The evisceration of your name

[Anakoni Stark]

[SIZE=1] "ok, my name's Leon."
"what?"
"Leon, that's my name...."
"what Leroy?"
"Nooo.....L-E-O-N"
"oh, lee?"
"No, it's Leon, damnit."
"sorry, Leo!"

yea...four letters get butched due to the slight lisp I have.
it's worse when people try to call me by felix.
it usually is butchered to philips or fellic.
sigh.[/SIZE]

[Minako]

I think I have one of the most popular names of 1988/1987... [B]Laura[/B].

And I hate it.

Yes, my parents gave me that name because it's so easy to say in numerous languages (I plan on naming my kids like that whenever I have kids). But why did it have to be so damn POPULAR?! In grade school (mind you, there were only 27 of us), there were two Lauras, so I never responded to my name, because it was never me. It was always the other one. It wasn't until someone said, "Laura...LAURA...LAURA!!" then I'd respond. High school wasn't that bad, even though I had another Laura added to the other one, so there were 3 of us. I wasn't stuck in the same room with them every day, so if someone called my name, they usually meant me. In college, I wasn't expecting it to be a problem, but out of 42,000 students, I'm in the same bible study (about 7 of us) as another Laura. Oy.

[I]Lauren[/I] also gets me sometimes. I get that a lot, when I introduce myself.
"Hi, my name is Laura"
"Please to meet you Lauren"
"Uhh, it's [I]Laura[/I] "
"Oh I'm sorry!"
"T_T"

So it's not only the unusual names that get trouble too.

[Darren]

Well, my name is Darren and it's not exatly a common name like my brother's, Michael. So every time we would go into an amusement park store, he would always find those keychains with his name on them, and what would I get? A stupid shotglass? What kind of parent buys their kid a shot glass anyway? I mean, yes, it had a picture of the roller coaster, but come on... At least buy me a toy or something. What could I even do with that? Pretend to have a tea party? Or maybe, I could take shots of root beer. That would be fun...

Okay, sorry. Moving on to the actual question. I've seen my name spelled many different ways and, before Rachmaninoff here on OB, I've never met someone who shared my name, let alone spelled it the same way, so that's kind of neat! :cool: When I give someone my name, I'm just in the habit of spelling it regardless of whether they ask or not. If I don't, this follows.

"Is it 'I-N'?"
"E-N. And there's two Rs."
"Oh, okay. I got it."
"D-A-R-R-E-N" (That's alwasy just for clarification)
"Oh, it's an 'A?' I was using an E. I'm so sorry."

But the only thing worse than misspelling my first name is misspelling my middle or last name. People don't usually need my middle name, but when they do, I always tell them. And to be broadcast all across OB, it's Kenlee. (It's a mix of my two grandfather's names) I understand that it's pronounced the same way as a Keniley, an uncommon girl's name. (I know of three girls to have that name. One is even my 2nd cousin) So when someone tries to spell it, they immediately think that my parents were dumb enough to give me a girl's name! And so it always comes out either "Keniley" or "Kenniley" or "Kenilee"

But now the really sad one: Last name is File... Seriously, like a file as in reference to computer files or a filing cabinet, whatever... I understand that most names can be spelle different ways, but after reading the majority of this thread, I see that it's better to just assume the easy way and 3 out of 4 times, you'll be right. Maybe more. Even so, people still spell my name Phile, Phyle, Fyle, ect... In fact, it did used to be Phyle, but one of my great great great (however many generations back) changed it when he moved here from Germany... I guess he did it to be simpler for the Amricans, but now, if I could go back in time, I would slap him. Curse him for causing so much confusion to the simpletons of modern day!

[Jiazu]

When I was little, I hated my name. I wanted to be Esther, or Alex, or anything, really just something a little more normal. What is this name I hated so much, you ask? Aerielle (if anyone says one word about that frickin' mermaid, you die right now.. i'm older than that freakin movie anyway dammit! it's in the bible i swear! just spelt different). Aerielle. 8 letters when 5 would've sufficed, and been ever so much easier to pronounce... I've heard everything from ah-ree-EHL (how my parents and people from the east coast say it) to AIR-e-uhl (the south, and me, most of the time) to ahr-ee-EHL to AY-ri-ul, and more, i'm sure.. any time i got a new teacher in school, they'd go down the list.. "Brian? *here*, Mary? *present!*, Laura? *here*, Sarah *here*, um.. Ahr, uh.. air... aireeuhl? is that right? *sigh... yes, ma'am...* oh, now isn't that nice! like the mermaid, right? *grits teeth.. no, ma'am..*..." ah.. such fun.. And when i was in boarding school, it was even worse, since there's like no language in Asia that has the AH sound (like the a in mat) (at least not that I ran into)... but oh well... Over time I've just let people say my name however they want, since I can't seem to get everyone to say it the same anyway (i say it to someone one way, and they seem incapable of copying me.. why IS that anyway? mimicry isn't just a skill parrots have, doncha know...)

