If your name is difficult to spell or pronounce, you’ll know the pain of having to correct people.
For any parent, choosing the perfect baby name is a top priority. Many spend hours on end searching for a name they hope will be easily pronounced and spelled by others their child meets, to avoid the need for constant corrections.
While avoiding “made-up” names for this reason, some parents may still select traditional names from different cultures or languages, which can present challenges, especially in areas where the name is rare. This was true for a woman whose Irish Gaelic name consistently confused people.
Orlaith Mary shared a TikTok video highlighting numerous emails in which her Celtic name, which should be pronounced as “Or-la,” was misspelt in various forms, such as Olaith, Orlaigh, and even Olaf.
These mistakes persisted despite her email address containing the correct spelling of her name. In the video, a soundbite plays with a woman assertively saying: “The spelling of my name is in my email.”
The 27-year-old captioned her video expressing it’s “almost like [my name] is another language”. She also pointed out an alternative spelling of her name – Órfhlaith – which, while pronounced the same, baffles people outside of Ireland even more.
Many viewers shared Orlaith’s frustration, recounting their own experiences with frequently misspelt names. A person named Réiltín commented: “Olaf had to have been intentional. feel your pain as another person who never gets their name spelt correctly.”
Someone else called Amy shared: “A colleague who’s worked with me for more than five years managed to misspell Amy Jayne as Jayme. Jayme. TWICE.”
One woman named Deirdre revealed she was once called Didier, while a person called Cynthia said: “If it makes you feel better, people misspelt my name so often my nickname from friends is Cyntina now. Even close family misspell my name when tagging me.”