SHOULD pronounce his name is just being incredibly rude.
My long-winded 2¢
I’m gonna change my last name to the most common mis-pronounciation, “Wyatt” is so much cooler anyways…
As for my first name, I shortened it to three letters to make it easier for you, please please please do me the courtesy of spelling it right. K-A-T. It’s not hard.
Thankyouverymuchindeed.
My last name is properly pronounced with a soft a (as Tahn-ya) but most Americans pronounce it with a hard a (as Tan-ya).
About ten years ago, I decided it wasn’t a mispronunciation thing, it was an accent thing, and not a big enough difference to get upset over. I give people who prounounce it correctly (usually foreigners, people who know some German, or folks nice enough to ask and try to get it right) a grateful smile, and for the rest, I let it slide. People don’t think I’m a stuck-up snob like they did when I insisted on correcting everybody all the time, and I stress less. Win-win. (YMMV, of course.)
Once someone did actually try to tell me how to pronounce my own damn name, and I told her, “Actually it’s pronounced [blah],” with a proper German accent and the uvular r’s, “but most Americans,” hard look, “tend to pronounce it [blah], and that’s fine. If they’re close, I think it’s rude,” hard look, “to correct them.”
Strangely, my Serbian officemade calls me almost exclusively by my last name–and pronounces it correctly, I might add. 
When I was in second grade we had to fill out some paper with our parents’ names on it. My mother’s name is not an ordinary name. My teacher insisted it could not be what I knew it was because “That’s not a name, dear.” I was seven years old; how could I possibly be right about my own mother’s name? So she crossed out what I wrote and wrote “Christine” on my form. Which is not my mother’s name. My mother sent her a nice note and signed it with her name. Her real name. The teacher apologized profusely to her (but not to me). This was the day I learned to distrust authority.
And I am happy to have given Mrs. Dave-Guy (or Not Mrs. Dave-Guy, as the case may be) the troubles of being erroneously identified with the celebrity whose name my maiden name and her current name now resemble. I am grateful to have a nice, pronounceable, unambiguous married name.
If, Greyson3, you are referring to Tennessee Tuxedo’s pal, he’s a walrus, not an ape. Duh.
I have a very lovely first name (I think) which has the letter “q” in it. (That’s part of why I think it’s lovely.) Most people, when discovering my first name, will automatically “shorten” it to the “nickname” version. (Which does not have a “q” in it.) I don’t like this, and I consider it rude that people would just automatically do this without asking my preferences first. But I concede defeat. People are not going to stop doing this, no matter how much I explain to them how I dislike it.
Therefore, a long time ago, I started going by my first and middle initials. I rather like this. It confuses people that a female goes by her initials, (and some of them seem to resent not knowing my “real” name) but it’s better than being called by the bastardized nickname that I don’t like at all. I don’t even give people the opportunity to screw up my name.
Frankd6: Maybe “Cholmondeley” is pronounced “Chumley” in the same way that “Leicester” is pronounced “Lester”?
Oh, wait… I see that “Chumley” was referred to as an ape. He was indeed a walrus.
That has been my problem for 13-14 years, ever since I started going to elementary school. People seem to think my last name is plural. It’s not! I don’t pronounce it with an “s”, and if you hear my speech, I do pronounce the rest of the “s” sounds.
I tend to be a lot more forgiving about misspelling/mispronouncing my first name since it is strange. But not so with my last name, which is an uncommon last name but a common word in Spanish.
Freak 
At least we spell our middle names the same.
For now…
!!Snork!!
Wimps. You oughta hear the mangling my name goes through. My real one, not my board name. In all my life, I have met one person who knew how to pronounce it properly without having first met a member of my family and being told how to pronounce it. He did, however, refuse to say it. If pronounced correctly, it sounds exactly like an insulting word from the english language. Staff Sergeant King (as he was 15 years ago) was the only person I’ve ever met who knew both how to pronounce my name and knew the other word as well.
I’m not going to give you my name here. There are so few of us that it would be pretty easy to locate me.
Actually folks, I never, ever, correct people, unless they ask.
For example: “Mr. Beets, the doctor can see you now”.
I wouldn’t correct that. What for?
But if the same receptionist says: “Mr. uh…How do you pronounce you last name? Beets?”
That I would correct. Because they asked.
i don’t have an attituted until, after the asked for correction is made and they argue about it. then I get mad.
I have a feeling the original (were talking 400 years ago) spelling was the E before I. Why/how/who switched it, I know not. (It was sometime around the 1890’s according to my grandmother).
But, we all pronounce it Bites, and when I tell you that, accept it!
No one IS being hard on them. They are being hard on those people who then say “no, you are WRONG”
Some people seem to be taking the wrong idea from the OP.
What gets me is when people ask me why I pronounce my name (Meaghan, pronounced MEE-gan) the way I do. Gee, I decided at birth. It never seems to occur to them that I had no say in the matter. Same goes for my sister Tanya (another Tahn-ya)
My Last name is Max. M-A-X. I don’t know any other way to spell it. You wouldn’t believe how many people ask me how it’s spelled, if it’s one X or 2. I usually tell then that it’s a real last name, of German origin. (my adopted dad is a Mormon & has researched his geaneology back to before immigration to the US). If I add that it’s not something I made up in the 80s, they usually get very irked.
I have never heard “Tanya” as anything but Tahn-ya. Ever. (Not that the alternative is wrong, I just think it’s weird that Tan-ya seems to be the more common way.)
Unless it’s pronounced with a Strine accent, you mean.
Yes, Mrs. Dave-Guy insists that taking my name is the greatest proof that she really loves me.
And you’re welcome for not stealing your thunder. The wife wanted me to relate your “That’s not a name” story. You told it better than I could have, anyway.
“Featherstonehaugh”, anyone?
Oh names are fun. Well, all words are, really. But what about when people, for some reason, give their kid a name and expect it to be pronounced oddly? As in “Caitlin” (forgot how to make the accent mark work - sorry ) suddenly being pronounced “kate-lin”.
I feel rather sorry for people in that position, as it seems to imply that their parents were either such nitwits as to decide to change the pronunication, OR, of course, too dim to know what they were doing. Neither, of course, might be true, but I’d worry that it * might * just make interviews etc a little more wearisome for the kid.
A bit like Tom Lehrer’s person whose name was “Henry”
http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/allgo.htm
Or calling the kid “Catriona” and *expecting * it to be pronounced CAT ree oh na? OR- OTOH the poor girl is still going to find life full of people who will try to pronounce it that way.
BAH!
My own gripe would be about the *spelling * of my name - SO insolent of anyone to alter it for me (and government departments are the worst at this, I find).
Tee hee though, looking for the bright side, I think that if anyone gets one’s name wrong, despite having been provided with the correct information… well, it lets you know pretty quickly that "Caution: possible arrogant moron approaching.