Is my name that damn hard to spell???

The BBQ Pit
41

The truly ironic thing here is that your name is Babette :smiley: :smiley:

Originally Posted By Ukelele Ike

Hey, don’t be so judgemental. Aaron made a nice living in the rag trade. The man could cut a suit for you, WITH two pair of pants- so fast you’d barely have time to suck a second cup of tea through the cube of sugar you had trapped in your incisors. Cut the man some slack already, he was a mensche’s mensch. He was the President of the Men’s Club at Shul, a leader in selling Israeli Bonds and the first guy on the block to have a knish-cart installed in the back yard next to the steam room and swimming pool ;j
:wink:

Cartooniverse

42

Hate to quibble with you there, but I’ve taught one student and had a friend who each spelled it Aron.

At least you have a common name. My first name is a spelling variant of two common names smashed together (thank you mom).

My mantra: “Marijane. M-A-R-I-(insert sound of eraser deleting the Y)-J-A-N-E”. Or if they have already written a lowercase y - “dot the ‘y’ and add a-n-e.” The cursive ‘y’ then becomes an ‘i’ and a ‘j’.

Even so, people end up pronouncing it “Mare-ee-Jane-ee”.

For the heck of it, I’m thinking of lowercasing the ‘m’ and capitalizing the ‘R’, and pronouncing it “muh-RIDGE-uh-nay”.

43

My last name is Piszczatowski:eek: I wont even start on how nobody can pronounce that. My moms first name is Janina. It has been spelled as Yanina and Tanina! How the heck can you spell it like that!?!

44

I get this all the time, too. My name is Elizabeth–one of the all-time common names. The queen of England is Elizabeth, fer gosh sakes! A common alternate spelling is Elisabeth, so I could understand if people misspelled it that way. But Elizibith??? Come on, people!

45

Cunningham. Like Richie in Happy Days. Smart pork.

It’s not Cummingham or Cummingsham. I have 2 work IDs from two different employers with Cummingham on it. I’m sure there are some Cumminghams and Cummingshams out there, but there aren’t too many of them. Why do people insist on spelling my last name wrong?

It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?

46

I’m sure “Smith” is equally hard to pronounce – in Poland.

(PEE-sha-tow-ski?)

47

Biggirl: “Cumminham”? Sounds more like a Freudian misspelling to me. Do these guys drool when they look at you? :wink:

My last name is Seale. Just like the animal, with an “E” at the end. I’ve given up trying to explain the spelling this way, though, because it forces whatever nimrod is trying to spell it to have to think, and this causes a cranial implosion that is, as a best case scenario, messy.

It’s also pronounced “seal”. That second “E” is silent.

Unless you’re pronouncing my username. :slight_smile:

48

It’s Jill, like “Jack and Jill went up the hill”.

It’s not Gill - that’s what a fish has.

And no, it’s not short for Jillian, it’s just plain Jill, as I said.

But you’d be utterly amazed (I know I am) at how often people repeat it back to me as…

Are you ready?

Are you sure?

It’s not what you might be thinking.

Ok, here it is…

Lisa

WTF??? :confused: That’s not even close!

Jeg elsker dig, Thomas

49

WHAT???. Wait, I met and had drinks with you at the famed Upper West Side Dopefest. <grin> Are you SURE you’re black?

And besides, who gives a shit? Some of my best friends are Comynghammz. Why, I’d be proud to stand up with my daughter if she ever married a Cummingkamn. Some of the most famous explorers and scientists have been Kumpingrahm’s, so I really don’t see why you’re whining. :smiley: See, it’s not cause you’re black, it’s cause you’re WHINING.

( you know I love you, right? yes? okay. good )

Originally Posted by Mike_P

Fucking showoff :stuck_out_tongue:

Montfort? Don’t you realize, in Poland, “Piszczatowski” IS pronounced “Smith”.

God I love this Board.

