It is a truth universally acknowledged, that if your parents gave you a unique name, someone at some point is going to butcher it when they try to say it out loud. But while many might say it wrong at first, it's very easy to learn how to pronounce it correctly - if people are willing to make the effort.
One person has shared how they have a 'complicated' name that many have struggled to say, including colleagues in their government job. They anonymously took to Reddit's Am I The A**hole forum to share their frustration over their fellow employees mispronouncing their name and admitted they'd complained to HR about this behaviour.
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The post, which was originally shared in 2019 but has recently resurfaced online, explained that thier colleagues had been mispronouncing the name for the last five years and many hadn't even attempted to learn how to say it correctly.
The writer tells how they've become 'offended' by this, as they always make an effort to be 'professional' and try to pronounce other people's names 'to their satisfaction'.
They said: "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. 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**ed effort it comes out like 'shubaduba my-shababaski'. When I try and correct them, they dismiss it and resume that butchery next time.
"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. So it got to the point every time people would try to say my name in that dismissive manner I'd report it to HR because it felt offensive."
The post goes on to say that eventually one of their colleagues accrued three years of complaints and ended up being fired for 'bullying'.
"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'."
More than 1,300 people responded to the post, with many agreeing they weren't wrong for complaining to HR as their colleagues were being 'rude'.
One 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 replied: "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 when IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THE EMAIL/ADDRESS LINE/SIGNATURE."
However, some thought the person was being unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to pronounce their name, with a different user adding: "I have a hard to pronounce name and when I can tell people are struggling with it, I give them the option to call me by my much simpler middle or last names. You honestly can’t expect people to be able to wrap their tongues around certain sounds that they didn’t grow up with."
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
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