What should you do when someone continues to mispronounce your child’s name?

Personally I think that’s a poor excuse from the instructor. It doesn’t sound like it’s a particullarly difficult name to get right once you have been corrected. I find that quite rude on the instructors part because she is not even trying by the sounds of it. Have you told her that your daughter is now pronouncing her own name wrong due to this womans laziness?

When I am sending emails or letters at work I often get replies back starting with “Dear Lianne” but (as you can see, my name is Leanne) and even after I have signed my name as Leanne, many still continue to address things to Lianne. Once or twice is an understandable mistake but any more than that proves rudeness on the other persons part. They haven’t even bothered to read my correspondance enough to spell my name right.

It’s only one letter but for some reaqson it irks me a great deal!

You could always tell the instructor, “Normally I wouldn’t make an issue, but Amina’s name is spelled [as such] and is pronounced [as such], and I do not want her to have confusion about her own name.” It’s nice, but still stern enough that doesn’t give the instructor any room for excuses – it’s for the well-being of your daughter’s development.

Our landlord, he’s very old, calls my son David (his name is Daniel). We just deal with it. My son is not bothered by it and says he actually likes the name change!

The way that you wrote the explnation in the Q is very clear. How about providing that written guideline for the instructor so she knows what she’s doing wrong visually?

By the way, it is a beautiful name and not hard to pronounce.

Perhaps tell her the meaning so it sticks with her. It is honest and faithful, right?

My own grandmother never got my name right. Meh.. she was old and had 36 others to try to remember. But I agree with PoofandMook and Marina. Stop it now, but politely.

I agree with everyone who says to stop it now, but politely. However, if the teacher does not respond appropriately and your daughter continues to question how she says her own name, don’t be afraid to escalate your complaint to the teacher’s direct supervisor.

My kids have these Russian names (Arkadiy and Alexey) and some people do have trouble, repeatedly – but I never felt that it was because they were doing it on purpose – I shorten Arkadiy’s name to Ark to make it easier, but would hate if people called Alexey Alex as that’s not his name

People mess up my sons name quite often, they call him Chase…but his name is Cash. I politely correct them, but just telling them that his name is Cash. I’m sure you can approach the instructor, because this may be an issue she’ll see over the years and would probably appreciate being told the correct way.

Politely correct them.

One of my daughters name is Alaina (ah-lane-uh), and people have trouble with it quite often. She goes by Lainey (Lane-ee) and people even have trouble with that! I agree with what everyone has said, but some people truly do have trouble with names, and just can’t get them right. If your sense is that the instructor is one of these people (and not just lazy), you might suggest an alternative nickname that you are comfortable with.

@augustlan: ooh, Lainey.. I love that name ;)

I’ve worked in teaching day care facilities before. Please tell the director about the teacher’s excuse for not bothering to learn how to correctly pronounce your daughter’s name. If she’d rather be somewhere else, I’m sure the director can help her arrange that. If the teacher doesn’t fathom the kind of power she has in the formative stages of probably up to 14 kids at a time, then she has no business working there.

Don’t assume the teacher is trying to be difficult. It really can be hard to remember to call someone one way when your intuition is screaming at you to pronounce it another.

Your daughter’s teacher needs to make an effort to at least get the names of each of her students, saying she’s not good with names is the same as a kid saying, “I’m just not good at math” and then expecting to be let off the hook for making the effort, slowing down, whatever.

Both my daughter’s names get miss pronounced alot , well not so much Amy now ( the used to say Ammiee ) we just said her name directly after they said it their way . As for Imogen ( We was it Imogin ) people always say ( Emmma-jane or imogeane ) again we just say her name directly after they say it and see if they correct themselves .

Mispronounce the teacher’s name a few times.

My daughter’s name is Ellie, but her preschool insisted on writing her name as Elle, as in Elle McPhearson. I simply corrected it repeatedly and politely until it finally sank in. In fact, by the time my daughter could write her own name she had also learned to correct the staff politely but firmly.

We also have a simple, four-letter last name, but folks insist in adding a tilda to the n in it. The name means something mildly titillating in Spanish, but even folks who do not speak Spanish do it. We simply spell it out and then pronounce it clearly.

I have an alternative spelling to a fairly common name and now, at 35, I’m just so over it. I don’t care if it’s spelled wrong (my grandmother never spelled my name right) or said wrong, but if you continue to correct someone and they blatantly ignore it, there is a problem.

