That’s probably because some last names spell it with one T, and people foolishly think that if it’s possible in a last name, it’s possible in a first name… 
My surname is Lyon. Not Lyons. And it’s a Scottish name, so please don’t pronounce it like the city in France. I’m sure it’s a lovely city, but it ain’t where my people came from. Also, please don’t spell it “Lion”. Have you ever heard of anyone surnamed “Lion”?
Lyons, unfortunately, is a very common surname here in Ireland, so my name gets misspelled a lot. It’s gotten to the point where when I have to drop off my drycleaning, film, etc., I usually just say “Lyons”. That way I don’t have to spell it.
Oh, and just as an FYI, “Micheal” is the Irish version of Michael (it’s pronounced MEE-hall).
People reading my name screw it up. All the time. I do not mind this; I understand that it’s unfamiliar to anyone who doesn’t hang around people with Jewish names. (FTR, hard g, long e. NOT Gillah, Gylah, Jillah, Jylah, or Jilia.)
HOWEVER, when people copy my name from someplace where I’ve written it… It’s not Gilda, folks. Have you ever met someone within three decades of college age named Gilda? Did I write any “d” in there? Can we assume that when writing my own name, I spell it correctly?
I think that my mother has the best story, though. Her name is Mimi (first i is short, second has a long E sound - Mihmee). Once, when she introduced herself to someone - “Hi, I’m Mimi.”, the person responded “Oh, you mean Meemee.”, assuming that my mother couldn’t pronounce her own name properly.
My husband’s middle name is Martinous. This is rather awkward because nobody knows how it’s supposed to be pronounced. It’s an old family name, but apparently his parents never met the person to whom the name belonged and never heard how he said it. Fortunately it doesn’t come up much.
I went from being an Ahlstrom, which I had to spell all the time, to being a Jole, which I still have to spell all the time but it’s much shorter. People always think it’s “Jo-lee.” I say, “Jole. Like Billy Joel, but not.”
When people hear my first name and repeat it back to me, the H frequently gets turned into some other apsirated vowel. I’ve been called Kaleena, Taleena, and Paulina. Odd, that. People hardly ever get it right when reading it, either. It’s He-LAY-na.
I put my husband’s full name, Douglas Martinous Jole, into this anagram generator here and got Jealous Ignoramous Dolt. That was great.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Helena *
**
Whoops! Just noticed this. Aspirated consonant, of course. Not vowel.
While I can’t recall being quite as colourful out loud, I can sympathise with you. My surname isn’t particularly unusual as a family name, but it can also be a first name. The trouble is, my first name confounds people. It’s Huw. Pronounced like to hew, or the hues of the rainbow. So, people assume it must be my surname, and reverse my names.
When I was young, my family moved around a lot. Upon starting at a new school, that we had registered at from another city, one teacher confessed that they were a little surprised when a little blond boy showed up for school; they were expecting a Chinese student.
I also suffer a vast range of misspellings (“How”, “Hu”, “Hue”, etc.).
I have a sure-fire intelligence test built right into my last name. Which is Smith. And I live in America. We’re not talking about serious spelling challenges, right? And I can even understand when people ask me how to spell it - once. I mean, it might be Smythe or something, or maybe I just didn’t annunciate, and anyway, you can never be too careful. But this conversation is a dead giveaway that there’s a problem:
Idiot: Last name?
Me: Smith.
Idiot: Can you spell that?
Me: S-M-I-T-H.
[At this point, anyone with one lone functioning neuron will say something like “Oh, Smith. Whoops.”]
Idiot: That was S-what?
And I know right there that I shouldn’t try to order anything from this person, take directions from this person, or indeed spend any longer talking to this person, in case what he has is catching.
(We won’t even get into my first name, except to say: you cannot change another person’s first name into an entirely other first name just because you feel like it. My name is not Amy. It is not Joy. It is not Eve. It is not Heidi, ferchrissakes. Please, I will accept almost any spelling that’s even close, but at least make a shot at my actual first name. I’m begging you…)
My last name is Hollinshead. No g. I pronounce it Holl-in-shead. I invariably get it pronounced back at me as Hollingshead. there is no damn g in my name! You didn’t hear me say it with one, did you? That goddamn g has been following me all of my life! I got it in grade school, high school and college! I get it with my prescriptions! I get it when I order pizza on the phone! I’ve passed on the curse of the g to my wife and son!
Damn it, there is no damn g in my name!
And when I hear Hollinghead I want to get a rifle and climb a tower!
A general theme here is one that I’ve certainly experienced with my own name down the years - complification.
So many people seem allergic to simple five letter names that are spelled the way they sound. Especially when said name is common and said spelling is the norm. No - they must add letters willy-nilly to create strange mutated names instead. Bizarre.
And let me tell you - having a superfluous “K” inserted where no K should be is a painful experience to have to repeatedly live with.
pan
One thing that I bet trips up a lot of people is that some (all?) Asian countries and cultures use the surname in front of the first name; e.g., Smith John instead of John Smith. Many of us here in the West are completely ignorant of such an odd way of expressing one’s name, so I bet there are a lot of Asian people who simply grin and bear it when we call them by their last name (or, in the scientific field, Dr. First name).
