Amanda the Great by Amanda El-Dweek for May 09, 2022

And, I thought I had problems with my last name. By now, I just automatically spell it as if it is part of the name.

That fella on the phone is lucky that the name has no Ayn ع or H^a ح

It is the well rounded stones that roll with the flow.

Yay, I’ve been getting it right!

I have a simple name that you would think no one could mess up…….yet, they do! Go figure.

You must get that, all the time! Sometimes, people will pronounce my name, Gimbil! Go figure!

People pronouce my family Andrade, as An-drade or An-dra-dee, my father, a barowner with mostly Irish and Polish customers was known as Andy. (I’m Portuguese)

That’s a good way to know if it is phone solicitor. My wife’s name is LaFlamme (rhymes with The Jam), so most solicitors make it rhyme with La Jame.

My favorite mispronunciation of my last name is when telemarketers apparently think it’s of Italian origin: “ruh-CHEE-nee”. My second favorite was the time someone tried pronouncing it like “raisin”. Of course, the most common mispronunciation is actually the correct way to pronounce the city in Wisconsin with the same spelling.

I went from a maiden name that my supervisor couldn’t pronounce, to a married name she couldn’t pronounce. Yikes. Married name is “Haymes” which rhymes with “games,” but for some reason she called me Hems, Haymies, and my favorite, Hammond.

Ah, yes… the vagaries of being named El-Dweek.

My first name, maiden name and married name..have been mangled & mispronounced for ages.

My dad went by his initials. On the phone ordering something: “No, just put DL for the name…” “Yes, I can spell that. It’s the letter’D’ a period, and the letter’L’ and a period.” Package came addressed to “Dperiod Lperiod [Smith]”.

I had a friend who told me that his last name used to be different. One of his ancestors went through Ellis Island, and the ancestor decided that his last name was “too ethnic”, so he changed it. It previously was “Stana”, and he changed it to “Stano”. I’m not so sure that the change made it less “ethnic”!

I gave up on people mis-pronouncing my last name or mis-spelling, so now I automatically pronouce my name immediately followed by spelling it as if were all one word. Same with my hometown’s name.