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For 6 years now, my local taxi firm has been addressing me by the wrong name. It started off from them putting my misheard name into their computer in a brief phone call, but since I only ever contact them when I need to get somewhere or get home, I've never bothered correcting them. Now it has got to the point where they stand at airports with my wrong name on a card, send me christmas cards with the wrong name and always address me by that name when I'm getting taxis to places. It's pretty funny and I feel the window for correcting them is faaaaaar in the past.

Anyone have any similar stories?

I had a dog that received his very own junk mail. He did the only apprproiate thing and tore it to shreads.

How 'wrong' are they?

Just a bit, or hilariously so?

BT have called me by the wrong name for more or less 5 years. I only bothered correcting it when we moved house.

Alpharius wrote:How 'wrong' are they?

Just a bit, or hilariously so?

50% of my surname is wrong. A bad phone line and it might sound the same, otherwise pretty funny.

My ex girlfriend broke up with me (when she magically started dating someone else lol), and to this day she claims I did the breaking up. Thats over five years ago, i am married and have too kids with someone COMPLETELY different.
And here is when she got deleted off my FB friends, she IM's me (about a year ago) with "do you think things would have been different if you never dumped me?"
ick.... exes.

I used to catch the bus to work, leaving at around 7 in the morning. So one day we're stopped at a later stop and this guy has got onboard but he only has a £20 note which the driver can't/won't change. They continue to bicker and everyone sits there glancing at their watches. After something like five minutes I've had enough. I stand up, go down to the front and give the guy £2 for his fare.

"Pay me tomorrow, or next week.. whenever....."

He pays his fare and we off we journey, and I arrive at work on time and all is well.

Next day this guy gets on the bus looks about, sees me and comes over and pays me back.

"Thanks very much, I really appreciated that " he says.

"No worries " say I, nursing a hangover.

"Tom" he says.

"Mike" I say and offer my hand to shake...

.. there's a slightly awkward moment when I then twig his right arm ends at the elbow, but we smile and shake left hands instead.

Not long after this I changed shifts and started catching a different bus. Time goes by....

... and then one day I'm walking home. Tom is walking the other way, sees me and waves and yells

"Hi Mark !"

It's late, he's the other side of the road ... so I just smile and wave back....

..this was about 5 years ago now, and as I live in a fairly small place I still bump into him once in a blue moon.

.. and he still calls me Mark.

There is no way I can correct him after all this time, without us both becoming hermits out of shame.

So every now and again, say I'll be with friends or something, I'll bump into this guy .. who will call me Mark throughout our entire conversation.... much to the puzzlement of any friends with me.

The worst example of this being one time when my parents were visiting. We'd gone to the pub for dinner and as we arrived Tom -- very drunk -- holding hands with his ( I presume) boyfriend were leaving.

"Hello Mark ! haven't seen you for ages.. blah blah etc etc..."

There's my parents staring at me, I can see the question forming in their minds....

.. we go into the pub and mum goes

"Well Michael, I'm disappointed..."

... I start to try and explain and she actually leaves me speechless

"Pretending you've got a different name just because he's disabled like that ! You should be ashamed !"

I have, what appears to be, the rare last name of Fookes. Thats pronounced "Folks," I'm not sure if it was originally Volks or Fuchs, I guess somewhere between Saxony and England my family started to transition from german to english, but the name never quite made it.

As you can imagine, it makes for some interesting pronunciation errors, especially through out my school years. I hardly even correct anyone anymore, its such a common occurrance. The usual error is pronouncing it like its spelled, but Ive been called everthing from "Fokeys" to "F*cks."

My name's Rex and I get called, "Rick" a great deal. And for some reason people seem to like to add an "s" to the end of my last name.

People are forever pronouncing my surname wrong, but as I never let that slide, I guess I'm in the wrong thread

Red -

My mum calls me by the wrong name half the time, but then I have 3 brothers and she does it to all of us.

We had a guy join the rugby club his mate brought him along and just sort of shouted out his name to everyone while we were going through a drill.

Now because everyones attention was elsewhere by the end of the session no one was certain what his name was and felt it would be too itimidating and rude to go and ask him directly what his name was, then someone pipped up thats Dougey. Job done everyone calls him Dougey.

A few years pass, Dougey ingraciates himself to the club, everyone knows him and likes him and he becomes a regular 2nd/3rd team player.

One week his parents turn up to watch him play and afterwards his mum come up to me in the club bar and asks where Robert is?

"Sorry love, don't know a Robert? Does he play for the opposition?"

"Of course he doesn't you drunken oaf, theres a picture of him on the wall over there. Thats Robert!"

It turns out he allowed the whole memership of the club to call him Dougey because he just thought that everyone got given a knickname when they joined the club, despite lots of people joining after him not being given any nicknames. In retrospect he's quite daft really and is still called Dougey in honour of that fact.

+1 to notprop this made me laugh.

legoburner wrote:

Alpharius wrote:How 'wrong' are they?

Just a bit, or hilariously so?

50% of my surname is wrong. A bad phone line and it might sound the same, otherwise pretty funny.

Hah!
I hear you on that Lego.

My surname is "Risley".

How does any doctor's office, government agency, etc that call me refer to it?
"Risely".

It lets me get to make an amazing correction, however.

