View Full Version : Getting your name wrong
Does it annoy you when people continually call you by the wrong name, or by a name you don't prefer to go by?
I have a student who keeps addressing all of her emails to me to Lisa! I respond and sign the email "Lori," and she writes back to Lisa. It makes me want to pull my hair out.
I also have a student who keeps calling me "Miss Lori," which makes me feel like I should be hanging out with Hooper on PBS Kids. But, at least it's not "Miss Lisa."
I know that I sometimes call a person by the wrong name more than once, but in this case my name is on the syllabus and on their class schedule, so it's not like they can't find it. I'll only make mistakes on people's names numerous times if I really don't have any way of being sure that I have it right.
Jejune
03-21-2007, 09:30 PM
My name is similar to so many of the Chris- names of the late seventies/early eighties, and people get it wrong a lot. I usually do mind quite a bit, actually. I shouldn't, because it's hard to keep track of Kristen versus Christine, Christina, Kristy, Krista and so on, but I still get really irked. None of the other names suit me in the least, and I hate being called Kris or Krissy or Kristy. It makes me want to throw things.
If the person doesn't have an obvious correction looking them in the face then it doesn't bother me but if they have received printed materials with my name on it and really should notice the mistake it does get on my nerves!
I don't really encounter the problem with my first name but I do with my last name. I didn't change it when I got married so I get Mrs. Dh's Last Name a lot. Now, if they don't know me then it doesn't bother me because obviously they don't know any better. What really ticks me off is the people we know who continue to send Christmas cards addressed to "Robert and Mary J." when I state very clearly in the form letter EVERY SINGLE YEAR that my name is NOT J., it's B., and that I would very much appreciate them making a note of it. I get so peeved; by the end of every holiday season I'm at the point where I'm centimeters away from snapping and starting to return to sender every mis-addressed card.
Desirae
03-21-2007, 10:03 PM
That would definitely annoy me Lori!
Myh dad's parents call me Desi and I H A T E it!!!! I've told them so since I was a little kid bu they don't listen.
off-kilter
03-21-2007, 10:11 PM
I am not a Kathy and don't know why people call me that when I've never asked them to or suggested it. I wish people would understand that Katherine might *look* long, but it's actually not all that difficult to say; most people even shorten it to two syllables, 'Kath-rin,' anyway. And I readily offer use of the nick Kat at first meeting, so why make up a different one?
Kristi
03-21-2007, 10:34 PM
I hate people who always ask if Kristi is short for Kristen or Christine or something else and really can't fathom that is not a nickname. LOL I guess it is too short and simple. Oh there was someone who would always call me Krissy I hate that. There are very few people who I will tolerate calling me Kris because I really don't like it all that much either. Both my best/f's do it from time to time and my dad also. I don't mind it from them so much. But I hate it when people I hardly know do it
The automatically using a nickname thing reminds me of dh. His name is Robert. He has NEVER gone by a nickname, not even as a kid. His parents have always called him Robert and that's what everyone who knows him call him. But it astounds me the number of people who have just met him who call him "Bob". That seems really presumptuous IMO. To me, Bob is an entirely different name than Robert so it seems odd to me that people would assume that's what he goes by.
SabrinaJL
03-21-2007, 11:41 PM
For some reason, every now and then I'll encounter someone who wants to call me Serena. That's pretty annoying. And my friends idiot ex-wife always called me Bree. I really hated that.
Sarah
03-22-2007, 01:16 AM
I don't really get called by the wrong name, although our friends' little girl tends to call me Sabrina. :giggle But, Lori, you did mention the whole "miss" thing. The ladies at work do that, especially our DM, and it drives me crazy. My name is "Sarah" not "Miss Sarah". I don't know, it just bugs me for some reason.
Veronica
03-22-2007, 01:49 AM
People have always seemed to have trouble remembering my name. I have always been called either Victoria or Vanessa.
Some people have tried to shorten it over the years as well, to things like Ronnie or Vron....I have never really liked any of them.
well i just walked up to school and got "Hello Mrs Jude's mom" off a lovely little boy :lmao that sort of thing never bothers me as to them i am nothing but Jude/Chase/Dyl's mom!
