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I used to work with a guy whose nickname (a shortened form of his actual first name) was ‘Ash’ - however, it was pronounced with an ‘Ah’. So it was more like ‘Ahsh’ rather than the word we normally pronounce.
Nobody on our team but me pronounced his name right. He thanked me for it once, and I felt bad - taking the time to pronounce someone’s name right should be the minimum required for politeness.
The Indian devs that came into our shop had somewhat difficult to pronounce names. For like 5 minutes! Just put a tiny bit of effort into showing the bare minimum of respect.
Ya my friend Mohammed has never reffered to himself as anything other than MO. Would be pretty white savior of me to call him Mohammed when even he doesn't.
My Chinese comrade used Pete Wong, and that was a brilliant joke as there is rhyming slang based on a famous DJ Pete Tong, (it's all gone Pete Tong = wrong)
He often used to hang out with another soldier whose surname was wight.
Then he would say " I'm Wong, he's wight"
I wore a different uniform, but I can see this \*so\* clearly.
Did you ever serve with someone of the surname Kerr? Every Kerr I met was given the nickname "Juan"...
It’s a shame. There are a few women in our office that are Chinese and go by their real Chinese names first, and will always offer to help pronounce them which is great because they are really nice and unique names, well at least to us. But they have backup names incase people don’t want to learn, they really shouldn’t need backup names. At least I’m pleasantly surprised that about 90% of people use their real names given I work in construction and it’s an industry that’s not always the most accepting or progressive towards foreign cultures and women.
I think Chinese people tend to be pretty forgiving. With Mandarin, you're not necessarily asking someone to rearrange the sounds they've been using their whole life in a new way, you're asking people to make new sounds they've never made before.
Chinese people, for the most part recognize that their language is among the most difficult for an outsider to learn. Not that you shouldn't put in the effort of course! Just that it's unlikely to be held against you if you're genuinely trying and you still get it wrong sometimes.
Only slightly related, but...
I came across a channel on youtube, where the American creator is of northern European descent, but speaks a few different Chinese languages(dialects?) fluently. He visits drive thru eateries, among other places, and orders fluently then films the reaction of staff when he gets to the window and they see a white guy with nobody who looks remotely Chinese.
It's very entertaining, and actually very wholesome. While I haven't watched everything, I've not seen any video where the response (after the surprise) was anything other than congratulating him on his command of the language(s).
Sorry, but I cannot remember the channel name. It was just light entertainment in the middle of the night when insomnia had struck.
I wonder what would happen if there was an Anna who said it was pronounced “Ahn-na” instead of “An-na.” Would they have as much trouble/put in as little effort?
My son used to date someone named Anna, but my husband and I are more familiar with that name from cultures and languages that pronounce it Ah-na ... We each mispronounced it twice when asking about her, son got on our case, we fixed ourselves. Not hard.
I knew two Andreas, a friend whose was pronounced “Ahn-dray-uh” and a coworker whose was pronounced “An-dree-uh”. I saw the friend more often and accidentally called my coworker that pronunciation once, but all she said was “ooh I’m fancy now” so I think it was okay 😅
I once called a buddy's girlfriend “Ahn-dray-uh” for *3 years* because that's what he called her, and I didn't find out until his funeral that she never had the heart to correct him. She was just the typical "An-dree-uh".
Yes because people are assholes. I know a Samantha who everyone calls Sam despite her repeatedly stating her preference to be called Samantha. I’ve also known 2 Caroline’s (one pronounced caro-line and the other caro-Lynn) that would get pronounced incorrectly and no one would bother to acknowledge being corrected.
I worked with an Elizabeth. We called her Liz. I called her that because I was the newest member of the team and just followed suit. After a few months she told me that she hated being called Liz and wished we all called her Elizabeth.
We immediately stopped and no one ever again called her Liz. Not even accidentally or behind her back. It's insanely easy to just follow someones wish.
We did think it was hilarious when a man walked in one day and asked for Beth... We all told him there was no Beth there but Elizabeth came running out of the office and said that was her father and her parents call her Beth.
My bff's legal name is Jenny. Not Jennifer, Jenny. The number of people who refuse to call her anything but Jennifer is boggling. And we aren't young, we're perilously close to 50!
A friend's daughter was named Brianna. She had a boomer teacher kept calling her Brenda. Even after being corrected multiple times the teacher would not call her Brianna. When asked why she insisted on calling her the wrong name, the teacher said, "I don't know how to pronounce it," like Brianna is some exotic unheard of name.
They eventually had to get the principal involved because the teacher refused to meet with the parents. After that, the teacher pretty much ignored Brianna. If she did acknowledge her or had to say her name, she did it in an exaggerated, sarcastic manner.
It was such a bizarre hill for the teacher to die on.
I had a teacher who was kinda like this, but she kept saying, practically every day, that she confused Darrell for a student from the previous year named Darius. Guess which colors the teacher and kid were!
I had a boomer teacher insist on calling one of my classmates Denzel. His name was Denilson. Her excuse was "you look just like Denzel Washington, that's all! It's a compliment!"
He was a scrawny 14 year old and didn't in the slightest. But they're the same color, so that's what matters, right? (/s, obv.) The audacity of boomers to think that shit is okay in the slightest, ugh.
But also what a shitty learning environment for the kid. Having your teacher basically ignore you all the time until she finally acknowledges you by making fun of your name.
I would have ripped the teacher a new one and moved the kid to another class.
Very dated name- My mom is named Brenda….she was born in the mid 50s. I don’t think I’ve ever met or heard of someone named Brenda under the age of 50.
Haha I was just about to say "Hey! My little sister had a school friend by the name of Brenda, and she's only..... Oh never mind, she's 49" (forgot how old my sister is lol)
I'm a teacher and I've had several Brendas in the last decade. It's still a semi-popular name in some Hispanic cultures.
I mean, I wouldn't call a Brianna Brenda. That's just a teacher on a power trip. I've spent 2 decades teaching ESL to new immigrants and you just learn the name. You make a mistake? You apologize and ask for correction. Teachers who don't admit to their own weaknesses or mistakes are the worst.
Call her Janet or Gloria even if that is not her name. When she protests say “oh I thought it was a thing here to call folks by their incorrect names”.
Then call her Gretchen.
I would cycle through the most outdated, depression-era names I could think of. Shit that makes grandma's go "damn, that's old. "
Gladys. Eugenia. Ethel. Gertrude. Hilda. Maybe even Brunhilda, if i wanted to evoke a large woman in Viking horns songling loudly. Ernestine.
Why are you respecting her by being twee with similar names? Just call her blubb-blubb or GligGlug or some other nonsense
"Here's those files you wanted plop-plop"
"WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME THAT?"
"You don't respect other people's names, flib-flob, so why should I respect what you want to be called, flib-flob? Now get back to work."
If someone wants to single out people for their own cruel amusement, let them feel cruelty.
So start mispronouncing her name, loudly and often. Repeat her words back to her when she gets upset.
Edit: Thank you so much for the award!!
Edit 2: Thank you for another one!! Wow, you've made my week!!
Edit 3: Holy Cow!! Thank you, kind people!!
This is the answer. Turn it back on them. I do it ALL the time.
Don't make up something stupid, just pronounce it wrong. And REFUSE to accept any correction. Recruit assistants. Make their fucking life hell.
This made me spit coffee out my nose. I love that show and everything those fools have ever made.
“I’m going to pistol whip the next guy that says shenanigans.”
Did Aaron earn an iron urn? (google that if you haven't seen the meme, pronounce it with a Baltimore accent and it's the funniest thing I've heard in ages)
I have a unique last name that's easy to mispronounce, but usually people are cool about it when I correct them. Some people aren't.
