Should I change the spelling of my name?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi. My name is Loretto. Not Lorett-a. Lorett-o.

Most people I encounter during my travels through the universe can’t seem to grok this. I tell them my name, carefully annunciating the “O” sound, and they call me Loretta, and continue to do so even after being corrected numerous times. I actually have considered carrying around little party favors to give as prizes to people who pronounce it right on the first try.

Even more annoying is people who see my name written or in print (or on my name tag) and still call me Loretta, sometimes kindly informing me that my name is spelled wrong on my name tag.:rolleyes:

I get mail from people or organizations to whom I have given my name either in writing or in print addressed to someone named Loretta. The printer that did the graduation invitations for my high school sent me a box of invitations belonging to someone named Loretta. I sent them back. I even once had a teacher go so far as to correct the spelling of my name on a paper I handed in. Right. I don’t know how to spell my own name.

The name has a very respectable history. It was my grandmother’s name. There is an order of nuns called the Sisters of Loretto, who have a staircase in New Mexico called, oddly, the Loretto Staircase. There are several towns in the U.S. and elsewhere called Loretto, and many, many Our Lady of Loretto churches.

The name is derived from the town of Loreto, Italy, where, after a few years’ stay in Croatia, the Blessed Mother’s house was moved to in 1294. (the grotto that once surrounded it is still in Nazereth. They just moved the house.)

Anyhoo, I’ve been kicking around the idea of changing the spelling of my name so that it will be the same as that of the little town in Italy. I figure, it won’t help with the auditory problem, but it should go a long way toward solving the problem of people who see my name in written or in print reading it as “Loretta”.

I figure, a certain number of people will see it and at first want to call me Lo-REE-to, but that would be easier to correct than Loretta.

I haven’t decided which ‘T’ to drop, I’m thinking probably the second one, and I won’t get rid of it entirely. I’ll keep it in the little cedar box in my icon corner where my extra rosaries and essential oils are, then if my little experiment fails, I can just get it out and put it back in my name. If the experiment works, I’ll give it to Fr. Francis so he can give it to a nominally challenged parishoner.

So, is changing the spelling of my name a good idea? I like my name, I really do, but it’s really aggravating having people see it written down and still mispronounce it, or misspell it even when they have it right there in front of there hairy little eyeballs.

2

Why change? Its a great name, it has history, a sense of family, and even if you did change it, some idiot would still mispronounce it. If I said my name is Loretto, and someone looked clueless, I would stare at that person to show them that they had the problem. I’m John, but if you get to my last name people get spooked. People who care will call you Loretto, people who don’t, don’t.

3

I have a similar affliction, in that I am a white girl named Jose.

It’s pronounced Josie, like “and the pussycats, yeah yeah yeah,” but it’s spelt like hose-ay. Long story, but here I am, Jose Fa Kirkland, born of a southern bastardization of the non-diminutive form of the spanish effeminate of Joseph.

To top it off, when the state processed my birth certificate, they were so kind as to “correct” what they thought was a mistake on my parent’s part, spelling it “Josie”. So as far as social security and my drivers license go, the world thinks I’m Josie-- the incorrect spelling that looks right-- but on my college diploma and all my Christmas cards and among all my pals and family, I’m Jose, the correct spelling that looks wrong. And lemme tell ya, I spent many years starting class on the boy’s roster-- eventually went to a women’s college, and I could always tell when a teacher came across my name on the roll by the furrowed confused expression, so I’d help em out a bit and volunteer my identity.

I spent years thinking about how I could change mine, everything from an exasperated and punctuation-filled Jos(i)e(-y) to Josie (which i still kinda hate) and finally thought a contraction of the first and middle would work out nicely. So now I fancy maybe cleaning it up to become Josefa Otter Kirkland-Rhine, now that I am two years hitched and all, but some mixture of stubbornness and laziness have prevented me from doing so. As it is, I don’t bother correcting people unless I know they’ll be using it again (the lady taking my sandwich order can spell it however the heck she wants to). I am used to keeping my business paperwork in the wrong spelling, in fact it kind of helps me abstract myself from it, which is strangely comforting, say, when I’m filing that Josie person’s taxes. And I don’t get harassed or picked up on much in chatrooms because people assume I’m a gay Hispanic guy. :slight_smile:

Anyway, I feel your pain, and I figure, if it bugs you, why not? I think everyone has the right to do a bit of reinvention-- have a middle name you can play with too?

