I get Deborah sometimes. I guess it has the same key sounds - the d, thr r, the b - but it's still kind of odd.

yeah, but a totally different order!

do you have a cell phone yet?

No, and I really should get one. Once I figure out my income tax (yes, I'm a tax slacker and proud of it), I'll take some of it and look into plans.

My real name is 5 letters and I'm lucky if anyone ever hears it right. I get Helen at every resteraunt when I leave a name and sometimes even Allen. Those are the people I want to kick.

I respect anyone who attempts my last name. The people who say, "Ginger Uh Uh," are pronunciation wusses. Oddly, a number of people remember my name as Kathy. Two syllables? I somehow look like a Kathy?

Yup. My favourite was being told I both pronounced and spelt my name wrong. Some people just don't like to embrace new things.

Dear God, ita. What did you do with the body?

Americans have problems with my name (Fay is my middle name. Or one of them - I have four names altogether). When I was five I vividly remember a pair of 'old' (from my point of view) Americans who we met on holiday and who thought I was just darling (well, I was), but who were convinced that I couldn't pronounce my own name properly.

This was acutely frustrating.

My Christian name, for the record, is Nichola. Not, Nicholas - Nicholas is a boy's name, and I am most emphatically not a boy. Not Nicole. Nichola. This was a very popular girls' name in the UK in the 70s, for some reason. (There were 8 girls called Nichola in my class at school, and perhaps another 5 or 6 floating around the year group.) You pronounce it thus:

Nickle. Uh.

I'm philosophical about it being spelled any which way - there are various spellings of the name, and mine is not the most common. But it is not hard to say. It may be unfamiliar to USAians, but it is not hard to say. Really.

The number of times I was called Nicole, Nicholas and Nicolai in the first couple of months of working at this American school was simply mind-boggling to me.

It may be unfamiliar to USAians, but it is not hard to say. Really.

Do you pronounce it differently from Nicola?

What did you do with the body?

My favourite related delusion was the friend who insisted that I was pronouncing, spelling, and definining a word wrongly. "Gimpy," IIRC. Honestly didn't occur to her that I wasn't trying to say "gamey."

FWIW, Fay, I've always been a big fan of your real name. Of course, I'm an even bigger fan of "Nic", which (to my ears, anyway) sounds downright saucy on a girl.

I feel your pain, Fay. Mine's Ellen and besides getting the Helen and Allen, I get Eileen and Elaine frequently. It really doesn't bother me, I learned very young to speak up quickly to correct it after someone thought they heard me say Cherry Warren for Ellen Morin and wrote it that way on a name tag. Not that I didn't think Cherry wasn't a cute name, but it wasn't me.

Do you pronounce it differently from Nicola?

Nope - same name. Nicola, Nichola, Nicolla - there were people with all these spellings in my class at High School.

Nickle. Uh.

I do favour the abbreviation Nic.

But not Nicky. The English language lacks terminology of sufficient force to do justice to the strength of my emotion on this point. NOT Nicky. Or Nikki. Or Nicki. Or any variation thereof. Nic. Yes. Or Nichola. Or Hey You, or Bitch, or Whatzername, or what you will. But not, oh a thousand times not, Nicky.

shudders.

I'm very relieved to see that I pronounce your real name correctly, Fay. It's a lovely name. I'm boggled, though, at the people who have tried to correct you and ita on the spelling of your own names. Buh? I mean, even if it were some outlandish and bizarre collection of sounds that appeared to be an utter mispronunciation, it still wouldn't matter -- you're the owner of the name, however you say it is the way it's said, at least to you. How hard is that for the humans to grasp?

Apropos of nothing, I remember a girl from my high school named Fritha Nicoletta Schermerhorn. Her full name flows beautifully and sounds very pretty, but Lordy, she must be exhausted by now with the endless re-spelling and pronunciation correction, poor thing.

Nope - same name. Nicola, Nichola, Nicolla - there were people with all these spellings in my class at High School.

I've never encountered your spelling, but I did go to school with at least three girls named Nicola. Hadn't occurred to me that it was less than common outside the Commonwealth. I think they went by Nicky if they abbreviated.

Honestly, I never abbreviate someone's name if I haven't seen them accept the abbreviation from someone else, and even then only if I consider myself on the same social footing as the person who used it.

I think forced nicknames are arrogant and contemptible, and will therefore never call someone something they've asked me not to call them, even in jest.