My Drs surgery constantly one receptionist calls me Mrs Widdling- widdling is what puppies do on the carpet!!!!!! I also get Will-ding alot, how frikken difficult is it to see Wilding and pronounce it Wild-ing?
Chase gets Chaz and Chelsea, Tracy, J.C, Trace alot and it drives her insane- again i think because her name doesn't have an awkward spelling it's exactly as the word in the english language!
David i think is probably the one that annoys me the most (and for the most stupid trivial reason) to my parents & sister you pronounce David "Dave" - they can not grasp for one second just as i am a rebecca who HATES being rebecca and has always been Becki or Beka, David is a david who likes being David, has always been David and is only really Dave to work collegues who would think he was being all haughty if he asked for be called David. It wouldn't bother me if WE occasionally shortened it to David but we don't - when i call him by his shortened name he's Dai not Dave.
MathSpeak
03-22-2007, 08:12 AM
The thing I get the most is AH-nick-uh and that only gets annoying when people insist on saying it that way after I've corrected them. AJ's name???? Forget about it. She gets UH-johnny A LOT. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother, anymore... apparently everyone else knows how to say my daughters name better than I do. :rolleyes
Christine
03-22-2007, 08:23 AM
My name is similar to so many of the Chris- names of the late seventies/early eighties, and people get it wrong a lot. I usually do mind quite a bit, actually. I shouldn't, because it's hard to keep track of Kristen versus Christine, Christina, Kristy, Krista and so on, but I still get really irked. None of the other names suit me in the least, and I hate being called Kris or Krissy or Kristy. It makes me want to throw things.
Oooh I could have written this! I feel exactly the same way.
My name is Christine and that's what I want to be called. I'll let someone slide with Chris if they're having a hard time remembering it, but that's it. I have a good friend who does ministry work for a young mother named Christina and so she's always getting my name wrong and then stumbling over it. She knows my name is Christine, but gets tongue tied and that's understandable. I told her to just call me Chris if she feels it coming out wrong. ;)
It doesn't normally happen to me but I did have one teacher in high school that insisted on calling me Chris and it drove me crazy. There were SO many variations of my name there that I didn't want to be the same as everyone else. My name is Christine. :D
Christine
03-22-2007, 08:23 AM
The thing I get the most is AH-nick-uh and that only gets annoying when people insist on saying it that way after I've corrected them. AJ's name???? Forget about it. She gets UH-johnny A LOT. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother, anymore... apparently everyone else knows how to say my daughters name better than I do. :rolleyes
So I'm pronouncing both correctly in my head, what are the correct ways to say them?
Shana
03-22-2007, 09:37 AM
Generally speaking, people don't screw up my name but they DO mispronounce it. Yes... it is an unusual way for "Shauna/Shawna" to be spelled (I am Shana), but gosh dang it -- my mom did it, not me, now try reeaallll hard to remember.
It's Shana.
I kinda cursed Kaleb with the same fate though -- by spelling his name with a "K" and not a "C".... you would not believe the misproununciations that we get. The one that irritates me the most is "Kah Leeb" :whatever
well i just walked up to school and got "Hello Mrs Jude's mom" off a lovely little boy
Now that is just too cute! :giggle
And Mrs. WIDDLING? What the hell is that about? My goodness! Honestly, you wonder what people are looking at! Even if the L and the D in your name were transposed (Widling) it wouldn't be pronounced "widdling", it would be "wide-ling".
MathSpeak
03-22-2007, 11:46 AM
Christine, mine is : uh-NEE-kuh (Like Anika Nonie Rose in dreamgirls... emphasis on NEE)
and AJ's is AH-juh-nee (with the emphasis on the AH, not the juh...). I know I've cursed her... LOL she's going to have a grand ol' time in school. I should have just named her Olivia Jade :rofl that's what I really wanted!
Christine
03-22-2007, 12:06 PM
Thank you! I had your name pronounced all wrong in my head. I like your way better. :giggle
MathSpeak
03-22-2007, 12:08 PM
:rofl That is too funny. It doesn't look so nice when I write it down with all the UHs... LOL but it doesn't sound too bad ;)
MistressAndMaid
03-23-2007, 03:21 AM
I hate it when someone spells my name wrong. It's CLARE, and they always insist on putting an I in it (CLAIRE) or leaving off the E (CLAIR). Even worse, after I've spelt it for them, they STILL write it down wrong!!