4

Hey, whatever floats your boat. Personally, I think your name rocks but it is yours to do with what you will.

My real name is a fairly common name, certainly nothing like rare or unique. People misspell, mispronounce or just call me by a completely wrong name all the time anyway. I correct people a couple times, then I just respond to whatever they’re calling me. It’s not like people who don’t know my name are my close friends or anything, so who cares?

They figure it out after they’re around for awhile and then they say "OMG! Here I’ve been calling you “blah-blah”! I just tell 'em everyone does it, no big deal. Then we move on. Nice and easy. :slight_smile:

5

Dang, Loretto, give us a break. Your name is unusual in this milque-toast world we live in. Rejoice in your individualness and do your part in stomping out ignorance (I know, I know, it’s taking longer than you though ;))

Seriously, try not to take it personally. I see many type- or hand-written names every day and you would be surprised the number that are misspelled. When I contact my clients, I try to honor the spelling I’m given but it makes for some awkward attempts to prounounce the unpronounceable.

Just this week I called a client named (according to the source document) Magahan. I called and asked for Mr. Ma-gay-han. It was a typo and the guys name was actually McGann.

I, too, have a last name that is easily mis-pronounceable. I don’t get aggravated any more, I just politely correct them and go on. Life’s too short to get too wrapped around the axle about the little stuff.

6

I thought your name was “Thea.” :wink:

Move to Chicago, where we have Loretto Hospital and folks are more likely to pronounce it right.

7

Do most people get it wrong, some people get it wrong, or just a few get it wrong?

If it’s just a few, don’t bother. if it’s most, then maybe you should. If it’s some, then well, I guess it depends on how much of a hassle it’d be to do it.

8

I didn’t read the entire thread, but I can relate (well through a friend anyways). Her name is Reene. NOT RENEE (look closely). Her name is Reene, rhymes with, well, Weenie. It’s her given name but it comes from the nickname for her aunt Maureen. Anyways, people are ALWAYS calling her Renee, even after correcting them they still tend to screw it up. What’s even worse, is when she writes it out for someone they’ll think she spelled her own name wrong (dumb girl doesn’t even know how to spell her own name) and they’ll “correct” it for her. At her graduation party, her mother wrote out exactly what the cake should say, and they still spelled it Renee instead of Reene. I think it annoys her but she’s learned to deal with it and expect it. It is an honest mistake.

9

Well, my name is Lisa. An incredibly common name (at least in North America I would assume), so how can anyone get it wrong, you might wonder?

Of course, it’s pronounced LEE-sa.

It is amazing how many people pronounce it LEE-za , or LIE-za.

Crazy!!!

10

I think Loretto is just fine. Of course, we have a parochial girls’ school here in El Paso called Loretto Academy (run by the same order of nuns, of course).

And I agree with Ruby. Rejoice in being an individual. You have a name that is unusual without being outlandish (Moon Unit), sickeningly cute (Peter Abbot - say it out loud), or liable to be mistaken for a porn star (Candy Love). Be proud of it. My wife and I struggled for months to come up with a name for our daughter, one that was not very common but certainly not “weird.” We settled on Katrina.

Incidentally, I have a last name that is extremely common to Southwest Louisiana, but almost unheard of elsewhere. I hear it mispronounced almost every day. In fact, I’m startled when I hear people say in correctly on the first try. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to change the way I spell or pronounce it. My family gave up speaking French to become homogenized Americans. I won’t give up my name.

11

Or, in the same vein, move to Loretto, PA and everybody will have your name down like that. Don’t change it, I like it. So there. :stuck_out_tongue:

12

I also have a French last name. People pronounce it all different ways. It doesn’t bother me though.

13

I have an aunt with the last name Pfannkuche.

She pronounces it “Smith.”

14

I’d have to question whether enough people are familiar with Loreto, Italy to recognize the similarity and remember how to spell it. I bet you would still have a lot of people who would spell it Loretta and be sure that was what you meant. People are funny that way.

I draw this conclusion in part based on my experiences with MY first name, which is common, relative to yours. I spell my name with a k, the German spelling, but the vast majority of people seem to spell it wrong. The jokes about “Eric” the boy soprano amused all the sopranos but me the time the director misspelled it and forgot the a.