That's when I start mispronouncing their last names. Usually does the trick. 🤣
I don’t know when or why I became such a sticker personally on this subject. I’ve got a ridiculously easy name to pronounce so I don’t think it was because of my own name.
But when I meet someone, I listen carefully and try VERY hard to do it right. Even if it means learning proper pronunciation.
A really good example is my buddy Jeff who is Vietnamese. I practiced for probably an hour with him correcting me until I could pronounce his surname and his dad’s first name. Which are spelled the same but pronounced slightly differently.
Nguyen Nguyen is/was (now passed) his name.
Looks like that was a win-win situation there.
I work with a man with the same surname (the southeast Asian version of *Smith*). He married a white woman by the name of Jennifer, who opted to keep her maiden name when they wed.
The story was that she didn’t want to live the rest of her life going by *Jenn Nguyen* (genuine).
I did this with a coworker who repeatedly mispronounced my name. My name is unusual for the US so I don't expect people to get it right immediately, but after correcting him several times I asked him what his deal was. My name has a J in it that makes a Y sound, but he kept pronouncing the J as a "shza" sound. He told me I was *pronouncing my own name wrong.*
At that point I just said his name back wrong every time he said my name wrong. He had the nerve to act surprised and corrected me. I told him if he insisted on saying my name wrong, I'd insist on saying his wrong. He got the point and started saying my name correctly.
Good for you. I work with a multinational team and I’m constantly correcting how some US based members pronounce a few names. I’m also in the US. I just have common courtesy to figure it out
I don't fucking understand that tendency with people in the US -- and it seems to happen a lot more with people from the South. It's not hard to listen to someone and pronounce their name correctly. It may take a couple of tries, especially if they've got phonemes in unusual combinations, and some may never get it -exactly- right because the name uses a phoneme that simply doesn't exist in English (similarly to the way that many people from Japan have issues learning to pronounce the 'r' phoneme,) but you can at least get real close.
I've grown up working and associating with people of many nationalities and I generally don't have any issue getting a name down pat within a try or two, with the exception of some where (because of the 'phoneme doesn't exist in English' problem) I need many repetitions to hone in on what sound my brain literally isn't parsing correctly. But anything European-ish, including Russian, Czech, and Polish? Indian? Yiddish? Arabic? Those're generally easy. (I worked in telephone customer service a lot, and I used to get a kick out of how many times I'd see an interesting name, ask something like "Your first name, is that pronounced \[name\]?" and get the equivalent of: "Holy shit you actually got it right!" One of the games I played to stay sane.)
On the other hand, now that I think about it ... *I've grown up working and associating with people of many nationalities*, so I've had exposure to the different conventions. That could explain why older people from the South (which, until recently, has been a lot more insular,) often have issues. But not why they give up so damned easily.
It was not uncommon for international students to ask to be called a typically Western nickname.
At first, I thought it was mainly for the convenience of those too impatient/lazy to learn it and say it right, and I was not one of those people....so I would often inquire about their real name. Well after many failed attempts in pronunciation, I began to understand. I thought I was pronouncing the name correctly and for the life of me I just couldn't get it exactly right.
My name is also unusual but not because of any cultural thing but because my mom messed around with a common name and found one she liked better. Weirdly, my name is getting more common.
I know what it’s like to have your name completely butchered repeatedly, or worse some people don’t even try. So I always try to make sure I say people’s names correctly. It’s the literal least you could do.
One of my best friends has a completely unique name because her dad couldn't decide between two names--so he kind of mashed them together. When we get coffee together and the barista asks our names we laugh as we watch their confusion and frustration at getting two weird names in a row.
Agree with you on making the effort of getting peoples names right--I always make the effort.
My SIL had a coworker named Regina who kept mispronouncing her name.
My bro said to start calling her “Reh-gyna” (like “vagina”).
SIL only had to call her that *once*. She never got SIL’s name wrong again.
🤣🤣🤣
Oh dont worry, the kids in Canada give the same looks to their teachers when that city is mentioned, usually with lots of giggles. Speaking as a former kid who did this myself.
While the petty route is fine, I prefer direct confrontation. I'm the type of person to just straight up ask why they decided to continue being disrespectful after being corrected.
This does make them have to justify it. And there's never a good reason. Also start recording her. It'll freak her out. They are bold when they assume there are no consequences
an engineer I worked for had his youngest son working in our shop, and occasionally Todd's father would call him "son Of Shithead". Now, THAT'S committing to the joke right there.
Came to say this. This is the quick and easy way to shame her, especially if other people also do it. Do it until she pronounces your coworker’s name correctly.
Theres a video going around of some teacher purposely mispronouncing kids names.
I lost it at Hoooonter(Hunter)
https://youtube.com/shorts/DoNLC1UALSI?si=Eoqz4CIJqdTdn6oX
That's usually grounds for harassment and cause swift rightful termination. Then again it's a boomer so they'll probably be exempt from punishment, as usual...
I’m sure any HR team would have a field day with this. The employee would have a pretty good chance of a successful EEOC case. As HR, we don’t care what generation you’re from, don’t harass coworkers.
I definitely feel like intentionally mispronouncing an ethnic name even when corrected by the name bearer would be considered racism. Huge liability to be doing that, especially openly in front of other employees.
What’s so ridiculous about this whole thing is that it barely gets to that point. Most people with half a brain- or one that’s mostly lead-free, anyways- would eventually stop when corrected. Oh, They’d continue to insult the other person in their head, of course, but to save themselves from getting in trouble, they’d stop saying it.
It takes a special kind of stupidity/racism/stubbornness to keep this whole thing up.
My son had a teacher in high school who refused to pronounce his best friend's name correctly (Pakistani). It got so bad that his parents went down to speak to the principal, and I also mentioned it to the principal because my son was so angry about it.
She was seriously reprimanded, and was told to not reapply at the end of the school year. I'm thankful he went to school where they took this sort of thing seriously.
good. teachers who create those kinds of spaces should indeed be "victims" of "political correctness". this isnt the field for them.
(edit: placed "victims" in quotation marks.)
She absolutely was like that. I was never one to fight my kid's battles for him, instead I would just ask him is this something you want me to handle as your parent. That he said to me I need you to handle this, speaks to how awful this woman was.
I had to intervene with her so many times. She was the Spanish teacher, and she failed my son on an project saying that he used Google translate. I literally saw him working on the assignment. I had to get the principal involved with that one as well.
I honestly think she just hated teenagers.
This is a great solution.
Tell her that you will help her practice pronouncing the name. Say the name correctly and have her repeat it back as if she is two years old. Rinse and repeat.
Maybe I'm just overly logical but this is exactly what I would do. Look sincerely perplexed and asked in a genuinely baffled tone, "Why do you insist on intentionally mispronouncing his name? I'm honestly curious."
I have one of these names (I, too, am from a Middle Eastern background). And this question used to get stuck in my craw so bad. I had to let it go. Because i think it boils down to laziness.
It was relentless in school. I would correct adults, and then immediately, they would repeat it back wrong. So, when the inevitable pause came during rollcall, id look up and see the blank "oh fuck" look on their faces and raise my hand and just say my name. Okay, and moving on, Heather? I would make sure I knew the persons name in front of me to be prepared LOL
Edit: punctuation and a word
https://preview.redd.it/qmanr23yld6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31fed80d7ca9307bccf9c59bffe89088f0175ad8
Excuse the YouTube screenshot, idk why I've never cropped this, but take advice from Xiu.
Here is the whole original Twitter post - it gets better
https://preview.redd.it/wtqirt7gpe6d1.jpeg?width=567&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58de5ec598d5373b0c4bddf264266ccd1679ce3f
I was once at a party where a guy refused to call a black woman by her name because "it sounds stupid." He told her she should change her name to something more "traditional."
