I have three pretty common names, all with alternate spellings, but I use the simplest and more common. People often would spell at least one and frequently all three incorrectly.
People can misspell a one syllable four letter name; no one is immune.
My last name is 5 letters and almost everyone gets one of two wrong. I always wrote it off to the way I speak but it happens to my wife as well. So we usually say the name and then “X Y M-as-in-Michael, Z-as-in-zebra”.
Interesting thing is that our name didn’t get changed when we came here but the pronunciation did. What was written in cyrillic just ends up sounding different in English.
I always have to spell my name. 4 letters. Means sunrise. I am female. It’s not D-O-N.
My last name starts with Macc, and the second “c” is NOT capitalized. People have the hardest time wrapping their brains around that. There are even computer programs that automatically capitalize the letter after an Mac in an entered name. My name is Jewish, not Scottish. I get Mc(fourth letter) and even Mc(fifth letter).
Not a problem in New York. Once I was at a meeting, and we had a new client, Dawn M. coming in with a caseworker Don F. As it happened, three people at the meeting were originally from New York, and the way we said “Dawn” and “Don” made it obvious who we were talking about. Everyone else at the meeting, who are all from either Indiana, or somewhere else in the Mid-west, had to say Dawn [lastname], and Don [lastname].
Yup. Two-part surname; it needs distinctive typography; the wrong-way-IS-the correct-spelling of the last part of the surname.
My last name MURDERS computers!
And my given name is so unusual that my fourth grade teacher couldn’t pronounce it and guessed … “Em i ly?” WRONG.
My first name is simple. My last isn’t all that hard, but people tend to misspell it – except when I’m in the UK or Canada, when I can just say, “like the cigarettes.”
Yes, oh god yes.
I have a common name. Unfortunately, it contains a syllable in it that makes people uncomfortable. I swear their brains edit it and respell it to something they’re okay with. They don’t even realize they’re doing it.
I once had an email service refuse my email address because it could be construed as obscene.
When I go to a new doctor or other professional business, I make sure I write down my name for them so they can create my records with the correct spelling. Sometimes when dealing on the phone with people they can’t find my records and I have to spell it letter by letter. Then when I get to the ‘bad syllable’, some women STILL can’t make themselves type it. I’ve never lost my temper, but I was rather short with the woman who suggested I change my name to get rid of that “naughty word”.
Or didn’t hear you properly. People slur and rush their names. :smack:
My last name is unusual and had a T, and D and a P in it; all those, of course, sound exactly alike. So I say “T as in Tom” etc. This seems to blow the minds of some people too. Oh well, I am lucky in that it’s only 7 letters. I feel for those with long and unusual names.
My last name is a German name with an “ei” inside it. So, not only to I have to spell it out for people, I have to correct people’s mispronunciation of it. Or at least, get used to hearing it mispronounced.
My niece Sara gets angry when people call her “Sarah”. She says she can HEAR people add an “H” to her name when they say it.
I had a co-worker once whose last name was Stoeckeniusillspellthatforyou. And then he spelled it for you. He always answered the phone with just his first name (which was only three letters), but if he had occasion to tell anyone his last name (like, if he was leaving a message with someone) it was always Stoeckeniusillspellthatforyou. And then he spelled it for you.
What is an octarine? Is it good to eat? 
Yup. Mine is a common four-letter name that is shared by hundreds of thousands of people across the world - one of them a prominent member of the U.S. government. However, there is a more common spelling, and two more that are not as common but not unknown. When I see my name written down by someone to whom I have not spelled it, it’s almost universally the more common spelling.
I have a friend named “Shiela”. I’ve known her for almost a decade, and her name still seems “wrong” to me.
Pear/Pare/Pair ?
Maccabee?
A career in the military can clarify anyone’s name. (Just read Catch-22 for evidence. ) Here’s a second-or-third-hand story I heard in college: Guy went to school with another kid who was known, throughout primary and secondary school, by the last name of Colby. In fact, his real last name was Colbjornsen. When he went to boot camp, the sergeant didn’t miss a beat in calling the roll: He said Colbajurgason. So throughout his military career, everyone knew him as Colbajurgason.
A county or two up the highway, there’s a back road, which I believe is named after a locally prominent family of an earlier day:
Glasscock
No two ways about that. It is wrong!
I have a ridiculously common first name, but people have so much trouble getting the vowels in the right order. I’ll grant that it’s a little weird as spellings go, but you’d think the amount of exposure it gets would compel people to remember the spelling.
My last name is three syllables. Strangers can’t even pronounce it, much less guess at how to spell it.
Also, It contains both an “m” and an “n” which constantly get switched.
My name is not common, even its original language, and is not spelled phonetically in English although it is close. But at only 5 letters, you would think that most people could manage to spell it right with minimal effort. Instead I get called every thing from Matt to Marriott to Meredith.
My portion of the "welcome to the company’ training ALWAYS includes a bit about how important it is to pay attention to how people spell their names. We are a sales company, first and foremost, customers will judge you harshly if you can’t pay enough attention to basic spelling. I finish it with the following “If you misspell my name once, you get a friendly warning. Misspell it twice and you owe me booze”
Back to the original question - any trouble with spelling out my name? No. And I typically slow down and emphasize the letters where there is an alternate spelling. And when I take down someone’s name, I spell it out as I am writing it.
(And I won’t give people my email address, because the syntax is odd; I insist they give me theirs first. Many fewer tears are shed.)
I work with a woman at the amusement park whose name is Syndie.
My last name is French, and if I pronounce it the correct way, no one can spell it.
Nice to meet you, Cimmanom.