Now I may not really care how my name's SAID, since i've heard pretty much everything, and I'll respond to them all anyway, but spelling really annoys me. Seriously. It's only 8 letters.. 8. A-E-R-I-E-L-L-E. Not Ariel, not Aeriele or Arrielle. Neither Aeriel nor Ariele. Aerielle. not exactly simple, but it's not antidisestablishmentarianism or superca(l?)lifragilisticexpialidocious either. I think I know one person who actually bothered to learn how to spell it right straightaway, and I almost had a heart attack... usually takes people a few centuries... millennia even. :animedepr Oh well. I like my name now... But still.. the mermaid thing, not funny. (ok maybe a little)

EDIT: I knew a guy in high school whose last name was kok (and no, it wasn't pronounced coke, even if our principal insisted on pronouncing it that way) /random thought

[Guest Alexianne]

Hoo boy. My name XD
So heres how it goes. My name is Alexianne. Yup.
I don't really mind this too much, and it's easy to spell if you just keep it "Alex", but the pronunciation is what gets me.
Since you pronounce Alexianne like "uh-lex-e-ann" (pardon my bad pronunciation guide) some people find that the want to call me, for short, "uh-lex" instead of, you know, "ah-lex"
I wish they wouldn't do that. It makes them sound like they're trying out a new accent and failing. :C

Yep..that's pretty much my only beef. Unless you call me Al.

Ew.

[Andrew]

[SIZE=1]So, if anything this thread just goes to prove how retarded we are as a race that we can't even get names right. There's very little hope for the human race eh?

Anyways, Andrew. What's so hard about that?

Of course I get the usual shortenings of And, Andy, Drew etc. I even had some people call me Andy-rew and one friend back in school (who was blatantly taking the piss) used to call me And-Dar-Rew and stretch it out like a drawl or something.

As far as that, my first name's ok. Although the only person who ever used to call me Andy was my Grampa, which is the way I liked it. But now he's gone everybody and their brother tends to call me Andy and it kinda annoys me.

My middle name is John. Most people know it but it's not hard and nobody ever calls me by it so that's that.

My last name is where I've always had the most trouble. Like the fabulous Jamie Lee, it's Curtis. Frequent mis-spellings we get on letters/postcards/whatever are Curtiss, Curttis and so on, really annoying stuff since I know nobody who spells it that way.

With the kids in school I always used to get jokes about curtains for a few years and then they stopped. Started all over again in Secondary school when I had a middle parting and everybody said they looked like curtains. ¬_¬ How original ne?[/SIZE]

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR=goldenrod]Well one would think that my name is easy to say. It's Bethany. Pronounced BETH-a-nee. But still people can't seem to get it straight. They shorten it to Beth or change it to Bethy. o_O And the spelling gets mixed up all the time I've run into all sorts of weird spellings for it: Bethanee, Bethaney, Bethani, Bethanie, Bethann, Bethanne, Bethannie, Bethanny, Betheney and Betheny.

But not Bethany! However what really gets me is when someone out of no where starts calling me Liz. I mean what the hell? My name's Bethany not Elizabeth. :animesigh So yeah, my name gets mixed up all the time. It's even more fun watching people try to get my dogs name right. lol[/COLOR]

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9933ff][font=lucida calligraphy]My name is Megan... it's not hard to say or spell... at least that's what I think. But I've had a lot of name variations through the years. They are as follows:

Meggan
Megahn
Meghan
Magen (Okay I worked with someone named Magen, and she insisted that everyone pronounce it phonetically!)
Meygahn
Meygan (I blame Bratz for that one)
Megin

Well, okay that's not too bad. I've also had an ex boyfriend who managed to extend one of my nicknames into two syllables so it was pronounced Me-egg instead of Meg. That was annoying..

Also my last name is Donnelly. I don't think it's that hard to say or spell, but some people think otherwise.

The pizza delivery people have spelled it the following ways:

Donelly
Donnely
Donneli
Dunnely

When my brother's 4th grade religion class was doing something his name was in the program as:

John Doneli

Which coincidentally is how my daughter's babysitter spells it.

And while I'm on that subject, my daughter's name is Abigail. But I'm too lazy to explain every spelling I've gotten of her name. So I'll just tell everyone that her nickname is Abby and most everyone pronounces it Ab-bee.But her babysitter and some of the other kids there pronounce her name Ah-bee.[/color][/font]

[Imp]

Okay, so my first name is Rebecca. Not bad--it's an easy name to pronounce, but some people have spelled it differently, the most common way being with two B's and one C. So often times when I tell people my name when they're writing it down, I say "One B, two C's" after that.

Fortunately, nobody calls me Becky or some other variation. (And I have a stepsister named Becky.) However, there have been quite a few people who have mistakenly called me Rachel. Rachel?!? That's not even close! Maybe those people had ESP and could tell I have a niece named Rachel... yet still...