Cartooniverse

50

It is Frontera. Do your see an “s”? No? That’s because there is no “s” in the name. But people write my name with an “s”. Granted, it is not a common last name, but it’s a common enough noun. (If you don’t know, frontera is Spanish for frontier) Even though I pronounce it right. Aww, memories…

Me: “FronterA.”
ThirdGradeTeacher: (writing my names in her rollbook) “F-R-O-N-T-E-R-A-S”
Me: “No, it’s without “s””
(TGT continues writing the name)
Me: “But teacher, it is without the “S””
TGT:(having written my name, wrong, with pen) “Calm down, it is just your last name”
Me: "grrr(in my mind: “stupid teacher”)

At least back then I was 8 years old, the stupid teacher might have thought I had misspelled my own last name (nope, I have it right, you bitch), but the fact is that even now, TEN years later, people still misspell my last name. I think 18 years having the same last name has made me know how to spell it and write it correctly, but some people don’t think that way). On my recent trip to Peru:

Me: “Hi adult companion, my name is *** Frontera.”
StupidAdultCompanion: “Hello, FronteraS”
(we had to write our complete names in our life insurance form, and I wrote it, correctly, in the presence of the SAC)
SAC: (reading my form) “Let’s see…Age, 17, Sex, Female…Signed *** FronteraS”
Me:(In my head: Stupid man, can’t you read, I just wrote it without the “S”. You are READING it. Do you see the “S”? NO? Then why the fucking hell are you PRONOUNCING it?GRRR)

Sad thing of this story, for a whole week, everytime he called to his group, he said my last name…WRONG…Every single time, for a whole week, my name was pronounced wrong, even though it was written correctly, and I said it correctly. I cringed everytime he called me. And he is the right-hand of our mayor.

51

My condolences to you, Fronteras and Gill and Sealie and Cummingsham [ed. note- Haha…um sorry] and Elizibith and Mr. Piszticasomethin’ and Maryrose and Vonn and Aidry [??]and Stephe and Kighp and [yeah…this joke is getting tedious] and Brian and Mathew and Flores and Katherine and [she dared me] TerRi and Jo and Broownlee [that’s just absurd] and Greenee!ee e and Kristy and RocHelle and Jecessika and Sharah and most of all to you Ahrone! I can’t imagine the hassle and frustration that y’all must go through.

Actually I’ve had some experience with this. McGee seems to be an simple enough name to spell.
Ok, maybe the fact that the consonants and vowels are segregated throws a few of you off. Yeah, I say it looks unbalanced too.
And that capitalization smack in the middle. Just jarring. Especially without the h to ease you back into lowercases. Or on the case with the ‘G’ being followed by an ‘E’ but not having the common courtesy of being ‘soft’!And I’m sure that after training yourselves that the simplest possible spelling can’t be the right one, having some pissant tell you to spell it in the simplest possible fashion must send you into shock. In fact, with everything that’s ‘wrong’ with my surname, I’m surprised some manage to get it correct.

But it’s McGee!
Not McGhee
Not MacGee
Not Magee
Not MacGhee
Not MacGheigh
Not MacKee
and for Pete’s sake it’s not Mulcahy! Where did you find the ‘L’ and the ‘U’ and the ‘C’?

I’ll accomadate you even? Is that annoying capitalized ‘G’ in the middle giving you fits? You can lowercase it if you wish. You can separate it from the ‘Mc’ if you want. I don’t care about the Scotts or the Irish here.

52

I’m sure some smartass will reply, “Where it’s right there in your name!”

That’s OK, I’ll forgive you.

53

they have some trouble with my last name at work, it is a common name, and there are a lot of us in my neighborhood. i am a mexican chick, and nobody can seem to pronounce it either.

