To expect employers to spell my name correctly?

[MissFredi]

Just got an email asking me to complete a health and safety course, I'm quite happy to do it. However they spelt BOTH names completely wrong. This happened in my last job as well and I spent 7 months being referred to as someone else, with all the mispronunciation to go with it. I wouldn't mind but its not like I have an unbelievably long complicated foreign name (no offence to anyone intended). I'd just like it to be spelt right for once. It is my identity after all.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Is your name Miss Chanandler Bong?

[WillieWaggledagger]

this happens to me all the time, with colleagues i work with every day who see my name at the top of emails regularly. it is infuriating but has happened most of my life TBH

i just highlight the error by pointing out that they need to be careful with the spelling as if in future someone types my email address with the incorrect spelling then the email won't reach me. obviously i also want to be addressed correctly because it is respectful, but people remember better if their getting it wrong means work won't get done

[StuntGirl]

Everyone gets my name wrong, I agree it can get very frustrating. You're right that it's wrapped up in identity.

One day I had a weird realisation that although I am Katy most people actually think I'm Katie (not my real name but similar spellings). I know its silly as they're pronounced the name so seem the same, but it did give me a weird existential moment that who I am (Katy Smith) is not who everyone else thinks I am (Katie Smith).

It happens so frequently, and people so often think you're making a fuss over nothing that I stopped correcting them. My NVQ tutor wrote my name wrong on my folder and although I noticed I didn't say anything. One day towards the end of my course it came up in conversation and he reacted in total horror because he'd gotten it from some official document from the NVQ people. If it hadn't been changed all my certificates would have been invalid because the name was wrong! I now correct everyone all the time

[MissFredi]

Aha, that was my thinking. In the store I am Fredi but if its only recorded that Freddi's done the course, am I allowed to work or can I go home and put my feet up?

[tethersend]

Every employer I have ever had spells both my names wrong- I've just got used to correcting them now, TBH. It doesn't really bother me.

[StuntGirl]

I'd email back and say something like "Thanks for the email, I'll be attending on x date. Just to let you know, my name is spelt Fredi not Freddi, if you could update your records that'd be great. Regards, Miss Fredi."

Then if they get it wrong again you know you're dealing with idiots

[MissFredi]

I emailed and explained that I felt it was unfair that it had happened again and they swiftly resent the first email with the correct name on. Now if it happens again there really is no excuse!

[deleted203]

It would drive me mad. DS2 has an unusual name (Gaelic). When he was in Y1 I had to point out to his teacher that it was incorrectly spelt on:-

His table
His coat hook
His reading pack
His reading tray
And on two separate notice boards

She'd had about 4 different 'goes' at it and never managed to get it right. She was a little huffy...well, so was I. This is a 5 year old you are supposedly teaching to read (although he could actually spell his name). Check against the register, woman. Don't just guess!

[elfycat]

I've given DD1 a name that is common but not by the spelling I've used (my spelling is a vaild one). She's going to have to get people to take the extra non-pronounced 'e' out of her name forever. I've had people correct me on my spelling

And get them to take the 'a' out of her surname that is so often put in (Think Nailer instead of Niler).

[Sunnymeg]

There are about six different versions of my surname about as it has I's in it that can be interchanged with Y's. One belongs to a famous person, but that is not our spelling. I find these days I automatically spell it out on the phone or in a shop etc, otherwise it is always wrong.

[GogoGobo]

Unfair that they've spelt your name incorrectly? Inept maybe, but unfair???

[NumTumDeDum]

It's a bit irritating for sure. Way back in the distant past in another life, before children I had a secretary at work and she would type my name wrong on my letters. I could never understand it - my name was on the letterhead!

[LexyMa]

Where I work, email addresses look like this:
"[email protected] (Surname, Forename Title)"

My surname is not uncommon but is more often seen as a male forename, like for example James. My first name is (as you might guess from my nn here) Alexandra.

A LOT of the time when someone writes back to a first contact from me, or finds me on the system and writes to me, they call me James.

It is absolutely transparent why this happens - there are only 20-25% women so they assume they're writing to a bloke and can't compute why a bloke would be called Alexandra. I think that if my title was in there as Mrs rather than Dr, they might be more likely to get it right...

Sympathies OP.

[WillieWaggledagger]

Lexy that happens in my company too with surname appearing irate, and if you have a surname that can also be a first name, must be v irritating

Having said that I have lots of contact with Chinese people and they regularly address me by my surname (as though it were my first name) due to the name inversion between cultures. I'm sure I've done it to then mistakenly too, but it is rather like being addressed by a master at a boys' boarding school!

[freddiefrog]

I'm not that fussed about the spelling of my name to be honest

It does make me wonder how people manage to spell it correctly when typing my email address, only to spell it completely wrong in the email

[thermalsinapril]

YANBU