A mum has expressed her anger as her child’s nursery refuses to spell his name correctly despite her repeatedly correcting them over the past two years of his education
There’s nothing more annoying than having people refuse to learn how to spell your name.
If you’ve got a name that’s complicated to spell or isn’t spelt the conventional way, you’ll know the pain of having to spell it out to everyone you meet. But once you’ve done it the first time, most people – especially if it’s in a professional setting – will remember how it should be spelt. One mum, however, has been left fuming as her son’s nursery has consistently spelt his name wrong despite being corrected multiple times.
The mum did not reveal her son’s name, but said his moniker has “multiple legitimate spellings” and gave names such as Isabel – which can also be spelt as Isobel – and Alex, which could be spelt as Aleks or Alecks, as examples of names with various acceptable spellings.
In a post on Mumsnet, the woman said she and her partner used “the second most common UK variant” of her son’s name, but everyone from family to friends to her son’s nursery keep spelling it incorrectly.
She wrote: “[My] child has a name that has multiple legitimate spellings, at least four that I can think of, but it’s a name that’s popular across Europe and tends to be spelt slightly differently in each country. We have used the second most common UK variant, which is only slightly less commonly used than the most common variant.
“It’s spelt wrong all the time by family, friends and strangers. Fine, a tad annoying when it’s family or close friends but whatever. [But his] nursery persistently spell his name wrong. I’ve told them this multiple times. It was spelt wrong on his peg and I had to tell them three times before they finally changed the label. It’s spelt wrong on his drawings. Then today we had an assessment report from them and it was spelt wrong throughout. He’s been going there for almost 2 years.”
The mum said she’s frustrated with the spelling issues because the nursery should be “helping him to learn to recognise his name”, which he won’t be able to do if it’s constantly spelt incorrectly. She’s now considering sending a “polite but strongly worded email” about the progress report in the hopes of finally getting a teacher to listen.
Commenters on the post were firmly on the mum’s side, with many agreeing that they would be “annoyed” too if they were in her position. One person said: “You should definitely ensure they are spelling your child’s name correctly. The child will be learning to recognise and write their name from seeing it displayed on coat pegs, etc. They shouldn’t have to just get used to seeing it wrong.”
While another wrote: “Aside from the rudeness of it, a learning goal of a nursery is [for kids] to recognise and start to spell their own name. Is the nursery going to teach the child to spell their own name incorrectly?”
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