‘I’m fed up of my name being mispronounced – strangers even add a letter’

A woman has said she’s tired of her name constantly being butchered by people who can’t pronounce it correctly – as some even try to add extra letters that aren’t there

Having a unique name certainly has its benefits, but as anyone with a less conventional name will tell you – myself included – it can be a real nightmare trying to teach people how to pronounce it. If you’ve got an unusual moniker, or one that’s just spelt a little differently, you probably understand the pain of constantly having to correct teachers, new co-workers, and companies you have to make phone calls to.

And one woman has now shared her frustration in a viral video, in which she ran through some of the ways her name has been butchered by people who have no idea how to pronounce it.

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Emeline Rose posted a video to her TikTok account, @emeline_rose_, and said that while some pronunciations get pretty close to the real thing, others couldn’t be further away – and one even adds an extra letter that isn’t there.

The woman started by saying the “most common” mispronunciation she is faced with is “Emmalin”, which she said is “not quite” right, but isn’t a million miles away.

Next up was “Emily”, which Emeline again said was “close”, but was missing the “n” sound at the end of her name. She also simply said “NO” in response to people calling her “Emma-lean”, as she insisted that wasn’t right either.

But the most egregious of the mispronunciations was “Evelyn”, as she said: “Excuse me, I don’t see a ‘v’ in my name!”

In the caption of her video, Emeline then revealed the actual pronunciation of her name, as she wrote: “It’s pronounced Emma Line.”

Commenters on the video were largely made up of people who understood Emeline’s frustration, as they too had dealt with their own name being butchered more times than they could count.

One person said: “My name is Katyn. Pronounced kay-tin. I’ve been called Kaitlin or Katie all my life. Shortened it to ‘Kate’ when I got older. It was too much.”

While another added: “That’s how I feel with my name Kylee and get called Kaylee when there’s not even an ‘A’! It gets frustrating.”

And a third wrote: “Don’t worry, my name is Cassidee – like Cassidy – and some people pronounce it like Candace.”

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