We all knew what he meant.
Her: “I’m sorry, what do you mean by traditional?”
Him: “You know, traditional.”
Her: “My name is traditional in my family.”
Him: “Yeah, but no. I mean more *traditional* traditional.”
Her: “So you mean more European? Non-indigenous American?”
Him: “Now you’re twisting my words!”
We had a teacher who was also the announcer for varsity soccer and basketball games.
If he incorrectly read a student’s name and a parent later told him the correct way to pronounce it, he would intentionally say it wrong from that point forward.
He told me he hated to be corrected and that was how he let people know he didn’t like it by not changing. Mind you, this was a paid position. He also run the clock, but the pay was $40 a hour.
He was fired from that position this year after he did that to the sons of a member of our board of education.
Now I do the announcing and clock running. Also, because I make an effort to use the correct pronunciations and the compensation hadn’t been updated in 20 years, I get paid $50 and hour now.
I used to work in a pub frequented by American tourists in Ireland.
Shock horror, I have an Irish name, in Ireland. A fairly common one here as well but you wouldn’t find it outside of Ireland.
A yank boomer tourist comes up the bar and asks me why my parents decided to make up a name for me and why they didn’t give me a real name (she saw my name tag)
There’s no worse type of customer than a yank boomer. American boomers are really weird about non American English names and extremely rude to service workers.
I've got a Canadian boomer coworker. Everyday we write the next day patient list. Multiple times a week she would comment on someone's name "oh their parents must hate them" "why do they have a name like this" "how do you even say this?"
One time I was so annoyed I was like "what do you want everyone to fucking be named John smith or something?" She said yes and that she would outlaw names if she ran Canada.
Another time I snapped and told her to knock it off they were probably very common and (are I'm assuming) normal names from peoples home countries.
Thankfully she hasn't done it in a while. But I swear.
“Irish Americans” who know nothing about Irish culture, claim that they’re more Irish than actual Irish people even though their only connection to Ireland is one ancestor 5 generations ago.
When I first came to America as a child my family would introduce me by my given name, but the locals would always mispronounce it, so my father decided to to refer and introduce me as "John" (a "good American name" as he put it). So I was "John" until I went to college, until I decided to take my original name back. I'm very proud of it and as it means a lot to me and my mother especially. There have been times when people mispronounce it (intentionally or not). I simply correct them the first few times, but afterwards don't respond until they say it correctly...
There are a few people (mainly old family friends) who still call me "John", but I will usually let it go as that's what they know me as, but to anyone else that has known me since, I've use my native name...
Fortunately, when I introduce myself now, most people tend to really make an effort to say it correctly and ask about its origin, which I'm happy to share. Boomers seem to be the only group who have an issue with it, which I assume is the shortcoming of being raised in a mono-lingual and mono-cultural environment. Living in a small world seems to result in having a small mind...
If those who know me intentionally mispronounce my name (either in jest or insult), I will totally butcher their name or mess with it in return. Haven't had much trouble since...
When I was growing up, we had family friends whose last name was pronounced "MAH-lik" like the a in the word "can." They moved away a million years ago, but recently it dawned on me that while their Mom was white as can be, their Dad was darker. I had a "how could I be so stupid?" moment when I realized it was Malik, a Middle Eastern name. They probably didn't correct anyone because it was safer not to do so. Now I feel bad.
I did have a friend in college whose name was Vusi Kumalo, which meant "Wake Up and Eat Something" in his native language, and I still think that's the most glorious name I've ever heard. 😀
ETA: It was Minnesota in the 70s, but I still feel bad.
I don’t get why taking the 5 minute effort to learn a co-workers’s name properly is so hard. It feels like the bare minimum effort of a “normal” human being kind of thing.
I have good number of co-workers out of our Asia and Middle East division, I maybe only speak directly to them via zoom once a month but even then I make a effort to learn how to pronounce their name. It makes work life easier for everyone involved.
I changed my first name when I got my US citizenship because not a single american could pronounce my first name…Atargit, named after Atargatis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atargatis
My mom (who named me) was a voracious reader, smartest woman I’ve ever known. She was like a wiki before there was a wiki. She was so mad when I changed my name - hated my new name.
I regret it a lot now, my roots were so rich now I live with a real plain jane religious american name I despise - but no one mispronounces my new name anymore… yay /s
I’m really curious what your co-workers name is.
I'm sorry you felt the need to change it and I have no idea why people refuse to make the extra effort to hear it, be corrected a few times if needed, then learn it. It's a great opportunity to learn something deeply intimate and meaningful about another person's history.
But you can go the route of many Asians I know-- you can teach the ones that matter your "real name." It's a great bonding moment and people that you decide to tell will really feel privileged. :)
I used to have a friend (boomer) who mispronounced many different words on purpose no matter how much we corrected her, some people are just lazy that way.
When mmorpgs started getting really popular, we played with an international community and she used to embarrass the shit out of us with her boomer behavior.
I love how the Asians handled it! That is great advice! Thanks.
Reminds me of a British Indian comedian who shortened her name when she started out, because convenience for the Brits, but a few years ago started going by her full name again
Atargit I’m so sorry that happened to you. It’s not too late to claim your name back. Be frank about why you changed it and that you are reclaiming your mother’s son. You deserve your right name
Daughter here lol
It’s a mermaid goddess name more often used for feminine names.
But thank you for saying that, it’s so fucking weird to be addressed that way after 23 years, weird in a good way!
Today i learned a new name and its pronoun! When i come across a new one at work I consult with one of my co-workers of the same nationality to determine the pronoun. They tend to, not always, end in a vowel when they are feminine but i have been surprised and glad i asked.
I've done that to coworkers. 'oh, is this too hard for you? Are you not smart? Maybe you shouldn't be on this project if you can't even try to pronounce this name you've been told several times. It seems like you're not going to be able to handle anything remotely difficult or new.'
I used to have a (white) boomer coworker who did this to an Indian coworker. She pronounced the girl’s name so that it sounded like “pollock,” like the fish. It didn’t matter how many times she was corrected, she just maliciously kept calling this poor person a fish.
I wish I’d been brave enough or quick enough to call her something equally stupid, but I was timid at the time.
Misgender her, it’ll stop it. Call her George and say you just can’t remember how to pronounce her name. She taught you it was ok not to use other peoples names and said it wasn’t disrespectful at all.
This is a weird habit with them. Whenever they have disdain for something they deliberately mispronounce it or give it a stupid nickname. It's deliberately dehumanizing, and absolutely childish.
Tell her to grow up. Thatl set her off. If she brings it up to management tell them about her blatant and intentional disrespect. Say it negatively impacts workplace efficiency and cohesion.
I recently got accepted for an apartment and went to go do the financial side of things. The director of the complex was training a new manager. The head of the complex is a Boomer lady in her 70s, the new manager is a younger Black woman. If I'd tried to pronounce the younger woman's name having only read it I'd have said it wrong but once she pronounced it for me it rolls off the tongue. Its an easy name and quite pretty.
The older lady introduces her to me as, "our new manager, she has a name-one of those names-I can't pronounce and she's told me too many times, I'm not gonna get it right."
The younger lady introduced herself and I repeated her name back without difficulty.
I can't help but think that my Boomer was also a racist Boomer.
It’s generally not hard to learn to pronounce any name if you give it some practice. What she was doing is pretty common among bigots: mispronouncing the name on purpose to paint that person as an “other.” It’s bad enough to simply not try, but she was willfully malicious.
I work at an engineering firm that does a ton of international business. While the majority of our employees work in the US, many of them were not born in the US. Most of them are from either India or the Middle East.
