How can I convey to people that they spell my name wrong?

Question

My name ends with a 'c', while in the country I live in it is much more often spelled with a 'k' at the end. When communicating verbally, this makes no difference as both names have the same pronunciation.

However, when communicating via e-mail, SMS, chat or other means of written communication, I often find people misspelling my name as they're used to the more common variant. I have tried to address this passively, e.g. by including my name in an email signature or in my online profiles. I haven't tried explicitly correcting people. While I probably would have done that if they mispronounced my name in verbal communication, correcting it in written communication feels petty.

While it is a minor detail, I want my name to be spelt correctly. Spelling it this way comes from the family and I want to keep that part.

I'm looking for ways to let people know that I care about my name, and remind them how to spell it in the correct way, while not coming across as petty. How can I do that?

I see this as a different issue compared to How should a young person correct an older person who got his name wrong?, as that deals with getting the wrong name, in-person.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, people when interacting online (and online in general) have a short attention span, most of the time they worry more for the message itself than the finer details. So it's a tough one if you really want people to spell it correctly.

Depending on your relationship with the person and if it's an informal conversation, you could be a little cheeky and write at the end of the message:

By the way, It's Henric with a c, not with a k ;-)

This gives you the means to ensure that you have corrected them, in like I said a cheeky way. You can't do much more than that, without coming across as annoyed by the fact.

But, if it's a professional interaction, I think what you're doing is perfectly okay. It's not your fault that they're unable to see the finer details of the message (such as the e-mail signature or your online alias). Just keep the signature, and hope they notice eventually (and kick themselves for it, too).

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Note for e-mail: It can also make it easier for the interaction via e-mail if you have your name in your email. Such as mine is normally Bradley.wilson@..., (I can't imagine people can spell it bradly after that).

Answer 2

Hello, I am Henric with a C

I know how awkward these things can be. My mother and stepmother have the same name, just spelled differently. They would get particularly irritated when they received each other's mail and such, given the context it's kind of understandable...

My mom has had to deal with it her whole life because the family version of her name looks like a common misspelling of my stepmother's name.

Whole lot of:

Yes that's my name and no it isn't a typo.

Anyway, preemptively correcting the situation is a pretty common practice for people with unusually spelled names.

Answer 3

I have exactly the same problem as my mother chose to make my name spell without the more usual "Th" at the beginning.

As stated in different answers: You cannot really do anything about it. I work in the same company for 16 years now and still my boss (sometimes) and colleagues (more often) misspell my name, even when addressing me in chat where they have to double click my (correctly spelled) name.

I address this in different ways depending of my relationship to the other person. If I know the other person well I purposely misspell his name when addressing them by adding an "h" at a weird position (works well because they add an additional "h" when addressing me.

Hi Bhradley, Hi Ehric, Hi Phaul

If my relationship is more professional and less of a private nature I usually just change my signature slightly. Some of them get it, some never... But this is something I have learned to live with:

Regards Torsten (without h)

And sometimes I use both ways the same time.

Answer 4

Just write in emails that

"My name ends with a 'c', while it is much more often spelled with a 'k' at the end. That's Henric."

Keep it "light," but do make the correction.

Answer 5

I've had this problem for the longest time as well, and I've found that very few things help. Very few people actually pay close attention to names.

Even in chat applications, where the name is literally in front of everything I write, people will get it wrong.

There is one thing that I've found can help, but only in chat-based contexts, and that's posting a note like this, especially after you've just missed (or just ignored) something directed at you:

Quick reminder for everyone - my name is Hendric with a 'c', I won't get a highlight notification if you spell it differently.

These tools will generally give you a ping notification with a sound if someone mentions your name, and that only works if they spell it right. It gives them an incentive to learn how to spell your name.

Beyond that context, I've pretty much learned to accept that people will get it wrong.