| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | How to respond when a client misspells your name Thread poster: Metin Demirel
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I had a client - another refugee from ex-Jugoslavia - whose name had a couple of diacritics, and I actually copied his name into my spelling checker/Autocorrect and added him to the dictionary!
Otherwise, the spelling checker in my mail altered it, even after I had carefully copied and pasted it to get the diacritics in place.
I have seen it change my UK spelling to US - which is especially infuriating when I try to explain that I am a Brit and cannot be trusted with US Englis... See more I had a client - another refugee from ex-Jugoslavia - whose name had a couple of diacritics, and I actually copied his name into my spelling checker/Autocorrect and added him to the dictionary!
Otherwise, the spelling checker in my mail altered it, even after I had carefully copied and pasted it to get the diacritics in place.
I have seen it change my UK spelling to US - which is especially infuriating when I try to explain that I am a Brit and cannot be trusted with US English.
Depending on their settings - the problem MAY be at that level rather than intentional.
Personally, I don't worry except where it affects security. I get called Cristina or Christina (with an a) or Mrs Anderson (with an o) all the time, plus Danish variants of my name with K...
I have trouble with people's phone numbers: I cannot remember numbers for two minutes. But I can spell their names! Many apparently have the opposite problem - they can remember PINs and telephone numbers, but cannot spell names correctly... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Baran Keki 
Türkiye
Local time: 16:29
Member
English to Turkish
I've noticed that some people are incapable of distinguishing first names from surnames. They just address you casually/informally with your surname even if you signed the email with your first name, and they continue the same behaviour throughout the email thread. It's maybe that in some countries/cultures surnames come before one's given name, I don't know.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| It works the other way too | May 27, 2022 |
Wolfgang wrote: Tom in London wrote:
So he applied to change his name. The trouble was, you are only allowed to change the first or last letter. So his only options were Merde or Smerd. In the end he just settled for "call me Silvano".
[Edited at 2022-05-27 08:41 GMT] LOL
I once worked with a guy called Facchinetti. I had to advise him never to visit London. His name sounds very offensive to London ears.
[Edited at 2022-05-27 12:13 GMT]
| | | | | I mind when... | May 27, 2022 |
they call me Giovanna... 
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[quote]Tom in London wrote:
Tom in London wrote:
I once worked with a guy called Facchinetti. I had to advise him never to visit London. His name sounds very offensive to London ears.
[Edited at 2022-05-27 12:13 GMT]
Can you please let me know why? You posted this also in another thread and I am curious, I googled but could not find an explanation, please let me know, there is also a famous family in the show business in Italy with that surname.
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| Japanese naming convention | May 27, 2022 |
Baran Keki wrote:
It's maybe that in some countries/cultures surnames come before one's given name, I don't know.
At least in Japan, yes. Japanese put their family names before their first names. The order often follows the western naming convention when their names are romanized. But sometimes, things went overlooked and left in the original Japanese naming order. If you work with Japanese clients or agencies, be sure to address them properly. Names such as Fujiwara or Suzuki are definitely surnames, even if they were written first.
EDIT:
Although just FYI, recently the Japanese government decided that their names should be written with family names first, romanized or not. But they may still follow the western naming convention when communicating globally. But maybe not. Just keep an eye on it, so you don't embarrass yourselves.
https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2019102500730/japan-to-use-surname-first-style-in-official-documents-from-jan-1.html
[Edited at 2022-05-27 17:43 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| WARNING: potentially offensive language | May 27, 2022 |
Angie Garbarino wrote: Can you please let me know why? You posted this also in another thread and I am curious, I googled but could not find an explanation, please let me know, there is also a famous family in the show business in Italy with that surname.
If you're familiar with the London accent, you'll know that the beginning of the Italian surname Facchinetti would sound immediately very rude. It sounds like something beginning with the swear word "f**king"pronounced very harshly, with emphasis, then followed by something incomprehensible.
