My oldest nephew is named Dominic (you know DOM-inic) but my mother insists, no matter how much we correct her, on calling him domi-NICK.

My son’s name is Graeme (like Graham). It’s the Scottish spelling, which we chose in honor of my husband’s grandmother. My MIL told us we should have spelled the “right” way, and has been known to spell it Grame. I decided to just let it go. They are the ones that look silly for a) not knowing how to spell/pronounce their own grandchild’s name, and b) caring how it’s spelled in the first place.

So, how DO you pronounce your daughter’s name?

Step-mother-in-law has spelled Eliza’s name as Elisa. Yeah, so it’s only one letter off, but wouldn’t that drastically change the pronunciation? (Maybe not in Tennessee.) But…Errol?? That’s way worse.

Gia is pronounced as “guy-uh” a lot of the time and I think it’s hysterical.

HA! My daughter is also a Margot, from her German great grandmother. Everyone (except the Germans, of course) will butcher her name in both writing and speech till kingdom come. You can’t give your kid an unusual & foreign name and expect anything else. Even from relatives.

For our kids we picked names & then went with the most common spelling. Our son is named Brenden. Simple enough, however my own Mother calls him Brandon all the time. I correct her much to her annoyance. Half the time she says that she did say Brenden, but when she actually says the right name it’s apparent to everyone else she didn’t say it the first time. Unless you’re of diminished mental capacity, I’m going to correct you each & every time until you get it right. Spelling annoys me too, but I’m more willing to let that go.

My daughter Amelia is sometimes called Amanda by family members. She’s only 13 months old so they are still getting used to it, but come on!

My youngest is named Elijah and people mispronounce it every single day. I correct them. I don’t think it’s respectful to mispronounce someone’s name after you’ve been providied with the corect pronounciation a few times. And itt’s incredibly disresepectful to misspell the same of a close relative. What, you can’t be bothered to spell your own grankid’s name properly?

My name is Laura, pronounced LAR-ah, but the whole stinkin’ world pronounces it LOR-uh. My grandparents all get it right, but my mom had to pound it into their heads when I was little. Several of my extended family members still spell it wrong (Lora or Lara).

When we first started dating, my hubby gave his whole family a lecture about how to correctly pronounce my name. Everyone gets it right now, but it took almost five years! Seriously, is it that hard of name?

My first birthday cake, courtesy of my grandmother, said “Happy Birthday Stacey.” She’s now 83 and still occasionally spells it wrong (and now, pairs it with my husband’s name, which I didn’t take).

My daughter’s name is Delia, which we pronounce DEEL-ya, but in some cultures it’s pronounced del-EE-ah, so we’ve heard a lot of that. But what really bugs me is when someone calls her Delilah – like every time we go to the doctor’s office.

Ahhh, the HEADACHES. My first name is Hollienoël and is often misspelled by my friends and family. Mystifyingly, people often address me as “Holly” on Facebook where my name is RIGHT THERE on the screen! Since the whole name is annoying for me to explain, I just go by “Hollie” with everyone but family, but I’ve been called Molly, Polly, Collie (THAT’S A DOG BREED, PEOPLE!), and Hallandale. I’m used to it by now, but at 20 weeks pregnant, my main criterion for my child’s name is “Something that I can find preprinted on a souvenir mug in the gift shop.”

Oh, that’s funny. It never even occured to me that people PLAN nicknames. I thought they just happened.

Rebecca, my name is Jessica, and people still misspell it. I don’t even know how this is possible. But I haven’t met many people that mispronounce my name. This is why I think people have unrealistic expectations, if a common name like Jessica can be misspelled what are the chances of a uncommon name being misspelled.

Named my kids Leah and Ava so they would not have to suffer through a lifetime of misspellings and mispronunciations like me. You’d be amazed that people still can mess up these easy common names.

Tyler and Tess. No problem with the pronunciations or spelling but people are always adding an “a” on the end of Tess’s name. The really funny thing is that my own dad or “Papa” opened a bank account for her with my maiden name as her surname. UMMM, yea. When I called him on it he was very embarrassed. But, thanks for the $$$! : )

Rebecca, people are always trying to call me Maddy and wow does the skin crawl. I know plenty of very, very nice Maddies (all under the age of 12) and their names cause none of the visceral reactions that being addressed as Maddy causes me.
And Amy! Oh, the Tylers, they make me panic. I’ve known several and I always start sweating with worry — is his/her name really Tyler or was it Taylor? I don’t want to be the millionth person to mix it up! (Same for the Brandon/Brendon names … it’s a mental block for me).

My kids are Brendalynn (its a real name i swear, its the old irish feminine of brenden) which for some reason people seem to want to think of as brenda lynn (which i get) gwendolyn (wha?) or my own family continually misspells as brendOlynn (im still not sure whats going on there). My son is nikolas, which i know is an odd spelling but after 2 years one would think his own family could get the spelling. When the doctors office spells it nickolas or nicholas i get it, but when my grandparents do it? Sheesh.
Meanwhile I am samantha, simple right? No… i get Amanda, Sabrina, Serena, Samtha, Samatha, and all manner of other misspellings…

My grandparents came from a culture with a different standard for literacy and we’ve all grown up knowing that spelling is really difficult for them, so we’ve sortof become attached to the charming misspellings of all the kids’ names (and husband’s names) from them. I think they were over the moon when one of my cousins married a guy named BJ – finally, a name they could spell! My personal favorite misspelling is my husband’s name, Carlos. They call him and spell it Carliss which we both kindof like. I was stunned though when my own mother, after being party to years of gentle ribbing on Grandma and Grandpa’s spelling (they even sometimes spell her name Sandry, which is how they pronounce “Sandy”), started addressing gifts to my daughter with the spelling Charlette. Yes, that is how Southerners say it, but it’s Charlotte, for heaven’s sake! It’s a city IN THE SOUTH! How can you spell it wrong?