I actually got a letter in the mail once addressed to CLEO D-. WTF?
See this is the reason I've just about given up on using my real name.
And it's not even like it's a hard name...it makes perfect sense phoenetically... Catriona - Cat-ree-ona, that's not hard, is it?
It must be though, the number of mangled pronunciations and spellings of it I get...and to make it worse, I was blessed (or cursed) with a surname, that also makes total phoenetic sense to spell, but nobody can ever manage that, either.
MistressAndMaid
03-27-2007, 06:11 AM
See Kate, in Melbourne here, you'd get Katrina. Spelled the same, just pronounced different. :D
But that's what gets me...my name has an o in it. How the hell do you get Katrina out of it and totally disregard the o. :banghead What gets me is that these are the same people who don't have any trouble pronouncing Fiona.
true- no one would ever call a fiona fina - you'd be pleased to hear in england you find a big distinction between catriona and katrina as with an english accent the I gets pronounced alot shorter in katrina as it is followed by an N where as catriona the I sound is longer being as it blends into another vowel- my sisters sil is a katrina you see (plus here the ka/ca gets pronounced caa- like in cat for your name but more Kuh for katrina almost like it's K'trina - hope i am making sense here
That makes perfect sense, Beka...and it's exactly how I pronounce the two names.
hmmm maybe it's a England-Australian thing then? My friend Cheryl went to france for a while and they just couldn't get that she was a Cheryl not Sheryl (Cheryl like Cherub if that makes sense) apparently the french don't "do" the CH sound in names
Marzipan
03-27-2007, 06:51 AM
It annoys me when people look at my son and say, "Oh! What a cute little boy! What's his name?"
And I say, "Julian."
And they say, "Oh, my mistake. What a cute little girl."
And I respond, "No, he's a boy. It's Julian, not Gillian."
And they look disoriented.
I have hated my name for a long time because (a) I dislike the name in general and (b) my parents chose an annoyingly precious spelling that no one gets right. I was in part inspired by this annoyance when I elected not to take my husband's oft-misspelled and mispronounced surname and chose to keep my own nice, simple one.
marci i get the boy-girl thing with all of mine (or at least when they are not with me so can't be viewed or before they have hair) as i have a female Chase, a female dylan and a male jude (which is a girl name in england too) plus jude has long hair and really thick eyelashes so does look very pretty- with Loki we just get a bemused what? response
GreysFan
03-28-2007, 10:09 PM
I like my name, but I don't really like people to call me Steph (unless it's my mom or brother, they are about the only ones I can tolerate it from). I used to spell it Stef, but my family just never caught on. I can. not. stand. Stephie. UGH! Makes me want to puke!!!
Cyndi
03-30-2007, 01:55 PM
If they've been told, yes it does annoy me! Many man people spell my name wrong unless I tell them.
Amy J
03-30-2007, 02:13 PM
well, I have people who call me Jamie all of the time and it drives me bonkers. When my parents bought a car back when I was 12, the dealer kept on calling me Melissa after my parents corrected him about 10 times.
People get Rosie's name wrong all of the time. Maybe some of you get it wrong too! Her name doesn't rhyme with Somalia. It's pronounced Rosa-Leah. I haven't run into much of that yet but as she grows older, I'm sure that will happen.
Sometimes I hear people call my son Christian too but that doesn't drive me as batty as someone calling me Jamie.
giffy
04-02-2007, 05:48 AM
I have been called Katherine more times than I care to think about. And while Katherine is a lovely name, it isn't my name! Really, how hard is Kathleen? And then of course, people ask "Is that Cathleen with a C?" Ummmm. No.:shakehead
I have been called Katherine more times than I care to think about. And while Katherine is a lovely name, it isn't my name! Really, how hard is Kathleen? And then of course, people ask "Is that Cathleen with a C?" Ummmm. No.:shakehead
my DH's nan is a Kathleen- it's not a name you hear very often these days so it's lovely to meet another one!
Amy J
04-02-2007, 07:23 AM
Kathleen is my middle name!