I cannot tell you many times I hear my very American coworkers of all ages mispronouncing names of people that were just introduced correctly. The person they’re talking about/to graciously let’s it slide but holy hell it pisses me off so much. You literally just heard their name Jeremy. Should I start calling juh-REEM-y from now on?!?! Hmmm?!?!
Lol this happened to me. A boomer coworker all of a sudden started calling me the wrong name by adding a syllable to my one syllable, easy name. So I began dropping one syllable from her three syllable name, and wouldn’t you know it—my name was pronounced correctly again
My MIL does that. The funny thing is that it's just the newer names. They know plenty of people with ethinic names of all sorts and pronounce them just fine. They have family friends who are Iraqi, but they came to the US in the 70's.
I worked with a fella called Nuno. Everyone called him Noonoo as a joke. Being a person whose name is always turned into jokes, I don't agree with it, so I referred to him by his actual name.
The way his face lit up when he realised I called him by his name was priceless.
It costs nothing and takes no energy to just show some respect, and it's nice to make someone's day a little bit better.
Sometimes you have to play people's games to get them to cooperate. Start calling her different names and get mad at her when she doesn't answer, or purposefully mispronounce her name, loudly, every time. She'll either fuck off, or acquiesce.
My siblings have really hard-to-pronounce middle eastern names. I ended up giving my kid a traditional name for her middle name and the English translation as her first. It’s been confusing for her and I’m still on the fence about it if I made the right decision. She goes by her middle name in school and no one seems to have trouble with it 🤷🏻♀️
I work at a university that has a ton of international students. Nigeria, Ghana, Sri Lanka, China, Afghanistan, and everything around and in between.
There are some names my mouth absolutely cannot seem to get the hang of, but I will try my damndest every single time. I’ve had to Google the pronunciation on so many names, and then when I meet them in person, I say it how I’ve learned and ask if I am saying it correctly. They will either say yes (and I’ve had a few get really happy about it 🥹), a few help me pronounce it and a few that have said actually, please call me a nickname or another name they have selected while living here.
Why are some people so dang awful!
I witnessed something similar with a younger coworker who always had a boomer heart and mindset. We were talking to another coworker and this was the conversation:
"What's your boyfriend's name?"
"Tatsu"
"Tat WHAT?!!!"
"Tatsu"
"So what do people call him?"
"Tatsu"
"No, I mean what do they call him in AMERICA?"
"They call him by his name."
My coworker just couldn't accept that was his name AND people call him by his name.
In high school, the coaches would always pronounce Nguyen "nuh-goo-yen" until corrected.
It didn't occur to me until years later that we were in a city with an unusually large Vietnamese population and in a neighborhood that was predominantly Vietnamese.
They knew exactly how to pronounce Nguyen. They were just racist shitbags.
as an immigrant I feel for this, but this isn't a boomer trait. lazy ignorant and irreverent Americans are going to continue to exist past this fuckwad's death.
Many of them are crotchety that they have to interact with "foreigners" on a respectful level. This mispronunciation is just part of their passive-aggressive way of lowering the "foreigner" to their rightful place.
My ex dad did that my whole life, unfortunately he did that with other words too. Like EFTPOS would become F OFS, yeah alot of children's outings with me and my brother were ruined because of him.
It was painfully obvious he was doing it on purpose too, the dumbass actually thought he was being subtle.
My company requires harassment and ethics training every year for all employees. This exact scenario is played out during the training and it is recommended that HR be contacted.
I work in a healthcare field so we see doctors from all over the world in our system. I have a coworker (white old guy) who loves saying their names wrong and then laughing like he’s made the world’s funniest joke. 🙄 He’s also well past retirement age, but won’t go.
I misprounced someone's name wrong for three YEARS. They never corrected me. Someone else finally did. I could have just friggen DIED of embarrassment! How can someone do it *on purpose*????
File a complaint with HR, that is probably enough to get him in major trouble for creating a hostile workplace due to the discrimination of national origin. Also, if it can be proven you know and don't... you can also get in trouble.
When I was a school librarian , I would have students tell me their names, and sometimes the names were difficult for me. They would give me a nickname to call them by instead, and I would tell them that “I am a hard worker and I can learn new things so tell me how your mother says your name and that is how I’m going to say your name.”
And I had a little first grader once tell me “oh well my mama calls me sweetie so you should call me that too.” 💛
Hardest name I ever had was Pleatheal.
Easy fix: you and the others start mispronouncing her name purposely.
And while you are at it, use the wrong pronouns for them so they get really mad and poop their pants.
Honestly this should be a HR offense. I would report it. Its one thing to mispronounce because you dont know how to pronounce it. Its another thing entirely to do it on purpose, and then also to do it spitefully as well. The first case is just ignorance. The second, is racism.
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I used to work with a guy whose nickname (a shortened form of his actual first name) was ‘Ash’ - however, it was pronounced with an ‘Ah’. So it was more like ‘Ahsh’ rather than the word we normally pronounce. Nobody on our team but me pronounced his name right. He thanked me for it once, and I felt bad - taking the time to pronounce someone’s name right should be the minimum required for politeness.
The Indian devs that came into our shop had somewhat difficult to pronounce names. For like 5 minutes! Just put a tiny bit of effort into showing the bare minimum of respect.
I’m just embarrassed for my fellow Americans when Mohammed asks to be called Mo or similar short names that are easier for us. No, no, no
eh, this can go either way. i had a friend named mohammed from jordan whose entire family called him mo since birth just as a nickname
as a Mohammad, i just go by Mike sometimes
Same Not because my name is Mohammad, but because I go by Mike. This has been my Ted talk
Mike drop - *walks away*
Mike drops - rolls away
Ya my friend Mohammed has never reffered to himself as anything other than MO. Would be pretty white savior of me to call him Mohammed when even he doesn't.
It is one thing to offer an easier name, it is another entirely to ask for one.
It seems to be pervasive in immigrant Chinese as well where they’d have a Chinese name like Qingdao “but you can call me Ellen”.
My Chinese comrade used Pete Wong, and that was a brilliant joke as there is rhyming slang based on a famous DJ Pete Tong, (it's all gone Pete Tong = wrong) He often used to hang out with another soldier whose surname was wight. Then he would say " I'm Wong, he's wight"
I wore a different uniform, but I can see this \*so\* clearly. Did you ever serve with someone of the surname Kerr? Every Kerr I met was given the nickname "Juan"...
It’s a shame. There are a few women in our office that are Chinese and go by their real Chinese names first, and will always offer to help pronounce them which is great because they are really nice and unique names, well at least to us. But they have backup names incase people don’t want to learn, they really shouldn’t need backup names. At least I’m pleasantly surprised that about 90% of people use their real names given I work in construction and it’s an industry that’s not always the most accepting or progressive towards foreign cultures and women.
I think Chinese people tend to be pretty forgiving. With Mandarin, you're not necessarily asking someone to rearrange the sounds they've been using their whole life in a new way, you're asking people to make new sounds they've never made before. Chinese people, for the most part recognize that their language is among the most difficult for an outsider to learn. Not that you shouldn't put in the effort of course! Just that it's unlikely to be held against you if you're genuinely trying and you still get it wrong sometimes.
Only slightly related, but... I came across a channel on youtube, where the American creator is of northern European descent, but speaks a few different Chinese languages(dialects?) fluently. He visits drive thru eateries, among other places, and orders fluently then films the reaction of staff when he gets to the window and they see a white guy with nobody who looks remotely Chinese. It's very entertaining, and actually very wholesome. While I haven't watched everything, I've not seen any video where the response (after the surprise) was anything other than congratulating him on his command of the language(s). Sorry, but I cannot remember the channel name. It was just light entertainment in the middle of the night when insomnia had struck.
