I'll TELL you what's in a name, mister

[slemslempike]

Poll about spellings, inspired by Anne Shirley's assertion in Anne of Windy Willows/Poplars that "Catherine with a C is smug", causing her bitter colleague Katherine to start writing her name with a C in notes to Anne. Assume that both names would be pronounced the same (they are by me), just which spelling you prefer. I promise no repercussions for q5, I am just curious!

[Poll #1448127]

Also - can't be bothered to edit the poll to put this in - does your name get misspelled often, and does it annoy you?

Comments

[birdsflying]

Yes, my name gets misspelt (and pronounced!) often and it drives me nuts - particularly if it is in a situation where it is already spelt out for them. As a result, I often stick to using Meg, although that does occasionally lead to people deciding that my name is actually Margaret, Peg, Peggy etc.

I am amused by how many of the names I have selected are because people in my family have that spelling and therefore it is The Right Spelling. I am an Anne, my baby sibling is a Graeme, for example.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I think mine are quite arbitrary. As in 'Graeme because that's how Garden spells it'. Though probably I prefer spellings that look a bit Celtic. And etymologically speaking I tend to favour words that preserve the root to words that simplify the spelling 'cause you can deduce more about its origins that way. But otherwise it's quite random.

[chiasmata]

Hee! You have both my first names in there. Also, when I am not being 'Kate', I am 'Katie' and not 'Katy', thank you very much all the dozens of people who have misspelled it over the years. My supervisor had deep shame because for some reason he thought I was 'Catherine'. Which I'm clearly not.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

My friend Katy is that as a whole name, not a shortening, and she gets properly furious with people who either misspell it or try to give her her "proper" name.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Generally I prefer the more 'normal' spelling of names. If they're equally normal I pick the one with fewer letters.

I'm amazed by how often I'll introduce myself as Alice only to be addressed as Alison five minutes later. It's not like Alice is a made-up name.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I did pick Jon over John purely because of Mr Pertwee, I confess.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have any coherent patterns in my preferences. I tend to prefer Graham because otherwise I get confused about whether or not I've spelt it right.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I want to start calling you Maggie now. Or Magghie, perhaps!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I once got Gladys. They were Americans who were baffled by my accent, to be fair.

Normal as in most common, or normal as in looks most right to English eyes?

I'm glad you chose "Jon", I was starting to feel sorry for the no-votes.

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

My surname is Emanuel which gets mis-spelt all the time. Emmanuel and Emmanuelle are the most common and understandable ones, but people sometimes go mad and come up with things like Emannuel, which is just odd.

Also, mis-spellings of Timothy are getting more common, like Timmothy. Idiots.

[morganmuffle]

SARAH AND SARA ARE NOT PRONOUNCED THE SAME THEYA RE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT NAMES!

*coughs*

Except I realise quite a lot of FOOLISH people called their children Sara but pronounced Sarah and I pretty much hate them all. It is a bit of a thing. I don't see why I should have to spell my name out on the phone because people can't pronounce their own names right :P

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

Yes about my name, it gets variations of Carry (seriously, who spells Carrie like that? Cary I at least understand), Carey, Kerry and a whole other bunch that seem ridiculous to me. Yeah, it does bug me a little.

And I think I prefer Katherine only because of Forever. :)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Hee! Last summer I sat opposite a woman whose nameplate proclaimed that she was a Sara, and I had to listen out for other people calling her name before I addressed her with anything other than "um, excuse me...". (She was one of the banes of your life, it turns out.)

I always think Sara will be Sahra not Sarah.

[chiasmata]

I'll bet! There's nothing like someone knowing better than you about your own name to be really bloody annoying.

[morganmuffle]

One of these days I'm going to go off on that rant in front of someone who actually is one of those people and then I'll probably feel bad because really it's their parents' fault not them but WOW it annoys me.

Sara Sidle never had a chance of me liking her as a character.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I have never seen a multiple "m"ed Timothy. Tim Mothy. How peculiar! Emanuel is a cool surname - my surname is unusual but close to several other more common ones that I am constantly having to correct for. My sister's new surname is Cassell and people keep thinking she's trying to say Castle and correcting her patronisingly.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in my preference for C rather than K in women's names contrasted with my dislike for Marc as an Anglophone spelling. These intuitive things are so often just what we are used to seeing.

Also, i don't think of Jon as a variation on John, but as the short form of Jonathon.

My name getting misspelled and mispronounced a lot. Which mostly I'm OK with as long as people will listen and learn. People who consistantly do it are just being rude (I had a boss who misspelled it in my appraisal document and when I pointed this out he just shrugged.)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Most common, I guess, though possibly a bit of the other two.

My alternate would be Alys, which is clearly silly.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I once had someone misspell my name AND give me the wrong title on a library card, and then when I pointed it out say "oh, it's only a library card", as if it wasn't an important thing at all!

I don't know which I prefer out of Katherine and Catherine. I think I prefer Cathy to Kathy, but Katherine. School story people called Catherine tend towards the soppy, though I may be over-extrapolating from Enid Blyton.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about Cera?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Kerry and Carrie are really clearly different in my head, but when I try to pronounce them it's quite a minor difference. Carry Carter (in the Abbey Girls) spells Carry like that, and she's a villain.

Oh! I should have done Ralph/Ralf.

[jinxremoving.livejournal.com]

My name gets mispronounced all the time, but rarely misspelled - people frequently ask me how it's spelled rather than take their chances and spell it approximately the only way it could possibly be spelled.

The rare exceptions have been when people decided it must be Nayin (I think this happened once, over the phone) or Niamh (when they've figured out that I'm Irish and they've seen the name Niamh around without knowing how it's pronounced. Marks for trying, I suppose).

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Alys. Huh. I'd never thought of that as being an alternative spelling, and now it turns out I would pronounce it in exactly the same way. Is someone called Alys? Someone I would have heard of, I mean? It seems oddly familiar.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I don't have views on most of those because it depends so much on the background of the person (or rather their parents). Also, with regard to the original bone of contention, you didn't give the option I prefer: Katharine. "Catherine" is most common in the UK, having come via French; "Katharine" is closer to the Greek original, and also the way in which the name of at least one of Henry VIII's wives is spelled on the portrait. "Katherine" looks to me like a clumsy hybrid.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I once got a Christmas card from someone in my class which was addressed to "Caffrin". (I grew up in Essex).

My children are half Finnish and we considered calling the eldest Joosefiina but thought England would decide we were illiterate if we did.