• Gary Varga (10/29/2013)


    Richard Warr (10/29/2013)


    Sean Pearce (10/29/2013)


    My name can be spelt a few different ways and I am used to people getting it wrong....

    You make a valid point but it reminds me of the actor Sean Bean. How on Earth is anybody not skilled in the nuances of English (including many who have it as a first language) supposed to get that one right?

    He should choose to be called either "Shaun Born" or "Seen Been", any other combination is just stretching the point too far 😉

    Is not the point that if someone was respectful then they would both be open to being corrected and make a reasonable attempt to apply it in their use?

    Also, forget English...try Gaelic...Niamh anyone?

    Well, at least it's the same language as "Sean". which means that English speakers will mangle it as much as they mangle Sean, perhaps more because it's a bit mroe common in the |english speaking world. But people with Gaelic names who insist on using Gaelic (Scottish or Irish) spellings for them should perhaps not be surprised when the Gaill Wogs Sasunnaich Anglophones mis-pronounce them: the rather well known singer Eithne ended up using the spelling "Enya", most people whose name is Seumas use the Anglicised spelling "Hamish" (sounds like the vocative form, Sheumais), every Ailean I know spells his name "Alan" when communicating with Anglophones, "Cailean" spells his name "Colin".

    Of course people keep on telling me there's a misprint on my passport or on my driving licence, and so on; the UK passport and identity service doesn't tell me that, those people have either more sense or more knowledge. I use either the name Tom or just the initials C M when in English (or indeed any non-Gaelic language) and don't get any mispronounciations (although some do insist on expanding Tom to Thomas, which is no name or nickname of mine and never has been).

    Tom