"Think Grizzly. As in Grizzly Bears. Y'know, the ones that would maul you for calling them Grisely Bears?. Grizzly--without the G".

Reds8n wins the thread so far.

I think you British people are just too polite. You wouldn’t believe how many people somehow get “Greg” out of “Ragnar”, despite me having worked phones for years and having fairly darn clear enunciation. But I always correct them.

I get called Scott, a lot, and by different groups of people. My name is Chris so not even that close. I guess I must just look like a Scott.

Well, really Mannahnin.

If I were answering the phone and someone named Ragnar was calling--I'd probably call him Greg too. Just so I wasn't worried about Viking longships sailing out my cordless phone.

I get my surname mis-pronounced quite often, I tend to correct people straight away to avoid any embarrasment later on.

What I can't stand is when you tend to get those pushy sales types who find out your name and then use it at the end of every sentence, especialy if they get the name wrong. It makes me want to flip out and carve it into their forehead!

My name is Johnston. Get called Johnson most of the time. I could correct people on it and fight for this T my scotish ancestors fought and died for, but I couldn't be bothered.

Mannahnin wrote:Reds8n wins the thread so far.

I think you British people are just too polite. You wouldn’t believe how many people somehow get “Greg” out of “Ragnar”, despite me having worked phones for years and having fairly darn clear enunciation. But I always correct them.

Greg's right. You really have to correct someone immediately or they start to think you're daft if you correct them much later.

My wife has been getting letters to a misspelled version of her name for years. It would be similar to sending a letter to Fralled instead of Frazzled.

My last name is pronounced with a K but spelled with a C and my first name is a rare misspelling of a very common name. Everytime I sign up for something or have a reservation some place I have to spell my whole name. I've been doing this my entire life.

I have problems with people around here pronouncing my last name wrong. Usually its only slightly off so sometimes I just let it go. But sometimes, Ill get things in the mail addressed so poorly I actually have to think if it was for me, only spelled horribly wrong......or was the wrong person entirely. Its pretty damn annoying when that happens, because I dont know if I should send it back, or open it lol.

Oddly enough though, if I go down south, I almost NEVER hear someone say it wrong.

One of the staff who joined us about four years ago miss-heard my name and called me Dan, instead of Den.

I never corrected him, as I assumed he could hear the other staff calling me Den, and would change as well. But he never has, just continues to call me Dan.

Doesn't really bother me. I've had worse alt names, in School they called me John (As in Rambo) for three years because I looked kinda nuts when playing football. I call it being focused.

Our surname gets mixed up alot as well, as its one letter short of Tosser and yep, first letter is whats different. Its why we didn't worry about what names we gave the kids, if folks are gonna take the mickey, the surname is already framed up ready to go.

My name is Steve Collis. I learned early on when giving my name to spell it right away to deter some of the error. A typical phone conversation where give my name goes something like "My name is Steve Collis, c-o-l-l-i-s. No, Coll-is with no 'n.' And that's Steve, s-t-e-v-e, with a V. There's no 'ph.'" When working at Dillards I was telling this story to a regular customer. She came in the next day and ended with "Have a good day, Mr. Collins! With the 'N's,' I remembered! Steven Collins!" She seemed too proud of herself for me to air my disgust. Every person over 30 who meets me starts calling me "Steven" immediately after I introduce myself as Steve. I sometimes tell them and hear the response "I didn't know you changed it." I "changed it" when I was 8 >_<

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:My name is Steve Collis. I learned early on when giving my name to spell it right away to deter some of the error. A typical phone conversation where give my name goes something like "My name is Steve Collis, c-o-l-l-i-s. No, Coll-is with no 'n.' And that's Steve, s-t-e-v-e, with a V. There's no 'ph.'" When working at Dillards I was telling this story to a regular customer. She came in the next day and ended with "Have a good day, Mr. Collins! With the 'N's,' I remembered! Steven Collins!" She seemed too proud of herself for me to air my disgust. Every person over 30 who meets me starts calling me "Steven" immediately after I introduce myself as Steve. I sometimes tell them and hear the response "I didn't know you changed it." I "changed it" when I was 8 >_<

That sounds like me big time. My last name is Jarrell. Pronounced like barrel, but with a J. But on the phone or in person I always spell it out. J-a-r-r-e-l-l, or say it and say Jarrell with a J. I always get Gerald and the like, or people pronounce it JA-RELL its annoying at times.

My girlfriends used to call me God. "Oh God, Oh God."

I wasn't going to correct them.

Fateweaver wrote:My girlfriends used to call me God. "Oh God, Oh God."

I wasn't going to correct them.

Is that as in - oh god, oh god, get this thing off me?

Fateweaver wrote:My girlfriends used to call me God. "Oh God, Oh God."

I wasn't going to correct them.

Shame you picked up 40k and put a stop to all of that

Naw, been doing 40k for 15 years. Every gf I had knew about it. One actually played during the time we were together, the rest didn't care so long as I made time for them. Of course football sunday was always football before them but that's just expected.

Fateweaver wrote:Naw, been doing 40k for 15 years. Every gf I had knew about it. One actually played during the time we were together, the rest didn't care so long as I made time for them. Of course football sunday was always football before them but that's just expected.

If that is intimately together then you need to step up your game!