IF you have a name that’s difficult to pronounce, you’ll understand how it feels when people constantly say it wrong.
For those with typical names such as Lucy, Jack and Ellie, you’ve probably never had this issue before, but for those with slightly more unique names, mispronunciation is something you may have to deal with on a regular basis.
A man has taken to Reddit to reveal that not only is his name always mispronounced, but it got on his nerves so much that he actually got someone fired for constantly making the same mistake.
Posting under the username ‘u/FluidYogurtcloset8’, the annoyed man titled the post ‘AITA for constantly insisting people try to say my name correctly, to the point it got someone fired?’.
The user explained: “I have immigrant parents and they gave me a lovely complicated name that many people cannot pronounce.
“I speak one of the languages okay and the other barely, but have picked up some pronunciation.
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“As for my name, let’s use a similar sounding example name: Szczepan-Justus Meiyer-Szcześniewski.
“It’s been a lifelong struggle to have people pronounce my name properly.
“I’ve been working a government job for 5ish years.
“In all that time no one has really bothered to learn to say my name correctly.
“They’ll try and say my name but do it in such a condescending half-a***d effort it comes out like “shubaduba my-shababaski”.
“When I try and correct them, they dismiss it and resume that butchery next time.
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“After 2 years at the job I got frustrated.
“We’re in a professional environment and they should make a professional effort to learn my name.
“I do the same, I always make an effort to try and pronounce a person’s name as best I can to their satisfaction.”
The man explained that after two years in his job, he was so frustrated with people saying his name wrong that he started to report it to his HR department.
He continued: “So it got to the point that every time people would try to say my name in that dismissive manner I’d report it to HR because it felt offensive.
“One lady finally accrued 3ish years of my complaints (if I tried to correct her, she’d say things like “it’s just a name” or “close enough”) and with all the complaints she was let go for workplace bullying.
“My colleagues are quite upset at me and a few said I should learn to take a joke.
“To me it just felt like people were being deliberately obtuse over my “foreign name”.
The user then posted some follow-up information and confirmed: “The full name was an example of how badly it gets butchered not that I insist on being called my full name.
“To be clear, I’m not reporting people who genuinely try to say my name but don’t get it right.
“Like I said before, it’s people who in a dismissive manner say something that barely resembles my name.
“At the risk of identifying myself, my given name includes Szczepan.
“If you can say “fish chips” you can say sh-chepan. Not Shchacha or Shapachan.”
Reddit users were left divided at the man’s situation – while some emphasised with him and his situation, others thought that he was overreacting and should accept that people may struggle to pronounce his unique name.
One person said: “It’s f***ing rude to dismiss someone correcting the pronunciation of your name, AND unprofessional.
“If I said that to my boss, it would be an issue.”
Another added: “There’s nothing more dismissive and showing how little of a s**t one gives about another when they never attempt to learn to spell or pronounce their name correctly.
“I have a common-ish name with many spellings but it utterly drives me insane when people misspell it”.
However, someone else commented: “As someone with a not common name that gets mispronounced and misspelt a lot, I just don’t get the huge deal.
“I’ve gotten so used to it that I respond to almost anything that sounds close to my name.”
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Meanwhile, another explained: “There also comes a point where you kind of wonder if a person is just being over-sensitive.
“You know if your name is a stumbling block for people, so why get upset when they actually stumble over it?”