Countis
This is a common last name in my community. My extended family spells it Countiss, my mother just decided one day to drop the last “s”, why, noone knows. I know the “is” is different from the way most people spell it around here. I can accept and understand "Countess, Countiss, Countes Coontess, and Contess (although, thank goodness noone has ever dropped just the “o”)
But where in hell does Curtis come from?
And why is it so hard to pronounce? It’s Coun-tis, STOP CALLING ME COON-TIS!
(and stop asking me if I’m royalty…you’re being stupid.)
[hijack]
danthe, that story reminds me of a related episode. At my school, the teachers usually ask us to write the papers last names first, first names last (in order to organize the papers better in alphabetical order). I have become so accustomed to this that I mostly write it that way in every paper handed to me. Ok, so there was a blank in some of the papers for the trip to Peru where I had to write my FIRST name first, LAST names second. I did it the wrong way. Every time they were giving the boarding passes, they said the names of the students, but for me it was the last names they said. Oh, did I mention some of those passes were handed out by the same stupid adult that mispronounces my last name? grrr 
(On a brighter side, my last names are relatively easy to say, in contrast to my first name. Well, except for the stupid adult. He just mispronounced everything.)
[end hijack]
My name is Wade. Not Wayne.
Originally posted by even sven:
Actually some Spaniards and Argentinians are blonde and blue-eyed.
Originally posted by AudreyK:
Not Andrey?
(how can someone confuse Jill and Lisa??)
Yep.
“Allan”. Everyone wants it to be spelled either “Alan” or “Allen”. I correct it from one, they change it to the other wrong version.
I’ll see all of you and raise you MY last name:
Jones.
I’m sorry, folks, but if you can’t spell or pronounce “Jones” you should be eulogized and buried, because you must already be dead. I mean, everyone’s seen an Indiana Jones movie, right? And yet…
- First day in the Army. First day. I’m standing there in my new uniform with thirty other kids getting ready to board the bus to boot camp. They’re calling the roll as families look on.
“Hatcher.”
“Here!” (goes up to get paperwork)
“Hutton.”
“Here!” (goes up to get paperwork)
“Yonez!”
I just stand there. “Yonez! Private Yonez! Isn’t there a Yonez here?” Finally the guy next to me pokes me and says “Hey, isn’t your name Jones?” I say it is and he looks at me in horror and says, “I think he means you!” And he did.
- Not two weeks ago I’m in my new doctor’s office and they’re filling out the patient info stuff. “Last name?”
“Jones.”
She writes down a G, then pauses. “Um, how do you spell that?” Jesus, Lady, how do YOU spell it?
- My first name is Rick, and you’d be amazed how often THAT get screwed up too: Rik, Ric, Wrick, and Ricc so far. I don’t even bother with my full first name “Richard,” since that would probably give some people strokes.
Firstly sympathy to all. It wouldn’t be so bad if officialdom said ‘I’m sorry - I’m terrible with names. Please could you print it for me?’
Secondly I want to tie the record for shortest surname spelling situation: Lee.
It has become Li, Le, Lea, Ley, Lia, Leah, Leeh, Lees, Leigh and Fortescue-Smythe-Fortescue*.
*Ok, I made the last one up
Wouldn’t the shortest name spelling be a tie between the correct transliteration of “I” and “O.” Both are Korean names, commonly mistransliterated as “Yee” (or “Lee”) and “Oh,” respectively.
“I” is spelled in the Korean Hangul alphabet as “NG-I” (the NG, when listed first in a syllable is silent and serves to “carry” the vowel).
“O” is spelled in the Korean Hangul alphabet as “NG-O.”
Cathy
Of course, the first question is “C” or “K,” which I try to avoid by saying “Cathy with a ‘C’.” That usually works, but then they need to know if it ends with a “y” or an “i” or an “ie.” That doesn’t bother me too much.
What bothers me is when they ask me what it’s short for. Is it Catherine or Cathleen? Neither, it’s just Cathy. The usual response is “It can’t just be Cathy. It has to be short for something.” Um, why exactly? Cathy isn’t good enough? And I certainly know my full first name–I’ve had it for almost 37 years. Insisting that it must be short for something isn’t going to make it change.
Yeah, I was made aware of that fairly early on. The amusing part about the school getting my names reversed? My middle names are Alexander and John – and the schools all had my full name.
In fairness, I suppose that people familiar with the Asian (particularly Chinese) immigrant habit of taking an Anglicized name when coming to an English-speaking country might not necessarily find it strange that they took three English names.
I get the misspelling thing too. As generic as my name is, I still get constantly asked about it. Sigh. No, it’s just the plain old way
Correct: Rebecca
Incorrect: Rebbeca, Rebbecca, Rebaca, Rebekah (For the record, I think it’s the consonant-vowel-double consonant-ending vowel combo that makes this so tough for most folks.)
Correct: Davis
Incorrect: Davies, Dawes, Days
And the next time some dumb fuck name-taker chimes in halfway through my spelling, I will do as Jarbaby does and say
NO, NO, NO! Shut your valve and listen to the spelling!
Heh, Valve… That’s so much nicer than Piehole.
All this reminds me of a college friend named “Beth (Lastname)”. That was her full name as it appeared on her birth certificate. Not Elizabeth or any variation, and no middle name. Registration was always a hassle for her. When graduation time came around, the College fought like a rabid dog against allowing her to just have Beth Lastname on her degree – I think someone actually said “You aren’t allowed to just be a nickname, and you have to have a middle name, too.”