I got so fed up with my name being pronounced that I got my friends and colleagues to just call me by my first initial. When I was at primary school there were two brothers with long Polish (?) names (starting something like Krchz) and they were known as K-1 and K-2.
Met a neat girl last night. At the end of the long-night-out-dancing-turned-to-waffle-breakfast I went to put her number in my cell phone. “Your name is spelled like the word, right?” “Yeah, but no one ever gets it right. I want to see what you type in.”
M-e-l-o-d-y. “Before I save it, that’s correct, right?” “Oh my God, you got it right! No, you saw my driver’s license, no one ever gets that right.”
Melody, spelled like the word, and people still screw it up. I gotta wonder what it is people call her.
I used to think my name was pretty simple and hard to screw up-- Robert. Lately, everyone thinks I’m Roger.
Oh, nothing, Josh.
Will you get the pistols this time or shall I?
I solve all that, by just calling everyone by their first initial.
“Yo, S, how ya doin?”,
“J, wassup, my man?”,
"Q , have you got that money you owe me ", etc, etc.
It works fine one on one, but can get a bit confusing in a crowded thread or room.
I actually go by “Z” quite often (I was in a group and called “number 1” once, I said “why not Zero” and then it morphed to "why not “Z”?), I even have a V for Vendetta speech it got common enough. It eliminates any issues you may have with your name, and the aforementioned poem/speech for when I introduce myself cements it in their minds. If it weren’t for the fact I love my initials (JJJ) so much I’d legally change it to that (are single character names allowed?)
However if you call me “J” or “JJ” I will [del]Forcibly remove your spine[/del] politely ask you to desist.
My first name is relatively common, but with an odd spelling. It’s my parent’s fault - I’m named after my mother, and for some crazy reason they decided it’d be easier to tell us apart by changing the spelling but not the pronunciation. It’s been a pain my whole life.
I was dumb enough to use it in my primary business email account. People do it wrong, even when I spell it out for them. What’s worse is that someone has the gmail account with the other spelling. That poor woman gets a LOT of my emails, I’m afraid. I’ve considered emailing her and seeing if I could buy the gmail account off her.
Oh, nothing, Josh.
psst…call him JJ!
I work in a monitoring station for burglar alarms. I talk on the phone a lot.
People do not listen.
I do not and will lot understand how people can hear “This is Madeline…” and turn around and call me “Natalie”.
Natalie?
well, if you insist on spelling tiger wrong don’t complain about people calling you shiver.
Actually, Mr Buttons, my surname also begins with “Eu” and was German, but if it was pronounced authentically the sound would be “Oy” I had two college professors, whose native language was German, speak it that was at the first roll call.
Here in the USA it is pronouced “You”, or “Yoo”. That’s just the way English speakers see it. Another example was my married name. It started with the letters “Hoy” and my FIL explained that in Germany it had been “Heu”. But since English speakers kept saying “Hyoo” the family changed the spelling so it would be pronounced correctly. They thought the sound was more important than the spelling.
My name is Gail. Not Gayle. Not Gale. And certainly not fucking GLORIA, which is what one of our sales reps called me in the last installment of an email chain that was at least 6 exchanges long. WTF?
I had to pop in to add that while **Silver **Tyger Girl is an evocative name, **Shiver **Tyger Girl has some nice nuances to it.
Last names are basically made to pronounce wrong. Mine is mispronounced all the time. No biggie.
But I bristle at some of the first names. My friend has a daughter he named Lee Ann. Beautiful name and wonderful girl. But he gets all offended when refer to her as Leanne in print.
I told him that anybody who names their kid with an easily mispronounced or misspelled name better get used to the headache.
So to - Leigh, Lee, Jeff, Geoff, Jerry, Gerry, Geri, Susan, Suzanne, Ann, Anne, Lisa, Liza - mom and dad caused that little annoyance you have to face everyday. No one else!
I am Denise, not Dennis. My last name, all of five letters, gets mangled all the time. It is unusual, but fairly easy to pronounce for someone with a basic grasp of the English language.
Mr. S’s surname ends in -ston.
On the copyeditors’ mailing list (COPYEDITORS, mind you – intelligent people who are paid to be careful with words) we occasionally talk about names. I have mentioned there that many people insist on sticking an “e” on the end of the “-ston,” making it “-stone.” It’s an uncommon name, and even though some variants are spelled and pronounced “-stone,” all of those in this area are “-ston,” pronounced “stun.”
Mind, also, that this explanation is taking place entirely by e-mail, in writing.
Invariably, at least half the people responding will spell the name “stone,” in all seriousness, appending that extra “e” when I was just saying that it doesn’t belong. It’s clear from context that they are not trying to josh me. They just HAVE to stick that “e” on!
I’ve even seen people do it when they’re filling out a form for him and he just hands over his driver’s license for them to copy from (his first name is unusual too).
Yeah- what the hell? I am a Debbie and I get “Betty” more than you would think.
And my MIL now says “Ann” when they ask for her name at her coffee house, because apparently your average barista can’t get their head around “Anita.”
My first name is pronounced like a relatively common name, yet spelled like a completely differently-pronounced other name. I just figure my parents were trying to add an extra challenge to my life. :rolleyes: I used to worry about how people spelled / pronounced it, but it got to where I just don’t care. When someone is taking a phone message and asks “How do you spell that?” I tell 'em “However you want to so that the person can pronounce it right.” I also answer to every mispronunciation of my name if it’s said in the correct context, and I even answer to ::nurse at my new doctor’s office hesitates for several seconds at the door staring intently at the chart in his/her hand::. It’s driven me slowly mad over the years, yet just last year I (for the first time ever, at age 39) met a namesake whose name is spelled and pronounced the same as mine.
To this day I’m astonished that someone else’s parents would pick this particular weird combination of spelling and pronunciation that would cause endless repititions of the name / spelling in question to unending numbers of hapless strangers trying to get it right.
I know a girl whose name is spelled Jenna, but is pronounced Gina. It drove everyone crazy.