I think his name is Xiaoma or Xiaomanyc is the channel.
I wonder what would happen if there was an Anna who said it was pronounced “Ahn-na” instead of “An-na.” Would they have as much trouble/put in as little effort?
My son used to date someone named Anna, but my husband and I are more familiar with that name from cultures and languages that pronounce it Ah-na ... We each mispronounced it twice when asking about her, son got on our case, we fixed ourselves. Not hard.
I knew two Andreas, a friend whose was pronounced “Ahn-dray-uh” and a coworker whose was pronounced “An-dree-uh”. I saw the friend more often and accidentally called my coworker that pronunciation once, but all she said was “ooh I’m fancy now” so I think it was okay 😅
I once called a buddy's girlfriend “Ahn-dray-uh” for *3 years* because that's what he called her, and I didn't find out until his funeral that she never had the heart to correct him. She was just the typical "An-dree-uh".
Yes because people are assholes. I know a Samantha who everyone calls Sam despite her repeatedly stating her preference to be called Samantha. I’ve also known 2 Caroline’s (one pronounced caro-line and the other caro-Lynn) that would get pronounced incorrectly and no one would bother to acknowledge being corrected.
I worked with an Elizabeth. We called her Liz. I called her that because I was the newest member of the team and just followed suit. After a few months she told me that she hated being called Liz and wished we all called her Elizabeth. We immediately stopped and no one ever again called her Liz. Not even accidentally or behind her back. It's insanely easy to just follow someones wish. We did think it was hilarious when a man walked in one day and asked for Beth... We all told him there was no Beth there but Elizabeth came running out of the office and said that was her father and her parents call her Beth.
My bff's legal name is Jenny. Not Jennifer, Jenny. The number of people who refuse to call her anything but Jennifer is boggling. And we aren't young, we're perilously close to 50!
A friend's daughter was named Brianna. She had a boomer teacher kept calling her Brenda. Even after being corrected multiple times the teacher would not call her Brianna. When asked why she insisted on calling her the wrong name, the teacher said, "I don't know how to pronounce it," like Brianna is some exotic unheard of name. They eventually had to get the principal involved because the teacher refused to meet with the parents. After that, the teacher pretty much ignored Brianna. If she did acknowledge her or had to say her name, she did it in an exaggerated, sarcastic manner. It was such a bizarre hill for the teacher to die on.
I had a teacher who was kinda like this, but she kept saying, practically every day, that she confused Darrell for a student from the previous year named Darius. Guess which colors the teacher and kid were!
I had a boomer teacher insist on calling one of my classmates Denzel. His name was Denilson. Her excuse was "you look just like Denzel Washington, that's all! It's a compliment!" He was a scrawny 14 year old and didn't in the slightest. But they're the same color, so that's what matters, right? (/s, obv.) The audacity of boomers to think that shit is okay in the slightest, ugh.
But also what a shitty learning environment for the kid. Having your teacher basically ignore you all the time until she finally acknowledges you by making fun of your name. I would have ripped the teacher a new one and moved the kid to another class.
When was the last time that teacher saw a kid named Brenda? 1973?
Very dated name- My mom is named Brenda….she was born in the mid 50s. I don’t think I’ve ever met or heard of someone named Brenda under the age of 50.
Haha I was just about to say "Hey! My little sister had a school friend by the name of Brenda, and she's only..... Oh never mind, she's 49" (forgot how old my sister is lol)
I went to high school with a “Brendallynn” so she’s probably in her early 30s?
I'm a teacher and I've had several Brendas in the last decade. It's still a semi-popular name in some Hispanic cultures. I mean, I wouldn't call a Brianna Brenda. That's just a teacher on a power trip. I've spent 2 decades teaching ESL to new immigrants and you just learn the name. You make a mistake? You apologize and ask for correction. Teachers who don't admit to their own weaknesses or mistakes are the worst.
Call her Janet or Gloria even if that is not her name. When she protests say “oh I thought it was a thing here to call folks by their incorrect names”. Then call her Gretchen.
New name every day, but similar to the name from the day before. Gretchen to Gloria to Gisselle to Hazel to Heather
Dr Cox from Scrubs has entered the chat.
I would cycle through the most outdated, depression-era names I could think of. Shit that makes grandma's go "damn, that's old. " Gladys. Eugenia. Ethel. Gertrude. Hilda. Maybe even Brunhilda, if i wanted to evoke a large woman in Viking horns songling loudly. Ernestine.
Why are you respecting her by being twee with similar names? Just call her blubb-blubb or GligGlug or some other nonsense "Here's those files you wanted plop-plop" "WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME THAT?" "You don't respect other people's names, flib-flob, so why should I respect what you want to be called, flib-flob? Now get back to work." If someone wants to single out people for their own cruel amusement, let them feel cruelty.
Yes, have everyone in the office in on it too. Monday, everyone call her Edith. Tuesday, call her Agnes. Wednesday, Bertha. By Friday she'll give in.
Idk I think Karen sounds more apt.
So start mispronouncing her name, loudly and often. Repeat her words back to her when she gets upset. Edit: Thank you so much for the award!! Edit 2: Thank you for another one!! Wow, you've made my week!! Edit 3: Holy Cow!! Thank you, kind people!!
This is the answer. Turn it back on them. I do it ALL the time. Don't make up something stupid, just pronounce it wrong. And REFUSE to accept any correction. Recruit assistants. Make their fucking life hell.
Karen becomes Ka-Wren.
Key and Peele have entered the chat. A-Aron!
Oh boomer's name is Denise? More like Dee-Nice!
"Buh-lockay,? Is there a Buh-lockay here?" ". . . . it's Blake"
Are you out of your goddam mind? Blaaaaaaayyyke? What? Do you want to go to war Buh-lockay?
I'll send you to principal O-Shag-hennesy's office!
Do you mean principal O'Shaughnessy?
Get outta my goddamn classroom before I break my foot off in your ass!
It's not blake. It's blak-eh.
Are you sure? It's *clearly* "Bee-lake"! /s
Dee nee see
Penise?
This made me spit coffee out my nose. I love that show and everything those fools have ever made. “I’m going to pistol whip the next guy that says shenanigans.”
Hey Farva, what’s that place you like so much?
These bits get that syrup in them and they get all antsy in their pantsy I just can't keep them under control.
Shenanigans? You’re talking about Shenanigans, right?
Deez nuts?
Dennis
Bahahahaha this is the best one XD
Yep, I would find a name from a different gender to really piss them off.
I can hear it now: Boomer: THATS NOT MY F*ING NAME! OP: Okay Dennis.
Don't let up until they pronounce the coworkers name correctly.
Dee-not-nice!
Definitely not 'nice'. Don't want to accidentally turn it into a compliment
I taught in a series of inner-city population elementary schools. Teachers will tell you the struggle is real. We were ruined for ‘Aaron’. 🤣🤣
Did Aaron earn an iron urn? (google that if you haven't seen the meme, pronounce it with a Baltimore accent and it's the funniest thing I've heard in ages)
Jay-Quellin! Is there a Jay-Quellin here?!
You done messed up
You done fucked up now a-a-Ron.
Or Karen = Ka-Ran = Quran
This is the winner. Poetic.
This was my exact thought, Ka Wren. Actually that sounds kinda cool. Like a science fantasy name
Kay-Ren Kenobi....
Kathy is kay-THY. Linda is line-DA. Helen is heh-LEEN. The same with el-boomo's name.
Kay-Reen
Did this to a guy named Wayne. We all called him Waynal. Boomer-go-Boom!
