Jack-Up

My whole life, people have messed up my name. As a 30-something, Brianna, my name was always mispronounced because it just wasn't a common name. Now I hear it everywhere. Little girls, older girls, and a handful of 20-somethings. I now go by Bri, but that gets misspelled more often than not. I get Brie, Bre, and Bree on the majority of my Starbucks cups.

When my kids were born, I didn't choose hard to pronounce names. They are pronouced just like they are spelled. However, that never stopped anyone from saying it wrong. Even our last name is mispronounced and it's pretty straight forward.

With my oldest, she was often called Alexandria, even though there is no I in her name. It happened often, at the doctor's office, at the WIC office, at school. Then, even though I listed her nickname, Lexi, on all school paperwork people would still call her Alex. And at Starbucks, they almost always spell her name Lexy. It's always fun when they actually spell it right without asking how to spell it!

My middle daughter is Kaydence. Her name was always butchered. People would call her Candace, as if I just misspelled her name. Or Can-Dance was often called out. Why? I have no clue. I didn't think it was that hard to read her name and sound it out. Her nickname, Kadie, is often misspelled because it sounds the same as Katie, so she has resorted to spelling it out and even then it gets misspelled.

Adam is a fairly easy name. No one has pronounced it wrong but I do get emails from Barnes & Noble with the name Adaru because whoever put the information in couldn't read my writing. The funniest part is I signed all my kids up for the birthday club at the same time and the only odd name was "Adaru." One would think they would have noticed it seemed out of place but no big deal. Guess my writing was just too hard to read ;)

My youngest is Sara, no H. She is only 8 but she makes sure people know there is no H on the end of her name. No one has yet to mispronounce her name but at this point I wouldn't put it past someone to screw it up.

Today, I actually had someone pronounce Jacob wrong. One of the most popular boy names in the history of FOREVER and it was pronounced as Jack-Up. It's bad enough that I have to spell it out so they don't spell it with a K, now I have to correct someone because they have clearly never seen the name Jacob before.

So, do people mispronounce names because names are getting more unique, or do they mispronounce them because they have never seen the name before? How often does your name get messed up. And does it bother you?

It doesn't really bother me, it just shocks me every time it happens because our names are not that difficult. At least, I don't think they are.