By any other name

Nobody has ever mispronounced my name (one syllable) but it has two equally popular spellings. I don’t expect anyone to remember which spelling is mine and I ignore when it’s wrong.
I just wonder why my mother gave me the commonest, plainest name of my generation. Sigh.

My name is Julia. When I was young and friends used to call for me, if they said ‘is JuliE in?’ Mum used to say that no one of that name lived in their house!!!! I must admit to ignoring people over the years if they’ve called me Julie

Grandma70s I had a maths teacher in Canada who used to call a girl in the class Peneloap. He was a nasty character and did it for effect. No one would have dared stand up to him. He was also a really bad teacher.

Everyone in our class was called by full name, boys by surnames usually - I thought it was usual practice in 'those days'. At home we called all our DC by their full names except for the youngest who was named by siblings and always had a shortened name. However before school we made sure the youngest DC knew full first name which, indeed, was used by the teacher. Can't believe tbh that a primary teacher would threaten to exclude a child for not responding to their name.

Bathsheba the poem sums it up. A dear friend who was always known by her middle name of Marjorie, in her confused last months in hospital and a nursing home was continually called Constance which was the name on her records. As if she needed any further confusion in her life in those final stages.

Of course, I told them. They didn't listen....

Have had the same issue with my name all my life.....I am Patti, not Patricia, although my sister always called me Trish.

I once had a student who told me her name was Tabby. I did call her this but cold not help thinking it sounded like I was calling a cat. She was called Tabitha but refused to be called this because of the programme Tabitha the witch.

PS jaxie, making an effort to get pupils' names right is not a hard part of the job.

I agree about your assessment, trisher.

I should add that neither I nor my children have any experience of the kind of teacher stupidity mentioned on this thread. I think that's why I find it so surprising.

But let's be realistic. There will be a similar proportion of silly or stupid teachers as there are silly or stupid people in the rest of the human race.

jaxie, my response to your question is Yes.

The bit about the name may be true but I doubt that any teacher ever threatened exclusion over such a thing. Exclusion is a process that requires proper records of behaviour be kept, a number of disciplinary measures tried and is used as a last resort. This post may be thought of as a joke but exclusion is no laughing matter and 1000 more pupils were excluded last year than the previous year.https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/19/sharp-rise-in-pupil-exclusions-from-english-state-schools

My neighbour across the road called me Alice for several years. He has got it right now. It's Alison.

But I was very disconcerted at the chemist's, for a repeat prescription recently, to be told firmly that I hadn't put in a prescription since July! There have been previous problems with my name.... I did get my pills in the end.

I'm slowly realising that there must be someone around here who is called Alice Oxon!

Baggs: Ever tried being a teacher? It's an extremely difficult job. Would you accuse any other profession of being stupid? Ever done anything stupid yourself? Lay off teachers, most are trying to do their best in a difficult climate.

Oh Bathsheba that poem is so poignant. Perfectly illustrates the changes in name to reflect life changes. I don’t t read poetry much but I like Wendy Cope.

Riverwalk, we had the Irene problem in my school, too. The thing is, the correct pronunciation is Ireenee. It’s a Greek name. Nobody says Peneloap, but people do say Ireen. We had teachers who refused to say Ireen, because they saw it as incorrect and .thought it their job to correct it. I sympathise, but I suppose we have to pronounce (and spell) names the way their owners want.

I know someone called Karolyne (Caroline).


k name

One of my favourite poems, by one of my favourite poets:

Names by Wendy Cope

She was Eliza for a few weeks
When she was a baby –
Eliza Lily. Soon it changed to Lil.

Later she was Miss Steward in the baker’s shop
And then ‘my love’, ‘my darling’, Mother.

Widowed at thirty, she went back to work
As Mrs Hand. Her daughter grew up,
Married and gave birth.

Now she was Nanna. ‘Everybody
Calls me nanna,’ she would say to visitors.
And so they did – friends, tradesmen, the doctor.

In the geriatric ward
They used the patients’ Christian names.
‘Lil,’ we said, ‘or Nanna,’
But it wasn’t in her file
And for those last bewildered weeks
She was Eliza once again.

I only said his full name when I was cross with him
Not the same thing, but similar principle; my dog (bitch) had "Jessie" on her name tag, obviously shortened to Jess in casual conversation, but expanded to Jessica, with strong emphasis on the last syllable, whenever she was naughty. This was accompanied by my command to sit in front of my feet, but she'd choose to initially sit about 5ft away at first and then move forward one foot on each repeated command to sit again. It was hard to keep a straight face throughout this ritual. When she was "released" from her lesson she'd bound away tail wagging, obviously pleased that she had passed her test! Miss her!

....on another note on names ...my granddaughter is called Lyra...no opportunity for messing with that you’d think... but she gets called Ly. How much shorter than four letters do people need.

My son is a Gregory....not a Greg... if I wanted to call him just ‘Gregg’ I would’ve used the double ‘gg’ as jusnoneed has with her son. Her lad gets his name lengthened , and my lad gets his name shortened. As my son was the only Gregory in his school you’d have thought they could have used his real name. He was always ‘in trouble’ for not answering to ‘Greg’ . People!!!!

I'm surprised that some parents haven't had to produce a child's birth certificate when registering children at school, as it was a mandatory requirement in every county I've lived in.

My eldest daughter was constently called by a mispronounced name by any new teacher she had. Eventually the whole class would correct them by shouting...no it's ..... They all thought it funny, I think, that teachers never got the name right.

Wow Eazybee. how to put a downer on a lighthearted thread.
All my six children went through the same school and I never showed a birth certificate for any of them. I registered Joe with the school as Joe because that is his name. The three teachers he had before the one I mentioned all called him Joe from the start.
I simply thought that it was an amusing anecdote for my first thread. I wasn’t particularly aggrieved and as number 3,4&5 son and number 1 daughter went up into her class it became a bit of fun between us checking their names, they are all short diminutives of people who had special meaning to my family for example as well as Joe I have a Bill and a Dan.
She actually came up with the nickname we still use 24 years later for my daughter. She shortened Rose to Ro when she moved up to her class as a bit of fun and it stuck.

Ok this may be very outing if my dd ever looks at Gransnet but here goes. DD knew twin boys as a school child. One was called Andrew but known as Drew because, I think, he'd been named for his father who was known as Andy. The other was called Christopher but known as Chris.
The parents didn't really twig what they'd done until the boys went to school and then habitually got their first name diminutive attached to their surname... which was Peacock.

A friend called her DD Zoe. It can't be corrupted, so she thought. Zoe got called Zo-Zo.
I was given the commonest name in the baby boomer years and once there were 5 of us in the same class. We got called by our surnames - horrible!