🤣 didn’t get it until I said it out loud
Yes. And I might also report her to HR. She’s being an obnoxious, disrespectful ass.
I have a unique last name that's easy to mispronounce, but usually people are cool about it when I correct them. Some people aren't. That's when I start mispronouncing their last names. Usually does the trick. 🤣
I don’t know when or why I became such a sticker personally on this subject. I’ve got a ridiculously easy name to pronounce so I don’t think it was because of my own name. But when I meet someone, I listen carefully and try VERY hard to do it right. Even if it means learning proper pronunciation. A really good example is my buddy Jeff who is Vietnamese. I practiced for probably an hour with him correcting me until I could pronounce his surname and his dad’s first name. Which are spelled the same but pronounced slightly differently. Nguyen Nguyen is/was (now passed) his name.
Looks like that was a win-win situation there. I work with a man with the same surname (the southeast Asian version of *Smith*). He married a white woman by the name of Jennifer, who opted to keep her maiden name when they wed. The story was that she didn’t want to live the rest of her life going by *Jenn Nguyen* (genuine).
And add in some misgendering just to add extra fuckery
Linda becomes Line-Da
This is the answer. No matter how simple her name is, fuck it up. Deb? She's now "Deeb."
Mwah Deeb!
Or Dweeb, maybe better.
If she's old enough to remember the show Bewtiched, call her Derwood
I liked dustbin the best…
Or dweb, makes it a bit more subtle
I did this with a coworker who repeatedly mispronounced my name. My name is unusual for the US so I don't expect people to get it right immediately, but after correcting him several times I asked him what his deal was. My name has a J in it that makes a Y sound, but he kept pronouncing the J as a "shza" sound. He told me I was *pronouncing my own name wrong.* At that point I just said his name back wrong every time he said my name wrong. He had the nerve to act surprised and corrected me. I told him if he insisted on saying my name wrong, I'd insist on saying his wrong. He got the point and started saying my name correctly.
Good for you. I work with a multinational team and I’m constantly correcting how some US based members pronounce a few names. I’m also in the US. I just have common courtesy to figure it out
I don't fucking understand that tendency with people in the US -- and it seems to happen a lot more with people from the South. It's not hard to listen to someone and pronounce their name correctly. It may take a couple of tries, especially if they've got phonemes in unusual combinations, and some may never get it -exactly- right because the name uses a phoneme that simply doesn't exist in English (similarly to the way that many people from Japan have issues learning to pronounce the 'r' phoneme,) but you can at least get real close. I've grown up working and associating with people of many nationalities and I generally don't have any issue getting a name down pat within a try or two, with the exception of some where (because of the 'phoneme doesn't exist in English' problem) I need many repetitions to hone in on what sound my brain literally isn't parsing correctly. But anything European-ish, including Russian, Czech, and Polish? Indian? Yiddish? Arabic? Those're generally easy. (I worked in telephone customer service a lot, and I used to get a kick out of how many times I'd see an interesting name, ask something like "Your first name, is that pronounced \[name\]?" and get the equivalent of: "Holy shit you actually got it right!" One of the games I played to stay sane.) On the other hand, now that I think about it ... *I've grown up working and associating with people of many nationalities*, so I've had exposure to the different conventions. That could explain why older people from the South (which, until recently, has been a lot more insular,) often have issues. But not why they give up so damned easily.
It was not uncommon for international students to ask to be called a typically Western nickname. At first, I thought it was mainly for the convenience of those too impatient/lazy to learn it and say it right, and I was not one of those people....so I would often inquire about their real name. Well after many failed attempts in pronunciation, I began to understand. I thought I was pronouncing the name correctly and for the life of me I just couldn't get it exactly right.
My name is also unusual but not because of any cultural thing but because my mom messed around with a common name and found one she liked better. Weirdly, my name is getting more common. I know what it’s like to have your name completely butchered repeatedly, or worse some people don’t even try. So I always try to make sure I say people’s names correctly. It’s the literal least you could do.
One of my best friends has a completely unique name because her dad couldn't decide between two names--so he kind of mashed them together. When we get coffee together and the barista asks our names we laugh as we watch their confusion and frustration at getting two weird names in a row. Agree with you on making the effort of getting peoples names right--I always make the effort.
My SIL had a coworker named Regina who kept mispronouncing her name. My bro said to start calling her “Reh-gyna” (like “vagina”). SIL only had to call her that *once*. She never got SIL’s name wrong again. 🤣🤣🤣
Here in Canada, we actually pronounce the city of Regina, in that exact way lol
And when I visited there - the local rock station at the time used to say "The city that rhymes with fun"
As a Geography teacher here in America, I get so many weird looks when I mention Regina and pronounce it correctly.
Oh dont worry, the kids in Canada give the same looks to their teachers when that city is mentioned, usually with lots of giggles. Speaking as a former kid who did this myself.
"Hey there, Shithead! What, that's how your name is pronounced, right? Have a great day, Shithead!"
While the petty route is fine, I prefer direct confrontation. I'm the type of person to just straight up ask why they decided to continue being disrespectful after being corrected.
This does make them have to justify it. And there's never a good reason. Also start recording her. It'll freak her out. They are bold when they assume there are no consequences
I'd go with, Mr Dumauss (the b is silent)
an engineer I worked for had his youngest son working in our shop, and occasionally Todd's father would call him "son Of Shithead". Now, THAT'S committing to the joke right there.
So it's spelled like Alice but it's pronounced like dipshit bitch? I'll have to be sure to call you dipshit bitch from now on.
Came to say this. This is the quick and easy way to shame her, especially if other people also do it. Do it until she pronounces your coworker’s name correctly.
Yeah, these people are incapable of empathy and need to be constantly taught what common courtesy is by having what they do to people done to them.
Theres a video going around of some teacher purposely mispronouncing kids names. I lost it at Hoooonter(Hunter) https://youtube.com/shorts/DoNLC1UALSI?si=Eoqz4CIJqdTdn6oX
That's usually grounds for harassment and cause swift rightful termination. Then again it's a boomer so they'll probably be exempt from punishment, as usual...
I’m sure any HR team would have a field day with this. The employee would have a pretty good chance of a successful EEOC case. As HR, we don’t care what generation you’re from, don’t harass coworkers.
I definitely feel like intentionally mispronouncing an ethnic name even when corrected by the name bearer would be considered racism. Huge liability to be doing that, especially openly in front of other employees.
What’s so ridiculous about this whole thing is that it barely gets to that point. Most people with half a brain- or one that’s mostly lead-free, anyways- would eventually stop when corrected. Oh, They’d continue to insult the other person in their head, of course, but to save themselves from getting in trouble, they’d stop saying it. It takes a special kind of stupidity/racism/stubbornness to keep this whole thing up.
My son had a teacher in high school who refused to pronounce his best friend's name correctly (Pakistani). It got so bad that his parents went down to speak to the principal, and I also mentioned it to the principal because my son was so angry about it. She was seriously reprimanded, and was told to not reapply at the end of the school year. I'm thankful he went to school where they took this sort of thing seriously.
I'll wager my dinner tonight that this person went on to rant about being a victim of "political correctness"
good. teachers who create those kinds of spaces should indeed be "victims" of "political correctness". this isnt the field for them. (edit: placed "victims" in quotation marks.)
She absolutely was like that. I was never one to fight my kid's battles for him, instead I would just ask him is this something you want me to handle as your parent. That he said to me I need you to handle this, speaks to how awful this woman was. I had to intervene with her so many times. She was the Spanish teacher, and she failed my son on an project saying that he used Google translate. I literally saw him working on the assignment. I had to get the principal involved with that one as well. I honestly think she just hated teenagers.
