Names

[Slytovhand]

any one else that I've met has spelt it Loren

Actually, from my personal experience (which includes getting names from people all across my country), in Australia it's usually spelt 'Lauren'.. as in ex-captain of our national basketball teamLauren Jackson.

[Bloodsoul]

I still have a hard time pronouncing my girlfriend's last name.

The main protagonist of a comic I'm trying (ha!) to make is French, so I'm wondering what the best way to work the pronunciation of her name in would be.

[muses_nightmare]

Maybe that's a Canadian or North American thing then. I always have to correct the spelling of my name when I give it to people for whatever reason. They always spell it with an 'o'. When I go no it's "L-A..." they act like they've never seen that spelling before. And considering I'm named after Lauren Bacall, you'd think more people would recognize it. *shrugs*

I'm actually rather fond of my name. :P Though not my last name so much, though I've never had anyone have trouble with that one, it's spelled exactly as it sounds.

[Parrothead]

The main protagonist of a comic I'm trying (ha!) to make is French, so I'm wondering what the best way to work the pronunciation of her name in would be.

Ed. note on the bottom/top of panel?

[jackfaire]

Shrugs* Every spelling of Lauren I have ever seen was Lauren. People are idiots as my friend is so fond of saying.

[Bloodsoul]

Ed. note on the bottom/top of panel?

Ah, see!, that was my first thought.. but then I thought it might look cheesy/out-of-place. Here's the thing, though; this character's last name is also my Xbox LIVE GamerTag, and 99% of players pronounce it wrong.

Said character also works retail and thus might likely have her name as a nametag. Eh? Someone comes in, pronounces her name wrong, and she corrects them!

That might work...

[MadMike]

"Dr. Frankenstein?"

"It's 'Frahnk-en-steen!'"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Back on topic, my first name is probably one of the most common male names in the English language, and not too many people say that one wrong, although I get somewhat annoyed when someone calls me Michael instead of Mike, like my ex always insisted on doing. My last name, on the other hand, people are always butchering it. It's not really common, but it's not complicated either. It has a "P" in the middle, and people always try to turn it into a "PH." One of my closest friends had been saying it wrong for almost 20 years, and I never even noticed until she realized it herself.

[KitterCat]

and people who get their panties in a wad about them. More specifically, when you introduce yourself and the other person goes "That's not how it's pronounced!" or "You're just trying to sound foreign or cool!"

My husband has this problem. Issue is, his name is foreign, but very very common in Iceland. He’s first generation American, so all of his siblings have “foreign” sounding names. When he was younger he actually had teachers tell him he was mispronouncing or misspelling his own name.

We’ve decided to uphold the tradition and give our own kids Norse names as well. What I’ve found really annoying is being told by people that we cant do that. That because we’re white we have to pick “normal” sounding names, and its been from across the skin color board. Which is really weird to me. After all pretty much everyone in this country can trace their background to another country so technically we’ve all got foreign names. Sorry, but I don’t want to name them “bill” or “rick” or “susan”, its not that I don’t like those names, they just don’t have any meaning to me.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Almost everyone I meet pronounces my last name wrong .

Funnily enough, though, my Gastroenterologist has the same first name as me but pronounces it differently:

I'm E-an

He's I-an

...*shrug*

[Fryk]

...although I get somewhat annoyed when someone calls me Michael instead of Mike, like my ex always insisted on doing.

Your last name wouldn't happen to be Kelso, would it?

[Teysa]

I have a rather unusual first and last name. Neither one is particularly hard but people butcher them all the time. I get called Shannon, Shyeena, Shawna and everything but my real name. My last name is even worse. People try to stick letters in there that don't even belong. I think my favorite was Lebwiski. My last name does not have an s nor a k in it.

[MergedLoki]

My gf has the opposite problem lol.

her name is Kaily and for whatever reason she doesnt' like it (too plain or boring or whatever i guess.) so she changed the spelling to Kahli (same pronounciation as kaily though) but the number of people who see her name in writing and assume it's 'kal-lee' instead of 'kay-lee'

[Boozy]

"Kahli" as it is spelled is pronounced "KAH-Lee". If she wanted to change the spelling of her name but retain the pronunciation, she should have gone with "Kaylee" or something similar.

If my name is Sarah and I want to change the spelling to "J-O-H-N", I don't have the right to get annoyed when someone calls me "John".

You make no mention of your girlfriend getting annoyed, however, so I'm assuming she's an easy-going person who just laughs it off.

[KellyHabersham]

I get this a lot with my last name.....let's just say that it's Brook, but people frequently pronounce it as "Brock" or "Broke". (either that, or they'll hear it as "Book")

[LewisLegion]

My sister actually has two birth certificates. My mother named her Christell...pronounced 'Chris-TELL'. The nurse simply figured that my mother was not only mispronouncing but misspelling 'Crystal' and so filled out the birth certificate with 'Crystal'.

My mother saw it and threw a fit, and made them fix it to the proper spelling and name. Only the hospital put both certificates through and didn't retract the one with Crystal on it.

So she officially has two names. She just went to get a copy of her birth certificate and they gave her the Crystal one. Now she's got to wait for them to send her the RIGHT one.