If your name isn't traditional, please spell it out.
 

Kind of a pet peeve. It bugs me when I receive voicemail from anyone with a non-traditional/foreign name and I'm expected to call them back. At the very least, I probably won't pronounce it properly and when asked to respond by email, I'll probably kill it on the spelling. My first name is can be spelled with a C or K so I always say which but my last name is defintely foreign so I make sure to spell it out. Anyway, just ranting.

You ought to be named "Milt." I have friends that haven't figured it out in years. They write Melt. I have heard back "milk?" as well as Mel 1000's of times. There are even some more obscure misnomers. I always spell it out or just say "Milton." To the Spanish speakers I say "Miltone." That's the way they hear it in their country.

if calling, pronounce as they pronounced on the message

if emailing, dispense with the salutation (no "dear milt") but include a signature, and hope their email reply has a sig line

if their name is unusual, they are used to it being mangled

Just don't name your boy "Sue."

Add phone numbers spoken one time at warp speed to the rant list...

When I was in South Africa I had a phone message to call a guy called Suzanne. I cautously called visulising a big bloke in a dress and indeed it was a bloke called Suzanne. I think it's an Africaans name that may have needed translating.

+1 grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

My name is Willem.
People who don't know me call me "Bill" "Will" "William"
What they don't know is my mom gave me a nick name.......I go by Tim:confused:

I have a very short, unusual last name, and people who hear it like to add a letter that is not there. I have a very purposeful method of spelling my last name, to emphasize the letter that is not there.

True Story, My first name is Hugh. I've had it called Hu, Who, whatever. Anyway I was at a bar as a youth and I told this chick my name was Hugh and she said "I've never heard that name before". I said "Sure you have, like Hugh Hefner" and she said "Wow, are you related?". True story. She was Blond.

lolo, English teachers can't even say my name right!!!

2 of the simplest words in English !!!

cars (like in "I have 2 cars)
ten (like in the number "10")

lolo ...

+ 1 on warp speed phone numbers
I'm glad that they know their own number so well that they can say it as fast as their own name, too bad that it takes me up to 4 times to listen to the dumb message just for their number ...

Even worse...phone numbers spoken at warp speed (or mumbled) at the end of a ridiculously long and useless voice message. No way I'm going to sit through that again to try and decipher the number. There's a software vendor that wants our company's business who keeps doing that. Can't understand why I don't call him back.

So it's Cant or Kant?

Wow, did you guys know that legion is actually Mr. T?

http://poprockcandymountain.com/wp-c...008/04/mrt.jpg

That's awesome - nice to meet you.

:D:D:D:D:D

I took after Prince and changed my name. Don't know how to tell people my name without showing them, so I stick to e-mail...

http://www.craigoldham.co.uk/files/princesymbol.jpg

I had a guy I worked with for years. His last name was Polish (I'm sure) and he spelled it out every time he spoke with someone. 15 years later, I can still spell it out... CZ, UP, RY, NA.

Bill Czupryna.

Asian names are the worst. I had a guy at the local permitting office who was nice enough to spell it out, but it didn't help. He pronounced his name "G," just like the letter, and spells it "Hyi." With the thickness of his accent, I had to listen to the message 5 times to make sure I had it right.

Speaking of Asians, remember that guy from some TV talent show a few years back who was such a dorky bad singer that he became a pop idol for a while? Well, he wasn't much of a lady's man in appearance or personality - and his last name didn't help when he'd get up the courage to approach a woman in a club and say, "Hi. I'm Hung".

Want to know my pet peeve when it comes to names?

When someone asks for my FIRST name (via phone, to fill out a form...etc). I will say, Zoltan, and then spell it out. Z-O-L-T-A-N.

Then they will respond, thank you for your last name. Now can I have your first name please?!?

GRRRRR!!!!!

-Z.

I just tell them my mother is Asian and my first names are

SUK MI.