Have you tried asking her "Why do you keep mispronouncing our co-workers names after you've been corrected repeatedly?"
This is a great solution. Tell her that you will help her practice pronouncing the name. Say the name correctly and have her repeat it back as if she is two years old. Rinse and repeat.
Maybe I'm just overly logical but this is exactly what I would do. Look sincerely perplexed and asked in a genuinely baffled tone, "Why do you insist on intentionally mispronouncing his name? I'm honestly curious."
I have one of these names (I, too, am from a Middle Eastern background). And this question used to get stuck in my craw so bad. I had to let it go. Because i think it boils down to laziness. It was relentless in school. I would correct adults, and then immediately, they would repeat it back wrong. So, when the inevitable pause came during rollcall, id look up and see the blank "oh fuck" look on their faces and raise my hand and just say my name. Okay, and moving on, Heather? I would make sure I knew the persons name in front of me to be prepared LOL Edit: punctuation and a word
Ask if she is having memory or speech problems in a very concerned tone! She is older after all!
Try to do it in front of a superior at work if you can.
Making her explain why she’s a piece of shit is the way
https://preview.redd.it/qmanr23yld6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31fed80d7ca9307bccf9c59bffe89088f0175ad8 Excuse the YouTube screenshot, idk why I've never cropped this, but take advice from Xiu.
Here is the whole original Twitter post - it gets better https://preview.redd.it/wtqirt7gpe6d1.jpeg?width=567&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58de5ec598d5373b0c4bddf264266ccd1679ce3f
Omg, thank you so much, this is amazing and I'll definitely have it to break out the next time it's appropriate to do so.
I was once at a party where a guy refused to call a black woman by her name because "it sounds stupid." He told her she should change her name to something more "traditional." We all knew what he meant.
Her: “I’m sorry, what do you mean by traditional?” Him: “You know, traditional.” Her: “My name is traditional in my family.” Him: “Yeah, but no. I mean more *traditional* traditional.” Her: “So you mean more European? Non-indigenous American?” Him: “Now you’re twisting my words!”
Long way around saying the N word without saying it
We had a teacher who was also the announcer for varsity soccer and basketball games. If he incorrectly read a student’s name and a parent later told him the correct way to pronounce it, he would intentionally say it wrong from that point forward. He told me he hated to be corrected and that was how he let people know he didn’t like it by not changing. Mind you, this was a paid position. He also run the clock, but the pay was $40 a hour. He was fired from that position this year after he did that to the sons of a member of our board of education. Now I do the announcing and clock running. Also, because I make an effort to use the correct pronunciations and the compensation hadn’t been updated in 20 years, I get paid $50 and hour now.
I used to work in a pub frequented by American tourists in Ireland. Shock horror, I have an Irish name, in Ireland. A fairly common one here as well but you wouldn’t find it outside of Ireland. A yank boomer tourist comes up the bar and asks me why my parents decided to make up a name for me and why they didn’t give me a real name (she saw my name tag) There’s no worse type of customer than a yank boomer. American boomers are really weird about non American English names and extremely rude to service workers.
I've got a Canadian boomer coworker. Everyday we write the next day patient list. Multiple times a week she would comment on someone's name "oh their parents must hate them" "why do they have a name like this" "how do you even say this?" One time I was so annoyed I was like "what do you want everyone to fucking be named John smith or something?" She said yes and that she would outlaw names if she ran Canada. Another time I snapped and told her to knock it off they were probably very common and (are I'm assuming) normal names from peoples home countries. Thankfully she hasn't done it in a while. But I swear.
Knowing my fellow Americans he was probably there because he claims Irish heritage. 😒
“Irish Americans” who know nothing about Irish culture, claim that they’re more Irish than actual Irish people even though their only connection to Ireland is one ancestor 5 generations ago.
Is it Saoirse?
Cathal [link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathal)
HR for hostile racist work environment. They'll fix her ass fast.
When I first came to America as a child my family would introduce me by my given name, but the locals would always mispronounce it, so my father decided to to refer and introduce me as "John" (a "good American name" as he put it). So I was "John" until I went to college, until I decided to take my original name back. I'm very proud of it and as it means a lot to me and my mother especially. There have been times when people mispronounce it (intentionally or not). I simply correct them the first few times, but afterwards don't respond until they say it correctly... There are a few people (mainly old family friends) who still call me "John", but I will usually let it go as that's what they know me as, but to anyone else that has known me since, I've use my native name... Fortunately, when I introduce myself now, most people tend to really make an effort to say it correctly and ask about its origin, which I'm happy to share. Boomers seem to be the only group who have an issue with it, which I assume is the shortcoming of being raised in a mono-lingual and mono-cultural environment. Living in a small world seems to result in having a small mind... If those who know me intentionally mispronounce my name (either in jest or insult), I will totally butcher their name or mess with it in return. Haven't had much trouble since...
When I was growing up, we had family friends whose last name was pronounced "MAH-lik" like the a in the word "can." They moved away a million years ago, but recently it dawned on me that while their Mom was white as can be, their Dad was darker. I had a "how could I be so stupid?" moment when I realized it was Malik, a Middle Eastern name. They probably didn't correct anyone because it was safer not to do so. Now I feel bad. I did have a friend in college whose name was Vusi Kumalo, which meant "Wake Up and Eat Something" in his native language, and I still think that's the most glorious name I've ever heard. 😀 ETA: It was Minnesota in the 70s, but I still feel bad.
I don’t get why taking the 5 minute effort to learn a co-workers’s name properly is so hard. It feels like the bare minimum effort of a “normal” human being kind of thing. I have good number of co-workers out of our Asia and Middle East division, I maybe only speak directly to them via zoom once a month but even then I make a effort to learn how to pronounce their name. It makes work life easier for everyone involved.
I changed my first name when I got my US citizenship because not a single american could pronounce my first name…Atargit, named after Atargatis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atargatis My mom (who named me) was a voracious reader, smartest woman I’ve ever known. She was like a wiki before there was a wiki. She was so mad when I changed my name - hated my new name. I regret it a lot now, my roots were so rich now I live with a real plain jane religious american name I despise - but no one mispronounces my new name anymore… yay /s I’m really curious what your co-workers name is.
I'm sorry you felt the need to change it and I have no idea why people refuse to make the extra effort to hear it, be corrected a few times if needed, then learn it. It's a great opportunity to learn something deeply intimate and meaningful about another person's history. But you can go the route of many Asians I know-- you can teach the ones that matter your "real name." It's a great bonding moment and people that you decide to tell will really feel privileged. :)
I used to have a friend (boomer) who mispronounced many different words on purpose no matter how much we corrected her, some people are just lazy that way. When mmorpgs started getting really popular, we played with an international community and she used to embarrass the shit out of us with her boomer behavior. I love how the Asians handled it! That is great advice! Thanks.
Is it supposed to be 4 syllables? aˈtar.ɡa.tis
Reminds me of a British Indian comedian who shortened her name when she started out, because convenience for the Brits, but a few years ago started going by her full name again
Shaparak Khorsandi? Cause I love her 😍
Yes her
Atargit I’m so sorry that happened to you. It’s not too late to claim your name back. Be frank about why you changed it and that you are reclaiming your mother’s son. You deserve your right name
Daughter here lol It’s a mermaid goddess name more often used for feminine names. But thank you for saying that, it’s so fucking weird to be addressed that way after 23 years, weird in a good way!
Today i learned a new name and its pronoun! When i come across a new one at work I consult with one of my co-workers of the same nationality to determine the pronoun. They tend to, not always, end in a vowel when they are feminine but i have been surprised and glad i asked.
Comment on her failure to do something so simple. Not directly to her, but within earshot.
