What’s more pretentious: conventional names spelled “creatively,” but pronounced conventionally, e.g. “Wyllieum,” “Raychehl,” or “Khryzzteena,” or conventional names spelled conventionally, but pronounced “creatively,” e.g. “William” pronounced “Why-lum,” “Rachel” pronounced “Rah-chill,” or “Christina” pronounced “Larry”?
Nothing in names bugs me more than Megan being spelled Meghan.
My pet peeves are all the horrible mispronunciations of Caitlín and misspellings of Siobhán. It’s fine to leave out the diacritical marks, but pronouncing it [Kate-Lynn] is bad and spelling it “Shavaughn” is worse…
So I voted “equally”
Really? That’s nowhere near as heinous as Greg being misspelled as Gregg. 
Not to annoy you, but how is Caitlin supposed to be pronounced?
There’s something utterly pointless about spelling a name weird. Names are largely spoken aloud. It’s the SOUND of them that matters, really. Just give your child a spelling that most people will successfully get the right sound from.
I can’t find fault in someone pronouncing Caitlin “Kate-lynn” because in the English-speaking world that’s what the name looks like it sounds like. If you want your child to be called “Kath-leen,” spell it that way. Don’t name your child some weird-spelled Gaelic name like “Mairead” or “Siobhan” and be surprised when people cannot guess how those letters are used in a completely different language.
Kody, Kory, and Kaleb.
As somebody dipping my toe into genealogy, I’m rather sick of the same old names used endlessly, generation after generation.
Bog Irish of recent extraction on my father’s side–I’d have to pay extra (or save up for a trip) to get farther. But it’s Mary, Margaret, John, Patrick & William all the way. And Bridget–which my parents considered before giving me a more lace curtain name.
One line on my mother’s side appears to go a way back. So, a slightly different set of standard names. Apparently going back to Ireland, too–Presbyterians from Co Armagh.
It was a relief to discover my great grandfather Elmo.
So, some folks get their noses out of joint about non-standard non-Anglo-Saxon names. Tough.
I generally dislike crazy spellings worse than crazy pronunciations, though I find crazy pronunciations of normal spellings to be more pretentious…but more pretentious doesn’t necessarily mean ‘worse.’ I’m of the opinion that intentionally giving a screwed up spelling to a kid doesn’t show creativity or uniqueness: it simply sentences the kid to a lifetime of having their name misspelled.
I have a niece who gets upset when people call her “Sarah” instead of her name, “Sara”. Come to think of it, though, she may just be BSing her Uncle.
aren’t they pronounced exactly the same?
In Irish (Gaelic), it’s closer the the Hiberno-English pronunciation of Kathleen, which is in fact where the name Kathleen comes from (the Irish form of Catherine). “Kate-lynn” is a spelling pronunciation.
I voted “equally atrocious,” even though I bear one of these names, spelled and pronounced differently, and can’t stand having it “mispronunced” as the normal name. At least for mine, the odd pronunciation matches the odd spelling. (I was named after a relative, who was given a creative anglicization of a common Italian name. I don’t know why they didn’t just use the equally common English version of the same name. Think “Francesco” > “Franchis” rather than “Francis” or “Frank”.)
As someone who has a completely superfluous extra letter in my name (thanks, parents!), I’d have to go for the spelling one.
I tend to alternate between ‘eh, screw it, close enough’ and ‘NO, that’s not how you spell my name!’ when people spell it wrong (by which I mean, when they spell it the normal way). It depends on whether they’ve actually seen my name in writing or not. If someone misspells my name in an email where they can see my email sig, I quite often deliberately misspell their name in my reply, just to be petty 
But really, they’re both pretty bad.
Creative pronunciations are awful. My sister had a friend named Tabitha, pronounced Tabytha. Really?
Feel free to get creative with what you name your kids, though. Do we really need another Bob?
One of them is pronounced “Throatwobbler Mangrove”. I don’t know which one, though.
This times a billion.
I had the pleasure of knowing both a Siobhan and a Sean in school. They got their shit bent out of shape when I, who had only ever heard their name and never seen it written out, spelled their names Shivawn and Shawn. Go bitch at your parents for making your name “special”.
OK: “creative” spelling that parses to the desired pronunciation when you view it: Keera instead of Kira, Jaymz instead of James
Also OK: “creative” pronunciations that can be reasonably parsed from the spelling: Jerome being pronounced dʒɛrǝmI, (i.e., like “Jeremy”), or Michelle rendered as mIʃǝl (i.e., MEE sh’l instead of m’SHELL).
Not OK: “creative” spelling or pronunciations that create a horrible phonetic disconnect between what’s written and what the person expects it to be pronounced as: Gabby as gebi (GAY bee) or Kearicer for kaIiʃǝ (kie EE sha), Stephanie asking to be pronounced as sevɑn (SAY vonn), I mean what the fuck?!?
What’s damned obnoxious is when they correct you angrily. Big failure of the Golden Rule here. Yeah, it’s the thousandth time they’ve heard or seen the same error, but it’s the first time I’ve ever made it.
I don’t do the mind-reading thing (except at Las Vegas, and very sparingly.)
I have a screwy real name, and I never fuss at people if they mess it up. How the hell are they supposed to know?
i feel like you’ve committed some sort of heinous violation of the Social Contract if you give your kid a conventional name with a weird pronunciation. Like if you choose to name your kid James but spell it Jaymz, you might trip some people up, but most English-speakers will look at that name on a list and pronounce it right. If you name your kid James but pronounce it Jah-meez, there is no one on this blighted planet who is going to figure that out and you’ve now doomed your son to 90 years of correcting every single person he ever encounters in his lifetime. Not to mention that every person he encounters is going to thinks he and/or his parents are backwards illiterate hicks who can’t even pronounce a basic name. I think that’s worse than thinking you’re a try-hard special snowflake.
I went with the second choice but it depends a little on how the person reacts to mistakes. I work with a guy named Devon who INSISTS it be pronounced “Day-vone” (rhymes with Day Phone) and who takes great umbrage if anyone says it any other way. That just flat-out pisses me off for some reason.