My last name is Martinez. And hearing Mart-uh-nez is so irritating, just say Mar-tee-nez! It salways makes me want to say , my last name is on;y Martinez and not anything complicated like, Sheremetevskaya

54

But the nice thing about having an unpronounceable last name is that it helps weed out the telemarketers.
Person on the phone: “Hi, is Mrs. Del…, Della…, Degla… Delega…”
Me: “Nope, no one here by that name.” Click.
:smiley:

55

My name is Katie. It seems simple enough, but I’ve had spellings from MARS. I can understand Katy, because I know three others who spell it like that, but these are others:

Kati
Katee
Catie
Caty
Katea (that one was odd, but…)
Kaytee (WTF?)

My last name gets misspelled a good deal, too.

56

I’m sorry. I live in a sort of vaguely-suburban area called Martinez, for reasons unknown. Guess how the locals pronounce it. And I’m from Texas and California. I don’t speak Spanish, but I at least know how it should sound! It grates on me no end to hear, “Mart-uh-nez,” and grates on me even more that I’ve heard myself saying it that way. My apologies. If I didn’t, nobody would know where I live!

57

Whiterabbit:

The county seat of Monterey is a city named Salinas. And that’s actually pronounced “Suh-lee-nahs” just like it’s supposed to be. Well, I served in the Navy with a Kansan from the town of Salina. He pronounced it “Suh-lie-nuh.” God, how that grates!

58

My first name is ludicrously simple–3 letters. It’s not a common name but it’s sure not unknown either. Okay, my family uses an old-fashioned variant in pronunciation but I abandoned that struggle years ago. If it’s remotely in the ballpark, I answer to it. But the spelling is slaughtered more often than not. Truly bizarre.

My maiden name (since reclaimed) is unusual but dead simple: short and phonetically obvious as a ballpeen across the front teeth. (My married name was another matter; Swedish and genuinely tough to spell.<–shudders for lots of reasons.) But it’s routinely mangled, tortured out of all resemblence.

True fact: for years, lacking a nameplate on my office door, I cut out and taped up horrendous versions that miraculously still got delivered through the mail. The joke started when our mail-sorter puckishly labelled my mail box with a hilariously godawful version–and of course got teased for years being called by it.

Sigh. I’ve given up.
It’s mysterious and inexplicable but just one of those annoyances I’d rather laugh at. I tell myself it’s a sorta Zen-ish step toward maturity rather than torpidity.

Veb
P.S. And no, Veb isn’t my real name. People don’t mangle that. Ah, poop. Forget the maturity thing. Looks like there’s still some bitterness there…

59

Amen, brother.

People constantly spell it with one t and its very annoying.

60

My maiden name is “Luce”; it sounds just like it’s spelled, as in “loose”. (Yes, I took my share of teasing for it, but it’s derived from the same latin word that gives us “lucifer” and “lucid”, so it’s pretty cool.)

People pronounce it ‘Loo-chi’, ‘loo-say’, ‘luch-ee’, or ‘lukey’, always with a question mark (ahem, Miss… Loochi?)
Hello? Do you pronounce the word, “cake” as “cakey”? Or “mice” as “my-chi”?
I’d say, “You know, ‘Luce’, as in Claire Boothe Luce?”
>blank stare<
me: “Henry Luce?”
>blank stare<

My married name is “Sherrill”, pronounced like “Cheryl”. Yes, this is handy whenever a telemarketer calls.
“Good evening! May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. ShurELL?”
(click)

Once, when trying to make an appointment, the receptionist asked for my last name, and I provided it for her. There was a pause, then she said with extreme condescention, “I said I need your last name!” That is my last name, you stupid whore!

Whenever I have to spell it out for someone, it invariably takes several very slooow repetitions before they get it right.
Me (speaking slowly, as if to a brain damaged person): “That’s ess-aych-eee, are-are, I, ell-ell.”
Dumbshit: “Ess-aych-eee, are, I, ell.”
Me (patiently): “No, it’s…” etc. for several minutes, while the person insists on deleting or inserting letters of his choice.
For Christ’s sake, people, how hard is it to spell a name when a person is slowly spelling it for you?!? Simply write or type the letters as I say them!