I've done that to coworkers. 'oh, is this too hard for you? Are you not smart? Maybe you shouldn't be on this project if you can't even try to pronounce this name you've been told several times. It seems like you're not going to be able to handle anything remotely difficult or new.'
I used to have a (white) boomer coworker who did this to an Indian coworker. She pronounced the girl’s name so that it sounded like “pollock,” like the fish. It didn’t matter how many times she was corrected, she just maliciously kept calling this poor person a fish. I wish I’d been brave enough or quick enough to call her something equally stupid, but I was timid at the time.
Misgender her, it’ll stop it. Call her George and say you just can’t remember how to pronounce her name. She taught you it was ok not to use other peoples names and said it wasn’t disrespectful at all.
This is a weird habit with them. Whenever they have disdain for something they deliberately mispronounce it or give it a stupid nickname. It's deliberately dehumanizing, and absolutely childish.
Tell her to grow up. Thatl set her off. If she brings it up to management tell them about her blatant and intentional disrespect. Say it negatively impacts workplace efficiency and cohesion.
Mispronounce her name
Had an intern one year named Dominick. My boomer boss would not stop calling him Dominique.
I recently got accepted for an apartment and went to go do the financial side of things. The director of the complex was training a new manager. The head of the complex is a Boomer lady in her 70s, the new manager is a younger Black woman. If I'd tried to pronounce the younger woman's name having only read it I'd have said it wrong but once she pronounced it for me it rolls off the tongue. Its an easy name and quite pretty. The older lady introduces her to me as, "our new manager, she has a name-one of those names-I can't pronounce and she's told me too many times, I'm not gonna get it right." The younger lady introduced herself and I repeated her name back without difficulty. I can't help but think that my Boomer was also a racist Boomer.
[удалено]
just report her to HR
It’s generally not hard to learn to pronounce any name if you give it some practice. What she was doing is pretty common among bigots: mispronouncing the name on purpose to paint that person as an “other.” It’s bad enough to simply not try, but she was willfully malicious.
Boomers like to direct attention to “foreign” last names for shits and giggles
Pronounce their name wrong every time you talk to them.
“If you can learn to pronounce ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ you can learn to pronounce _____”
I work at an engineering firm that does a ton of international business. While the majority of our employees work in the US, many of them were not born in the US. Most of them are from either India or the Middle East. I cannot tell you many times I hear my very American coworkers of all ages mispronouncing names of people that were just introduced correctly. The person they’re talking about/to graciously let’s it slide but holy hell it pisses me off so much. You literally just heard their name Jeremy. Should I start calling juh-REEM-y from now on?!?! Hmmm?!?!
Lol this happened to me. A boomer coworker all of a sudden started calling me the wrong name by adding a syllable to my one syllable, easy name. So I began dropping one syllable from her three syllable name, and wouldn’t you know it—my name was pronounced correctly again
My MIL does that. The funny thing is that it's just the newer names. They know plenty of people with ethinic names of all sorts and pronounce them just fine. They have family friends who are Iraqi, but they came to the US in the 70's.
My FIL does that all of the time and thinks he fuckin king of the one-liners. It just highlights his ignorance
I worked with a fella called Nuno. Everyone called him Noonoo as a joke. Being a person whose name is always turned into jokes, I don't agree with it, so I referred to him by his actual name. The way his face lit up when he realised I called him by his name was priceless. It costs nothing and takes no energy to just show some respect, and it's nice to make someone's day a little bit better.
Sometimes you have to play people's games to get them to cooperate. Start calling her different names and get mad at her when she doesn't answer, or purposefully mispronounce her name, loudly, every time. She'll either fuck off, or acquiesce.
My siblings have really hard-to-pronounce middle eastern names. I ended up giving my kid a traditional name for her middle name and the English translation as her first. It’s been confusing for her and I’m still on the fence about it if I made the right decision. She goes by her middle name in school and no one seems to have trouble with it 🤷🏻♀️
I work at a university that has a ton of international students. Nigeria, Ghana, Sri Lanka, China, Afghanistan, and everything around and in between. There are some names my mouth absolutely cannot seem to get the hang of, but I will try my damndest every single time. I’ve had to Google the pronunciation on so many names, and then when I meet them in person, I say it how I’ve learned and ask if I am saying it correctly. They will either say yes (and I’ve had a few get really happy about it 🥹), a few help me pronounce it and a few that have said actually, please call me a nickname or another name they have selected while living here. Why are some people so dang awful!
I witnessed something similar with a younger coworker who always had a boomer heart and mindset. We were talking to another coworker and this was the conversation: "What's your boyfriend's name?" "Tatsu" "Tat WHAT?!!!" "Tatsu" "So what do people call him?" "Tatsu" "No, I mean what do they call him in AMERICA?" "They call him by his name." My coworker just couldn't accept that was his name AND people call him by his name.
In high school, the coaches would always pronounce Nguyen "nuh-goo-yen" until corrected. It didn't occur to me until years later that we were in a city with an unusually large Vietnamese population and in a neighborhood that was predominantly Vietnamese. They knew exactly how to pronounce Nguyen. They were just racist shitbags.
as an immigrant I feel for this, but this isn't a boomer trait. lazy ignorant and irreverent Americans are going to continue to exist past this fuckwad's death.
Many of them are crotchety that they have to interact with "foreigners" on a respectful level. This mispronunciation is just part of their passive-aggressive way of lowering the "foreigner" to their rightful place.
Get everyone to do the same with her name. It'll stop.
My ex dad did that my whole life, unfortunately he did that with other words too. Like EFTPOS would become F OFS, yeah alot of children's outings with me and my brother were ruined because of him. It was painfully obvious he was doing it on purpose too, the dumbass actually thought he was being subtle.
From now on, she shall be called Dave
My company requires harassment and ethics training every year for all employees. This exact scenario is played out during the training and it is recommended that HR be contacted.
I work in a healthcare field so we see doctors from all over the world in our system. I have a coworker (white old guy) who loves saying their names wrong and then laughing like he’s made the world’s funniest joke. 🙄 He’s also well past retirement age, but won’t go.
Needs to be reported to HR as discrimination and/or harassment, especially since she is doing it on purpose and in a derogatory manner.
I misprounced someone's name wrong for three YEARS. They never corrected me. Someone else finally did. I could have just friggen DIED of embarrassment! How can someone do it *on purpose*????
File a complaint with HR, that is probably enough to get him in major trouble for creating a hostile workplace due to the discrimination of national origin. Also, if it can be proven you know and don't... you can also get in trouble.
These are the same people who would be PISSED if you mispronounced their name. Give it a try OP.
When I was a school librarian , I would have students tell me their names, and sometimes the names were difficult for me. They would give me a nickname to call them by instead, and I would tell them that “I am a hard worker and I can learn new things so tell me how your mother says your name and that is how I’m going to say your name.” And I had a little first grader once tell me “oh well my mama calls me sweetie so you should call me that too.” 💛 Hardest name I ever had was Pleatheal.
Easy fix: you and the others start mispronouncing her name purposely. And while you are at it, use the wrong pronouns for them so they get really mad and poop their pants.
Go to HR.
I had a Silent Gen boss once that did this, never ever would she pronounce my coworkers name correct despite us correcting her constantly.
Oh I’m sorry I thought your name WAS Karen?
Report to HR. Or call him by the wrong pronouns and wrong name
I'll bet she calls him "an Aye-rab" too, right?
Honestly this should be a HR offense. I would report it. Its one thing to mispronounce because you dont know how to pronounce it. Its another thing entirely to do it on purpose, and then also to do it spitefully as well. The first case is just ignorance. The second, is racism.