But then my last name is a real problem: Uppal. Its original Indian pronunciation is OO-pull, but I just pronounce it "UP-pull". And of course I always have to spell it out for people, and during roll call in school, the teacher mispronounces my last name 85% of the time, and stumbles on it another 10% of the time. And then there's the funny variation my classmates came up with: Apple. Yeah... Rebecca Apple. Very funny...

...And then there's the stupid mistake the government made in misspelling my middle name when I registered to vote. It's "Jeanne", not "Seanne"... and I have no clue how to correct that.

Yes, my name has a few problems here and there... though it's not as bad as my mum, whose last name is Kramp.

[TheResplendent]

[quote name='Aaryanna][COLOR=goldenrod']It's even more fun watching people try to get my dogs name right. lol[/COLOR][/quote]

[font=tahoma]To be honest, I at one time spent a lot of time trying to figure out the proper pronounciation of your dog's name. It's a lot more understandable to get that wrong than your name, lol. So I ended up just calling it "Fluff" whenever the occaision arose to mention it :p.[/font]

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR=goldenrod][quote name='BKstyles][font=tahoma']To be honest, I at one time spent a lot of time trying to figure out the proper pronounciation of your dog's name. It's a lot more understandable to get that wrong than your name, lol. So I ended up just calling it "Fluff" whenever the occaision arose to mention it :p.[/font][/quote]I guess it would help if I posted how it's suppose to be pronounced. And that would be: Aaryanna = air-ee ah-nuh :p[/COLOR]

[Claire]

[FONT=Arial]Haha, I find it interesting that I'm not the only Claire at the boards. I've been the only Claire at the past three schools I've gone to for several years. The only way people manage to screw it up is with the spelling--most people don't put the E at the end.

However, one day at school I was trying to buy lunch. Here we have these little number pads into which a student types in their student number and they show up on the cashier's computer. I put in my number and I was supposed to be next, but the lady (who was hispanic or something) called out a name that sounded absolutely nothing like 'Claire.' She called it a couple more times and went to the next person, which was my friend in line behind me. I had to put my number in again and after trying to convince the lady that I wasn't eligible for free lunch, I just gave up and went without food. I didn't go back in line ever again.

The same goes for my last name: people put an O where an A should be.

As for my nickname, Clurr, people never know whether it needs one R or two. :P[/FONT]

[Guest Ver3.0]

Haha well my name is Teague. As you can probably imagine that's been screwed up quite a few times. I've seen people spell it Tege. Teage, Teagu, and a bunch of other ways, it's also hard for some people to pronounce=/

[Akieen Cloud]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][COLOR=Navy]Oh my giddy aunt, I have this problem SO many times i have completely given up.

My first name is Tyrissa, its a mix between Melissa and Teresa. Don't ask how my mom quished them together she just did. lol. Now my maiden name is Pringle, you can imagin the coments I got for that one. X.X There were times I just admitted to being the heire of he Pringle development( I AM NOT). My name now is DeBonis which is italian, so it gets messed up all the time, my husband and I have heard them all, and the spelling is even worse cause its spell with the B capatalized but no one does it and it drives my hubby up a wall, but sayings have gotten very ridiculous, from DeBonair to Deboner. ^^;. And now with both these names together, Tyrissa DeBonis...my life is now a pop quiz when getting mail. lol.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[Skye]

[size=1][color=purple]Ye Gods.

My last name is Rennolds. R-E-N-N-O-L-D-S. I've heard the Reynolds Wrap joke a million times. It's sad the way teachers attempt to spell my name. Reynnolds, Rynolds, Reynolds, Renyolds.... I could go on.

My first name, Stephanie, is spelled the traditional way. However! Since my last name is spelled funky, they assume my first name must, too. So I've gotten Stephannie (yeah, my English teacher last year spelled my name Stephannie Reynnolds. I guess she just likes double n's?), Stephani, Stefanie, Stephany, Stefannie, Stefany, Stefani, Stephenie. Stepheny... What I really hate is when people call me Tiffany. Yeah. It sucks.

Those I hate. Just hate. Now my middle name brings me much amusement. I get so much fun out of making people guess my middle name. Mary, Melissa, Marissa, even Melody. Any M name and they've guessed it. But no, it had to be Melora. After my great-great grandmother Laura whom everyone called Ma Laura, which slurred.[/size][/color]

[Rachmaninoff]

I've never had issues with my name. Ever. People spell it right and say it right, etc. Even the first person I've met online with the same name got it right. *pokes Darren* What usually gets people is my user name. I just love all the misspellings that one gets as well as the [I]are you Russian[/I]? comments. lol I guess to me it seemed obvious that Rachmaninoff was something that people would recognize. Why I thought that I don't know.

Now my last name...I'm not even going to go there since my ancestors changed it when they moved to America. Or should I say my mother's maiden name? Since her married one is fairly easy. Meh, not that it matters, at least they usually pronounce it right even if they can't manage to spell it.

[Japan]

[COLOR=DarkRed]The only thing I ever get that gets on my nerves would have to be people calling me Lauren. It is so annoying it puts me in a bad mood. Thankfully it doesn't happen very much anymore.[/COLOR]