At 3 she needs some consistency, but this might be something you and she will be dealing with for a long time to come.

As someone who has a hard time remembering how to pronounce unfamiliar names, I find it really helpful when someone says: my name is i.e. “Dara” and you say it just like “Sarah”. I don’t want to say someone’s name wrong, and little clues like that are really helpful.

There is a woman I know whose granddaughter’s name I constantly mispronounce. Growing up, my daughter had a friend called Rhianne pronounced re – ann but this woman’s granddaughter’ s name is pronounced re – arn. Endeavour as I might to remember the pronunciation I always manage to get it wrong. Her grandmother gently but firmly corrects me by simply pronouncing the name correctly, she is not rude, simply says the name correctly. One day my brain will switch over

I always had somebody mis saying my name.I’ve been called Serina, Sabina, Karina, basically anything that end in “ina”. I thought that everybody would get the hint when I told them think about the tv show…. Sabrina the teenage witch. Apparently, it did’t work for one teacher. So instead of calling her chapman, I called her chaped -lips. I thought it was fair.

If it was my child, I would write the name phonetically on a sticky note like this – Amina = Ah men nah – and ask her to stick it to her daily folder. Tell her the child has trouble understanding her accent.

My nephew has this problem, and gets upset about it; his name is Gianluca (John-luke-kah). His 3rd grade teacher just wasn’t getting it, and his mother was very annoyed, I would go as far to say offended, which I think was unwarranted and I have to say in my opinion negatively impacted her son. I do agree that the teacher/instructor should be making more of an effort, but she might be unaware she is botching the name. She is only going to get it right if you make the effort to help her. I advised my sister-in-law to write out his name phonetically for the teacher. Your daughters name is not difficult for an English speaking person. There are no sounds that are difficult for an English speaking person to pronounce, it is not because it is a “foreign” name it is because it is an uncommon. Although the instructor you speak of is making a blanket statement indicating she screws up a lot of names, so maybe she is lost cause? It’s like someone who is sure they can’t do math, once they have decided they put in little effort to learn or excel at math. If she just isn’t going to get it make sure your daughter knows that the teacher is the one with the problem not her. Amina is a very pretty name by the way, I like it alot.

I think there are amazing responses on here already. I would just add that for the instructor this is a matter of cultural competency that should be taken seriously. You have already politely told her how to pronounce your daughters name. I suggest you spell it out like you did here and if she still continues then I agree it is time to escalate your complaint. The teacher needs to be able to effectively work with students of all cultures. I would watch her closely, if pronouncing your child’s name wrong doesn’t bother her after the mother has made a point of it, then she may have other misled cultural values as well. It is not okay of her to continue this misbehavior and she needs to at least attempt to get the name correct otherwise it is time to talk with her supervisor.

my apologies for the grammar mistakes, i’m eating and typing simultaneously (well that’s my excuse anyhow, lol)

Ok, I thought of a mean way to handle it. Start calling the teacher by the wrong name.

@JLeslie I have to laugh at that. Sure is a way to get the point across!

I had a problem with the gym teacher when my boys were in elementary school. She insisted on pouncing our last name wrong, and no matter how many times my sons corrected her she continued to do it. She would do it to a lot of the families. I spoke with the principal and the priest (private school) and nothing changed.
I politely corrected her several times to no avail.
One afternoon my youngest came home upset that she wouldn’t listen when he said that’s not how we say our name. She told him, “your parents should look it up and say it right” DONE I went to the school the next day and let her have it.
Two days later, she started calling after me across the parking lot. She began running up behind me, I continued to ignore her, and she grabbed my arm and hollered, didn’t you hear me calling your name? I turned and said, you’re not calling my name and until you say it correct, I won’t speak to you!.
She left in a huff and I went again to the priest and the principal. I took a list with me of all the names she decided to say wrong and the parents who were upset.

The next week, she was looking for a new job. Seems after there were 10 families upset that she was being “abusive” in not correcting herself, it was deemed that she was no longer suitable for a teaching position.

Last I heard, she was a manager at the local Wendy’s.

@Skippy Sounds like she was on some kind of weird power trip!

@Leanne1986 She absoutly was – not a great PE teacher to start with and wanted everyone to respect her – how much respect you get is based on what you give! After two years of her crap, they finally saw the light!