[Edited at 2022-05-27 20:32 GMT]
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 16:29
Member
English to Turkish
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
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Tom in London wrote: Angie Garbarino wrote: Can you please let me know why? You posted this also in another thread and I am curious, I googled but could not find an explanation, please let me know, there is also a famous family in the show business in Italy with that surname. If you're familiar with the London accent, you'll know that the beginning of the Italian surname Facchinetti would sound immediately very rude. It sounds like something beginning with the swear word "f**king"pronounced very harshly, with emphasis, then followed by something incomprehensible. [Edited at 2022-05-27 20:32 GMT]
It's clear now, Chiarissimo
| | | | Barbara Carrara
Italy
Local time: 15:29
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Wolfgang wrote:
At least, here in France, they don't care too much about a non-French name as I may be native from Alsacia, but without some help they would never get it right.
Did you mean Alsace? But I digress.
My name is spelled B-a-r-b-a-r-a and it remains unchanged - well, with the Streisand misspelled exception, and very few other options, perhaps - across multiple languages.
Still, I chuckle when I am associated with one of the wines from my region [Piedmont, in N-W Italy], with some people calling me Barbera when writing to me.
And the icing on the cake, is when they also misspell my surname - again not that difficult to get right - with a car. Or a Nicaraguan-born actress, who's also my namesake. Yup, Carrera.
And I do correct whoever is unable to get my name right. Likewise, I get overly apologetic when it happens to me with other people's name/surname.
Bear with me. Consider my name+surname combo. If you superimpose them, you'll only have the B and the C disrupting an otherwise perfect alignment. How can some people not see that?
And in case you're wondering, yes, I am exactly that sort of person.
My full name is only bad when it comes to anagrams: carb bar, arab car, rab crab, crab [capi]bara, barb -ar, aaaaaarrrrrbbc...!?!
| | | | Becca Resnik
United States
Local time: 09:29
Member
German to English
+ ...
Barbara Carrara wrote:
Bear with me. Consider my name+surname combo. If you superimpose them, you'll only have the B and the C disrupting an otherwise perfect alignment.
The visual comparison reminds me of how my husband corrects people on his name. "Pawlowski" can evidently be written all manner of ways when the ear is trying to make sense of it. Everyone knows of Pavlov's dog, so he has fun explaining it this way: Write Pavlov. Now add "ski." Now turn the w's into v's.
And the icing on the cake, is when they also misspell my surname
My first and last name get butchered on the daily too! My first name a) has a number of variations, what with k's and h's and such and b) is not "Rebecca." That was my birth name, but I dislike it so much that I legally changed it. It used to be that maybe 20% or so of people would call me by my full name even though they never met me as such, which I still think is very odd. People still occasionally make the assumption and call me by my former first name, but now I get to say, "That's not my name," and often their surprise alone is enough to be mnemonic.
As for the last name, people cannot stop their compulsion to throw a "c" in there. To the point that I've learned to spell my name out to people like this: R-E-S-N-I-K-there-is-no-C-in-my-last-name. That's cut back on the issue, but believe it or not, it still happens now and then. Now don't even get me started on pronunciations – you wouldn't think you could read "Resnik" more than a couple ways, but apparently so...
Oh, I suppose I could answer the question at hand! Frankly, I just ignore it. As long as it's correct on payment-related documents, that's all I care about. The name issues matter enough for me to correct them only when it comes to the mistakes I detailed above, which mainly happen outside the setting of my business (usually in-person conversations for the first name and phone conversations with the bank and such for the last name).
And to second what another colleague mentioned, why aren't people copy/pasting names? That's the obvious solution, and it's what I do almost invariably just to make certain every letter is accounted for and in its rightful place.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Barbara Carrara wrote:
Bear with me.
I'm so glad you wrote that. You wouldn't believe the number of people who write "bare with me".
| | | | Michael Newton
United States
Local time: 09:29
Japanese to English
+ ...
| Client misspells your name | Jun 4, 2022 |
"Bare with me". Perhaps there is an ulterior motive here.
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 09:29
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
Jean Lachaud wrote:
It happens all the time, People can't read, or spell.
That's why they hire linguists.
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