Whoops, already taken by the opposite gender:
Suk Mi | Facebook

I'm NOT making this up!

When I was a little kid living in a small town in Ohio, we had a neighbor a block away, an elderly man, who had an insurance agency - Mr. Kyle.

His initals were K. K. K. His first name was Kyle and his middle name was Kyle.

That's the truth. :confused:

I just heard a radio add for some company with a name that would have many options on spelling. They referred to their website several times, but never bothered with the spelling. What a waste of advertising money.

Funny Z-Man try two first names, Bob James they ask "what's your last name" I say "James" they say no your last name!!

As far as spelling it's A-S-S-S-P-H-Y-N-T-E-R-S-A-Y-S-W-H-A-T

I have a client named "David Michael". Even though I've known him for years, every time I call his office, I forget in which order his names fall. Half the time I ask for "Michael David"...

We could talk about people who make up unusual, almost comical first names for their kids but that might offend someone and we don't want to do that.

If someone leaves a message for me that is either too long, unintelligible, says the phone number too fast, or makes it hard in any other way they will not receive a call back.

I get at least a dozen calls a day at work from vendors and most of them never hear from me because of the above reasons.
If I had a salesperson working for me the very first thing I would teach them is how to correctly leave a voice message.

Met a woman that actually named her son LaTrene (yep, pronounced the same way) once. I actually giggled out loud. She had no idea what a latrine was until I told her. Poor kid, he'll probably be pretty tough by the time he's 25.

I usually spell my name out for people.... They always want to spell it Sydney... Its really SIDNEY


I'd go by my middle name of LEE... But my dad goes by LEE and pretty much everyone around here knows him.... It'd just cause too much confusion....

I spell out my last name phonetically....4 lousy letters and they still screw it up....I get letters addressed to VOIF all the time....

Chip Evual used to call you Zo-is. RIP Chip and Don Vader.

People ask me all the time to spell my last name. B-E-L-L. :rolleyes:

I pity the fool that tries to add "EE" or "EA" to my last name.

At my first job we had packages come in all the time on Greyhound bus lines. We would get a call from them that our a package had arrived. The problem was that the man that called had a cleft pallet and was almost impossible to understand. Of all the jobs the man could have done just fine, they give him the phone call job.

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OK, try this one. I'm named after my father. I'm the 2nd.
But when I was a little kit it was too confusing so my dad started calling me Sam (from the Sam Spade character).
The nick-name stuck.

So everyone in the bidness knows me as Sam but that's not my real name.
At least once a month someone calls and tells me they can't find my e-mail addy in the system.
I 'splain that it's under a different name and the Einsteins in IT refuse to change it to Sam because they have a policy against customized e-mail addys.

When my first son was born I DID NOT name him after me.

If my folks had followed tradition I would have been Homer Franklin...

It goes...

Homer Lee(great grandpappy)
Homer Franklin(grandpappy)
Homer Lee (dad)
Sidney Lee (me, lucky one that broke the trend)

We had a recent customer that has the epitome of a name that needs to be spelled.

When I write up a work order I always ask for a name for the job. He said his name for the job would be X Y Lastname. So I wrote that down thinking that was his company name. Then he handed me his card. His name is Eks Wye Lastname. The real topper is, he is the 3rd. His dad and grandfather knew full well what name to saddle him with.

There is one other family in central Illinois with my last name. The father is a vet. They live in Peoria. I live in Bloomington.

I know when I meet people and they can pronounce my last name, that they know this guy. I am always asked if I am related. My stock answer:

"No. However, when I was a kid growing up in Washington (suburb of Peoria), we used to get phone calls a 3 a.m.: 'My horse is going into labor!' My dad was an IBM salesmen, he couldn't help. We kept Dr. T's phone number next to the phone."

I just got a voice mail and the person nicely spelled out their first and last name as it was also part of their email address.

The name; Bob Smith

Im not kidding.