Stories About How You Got Someone's Name Wrong, Please!!

When I was about 21, I worked as a sales assistant and a client from Hawaii called and said, did you get the fax I sent? I said oh yes, we got it Mahalo...
well duh..... he sent the fax and signed Mahalo,which is THANK YOU in Hawaiian.... needless to say, every time he'd called , he'd say, tell so and so it's Mahalo on the phone...............

I will never forget this. I had a client who's last name was spelled Coutchie, awful right? So she called and I just stared at the last name, finally when it is time to address her I pronounced it couch iee (Like a sitting couch), she says, I'm sorry but my name is pronounced COOTCHIE. Oh, my, I don't care if it was how it was pronounced I just couldn't bring myself around to calling her Mrs. Cootchie...so I reverted back to yes ma'am. Ugh.

We had a large group of wives that used to show up at their husbands baseball game, and for some reason there were two I just kept screwing up their names. One was Andrea the other Melissa. I don't know why I kept switching their names. One day finally, I was talking to (see now I can't remember which one!) I think it was Andrea, and she looked at me funny and so I said, "What?" and she said, "Hey you finally got my name right." Awful, they just let me call them by each others names. I just laughed and apologized. They thought it was funny too.

College Baseball Coach's name was Mr. Louder. I heard Mr. Lawder. After an interview to be the teams baseball statistician, I was relaying the specifics to a girlfriend, who's dad was the football coach, so they were all personal friends. She kept correcting me every time I used his name, like "Mr. Lawder said blah blah." And she would say Mr. Louder...So I would repeat the entire thing LOUDER...this went back and forth until Mr. Louder actually came out of his office and asked what we were talking about. He had to point out the name on his office for me to get it.

BTW, don't feel bad, my story above is just one of dozens for me. Due to having moved 33 times in my life, I have so many names, places, details mixed up in my head it's hard to keep them all straight. I just say "I'm sorry. Too much going on you know." Last year I met two (2) Sue's back to back but for sure thought one was Leslie or Christine, I can't remember now, and I called her the wrong name out loud, wondered why she didn't hear me, said it LOUDER, as if that would help....she corrected me, I felt embarrassed for a total of 3 seconds...and we have moved forward. Our girls all play together now.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a very popular television personality whose last name was Linkletter. The man I married has a last name that's similar. My mother introduced him as a Linkletter for, I think, the first couple of years we were married. She wasn't doing it to be cute or catty. It was just the association - the TV guy's name stuck in her head and came out of her mouth. She really had to *work* to learn to say our last name properly - as does nearly everybody else. She did love him, though! And he knew it.

My mom had this life long friend who I always called Gorilla.. I know it is bad but she was foreign so I figured it was her name... till my mom pointed out to me "dear her name is Dorilla"... oops..

We were at my half-brother's home one Christmas, and my brother messed a name up. My half-brother's mom's "grandma" name is CoCo. My brother thought her dog's name was CoCo and got down on the floor saying, "Come here, CoCo!!" to the dog. Everyone died laughing when we told him that was the lady's name, not her dog's name. My brother turned super red!!

When I was on my first temping job, there was a woman whose name we never could figure out how to spell. She was an important local person. I had seen it spelled 2 different ways. One of the last things I was asked to do in the 7 weeks I was there was mail this lady a letter. I was given a draft by the founder of the company (a non-profit) and I changed the spelling to what I thought it was! ARGH! Almost positive it was wrong after the fact, but it was too late since I had mailed it. I agonized about that for a LONG time.

I worked at a company that was growing quite rapidly. (Setting this up with excuses) I think this was also a turning point, I used to be VERY good at names. Anyway there was this guy in another deparment, he was a friend of my brothers and I called him "Dan". This had been going on for about 4-5 months. He walked into our department and I said, Oh HI Dan!" I proceeded to introduce him, mentioning a couple of projects he'd worked on (successful). He said, "WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME DAN! MY NAME ISN'T DAN!" After the awkward pause I just started laughing and said, "Why did you LET me call you Dan all this time? Now I'll NEVER remember your real name!" Every time I saw him after that I just had to laugh 'cause I didn't rememberif his name was Dan or Bill!
Recently a friend at school was working at a PTA event. She was talking to the organizer while she was making and putting on her name tag. She got a few funny looks from people throughout the day. Then when she was leaving and getting into her care, she looked down and saw that she wrote the organizers Name on the tag, not hers.

When I met my husband the first time I talked to him I knew he wasn't from around here.. we were in Tx at the time and I like to think I have a pretty thick accent, anyway he totally did not. Ended up he grew up between hawaii and the northwest so he actually spoke normally (not something I was used to lol). He introduced himself and I swore his name was "Jay" for 2 freaking weeks.. and it's not. It's JaKe.. but the way he says it sometimes still sounds like Jay to me..

First of all I am horrible with names.
When I introduce myself I always tell people, "I am terrible with names, so please forgive me if even 10 times in the future I cannot remember your name.."

The funny thing is that I have been in retail since I was 16, I am now 50. I can remember the people, what they purchased from me, the store that I worked at. I sold China Crystal and Silver and I can tell them the names of their patterns.

But I can get names wrong or totally block out their names, even in our neighborhood. We have lived here for over 20 years!!

So There are a few women I have known for years and for some reason, I swap out their names in my head.. over and over again.. They are all very sweet, extremely bright, all look different, but because we all met in the same situation, I have to flip through my memories to figure out which name goes with each.. So I do not call them by name. On FB I have to really stop to make sure I have the right person before I respond.

OMG! I had just started a big Insurance company and one of my coworkers looked just like a guy I worked with at the company perviously named.......Dick. So.... as I was leaving my job with a new friend about two weeks in, I say confidently... Have a good evening DICK! Then there's that sweat that begins when you realize you just did something horrible and you want someone to shoot you right then and there! I will NEVER forget that (and neither will my friend) It happened 11 yrs ago!

Well, this is really my FIL's story, but they have a neighbor that has lived next door to them for 30 years. When first introduced waaaaay back, my FIL misunderstood the man's name (he's middle eastern) and thought he said his name was Tony. Decades later, somehow he realized that the guy's name is NOT Tony, but hey, he still calls him that and "Tony" has never corrected him!

Not really a name situation, but possibly worse?

One day, while waiting for my kids to get out of school, I was talking to one of the other moms outside the school. She showed me a picture, and I said, "How nice, what grade is your son in?" Turns out it was her daughter!! Ugh- I was sooo enbarrassed!!

I usually don't get people's name's wrong (that I know of); now that I think about it, I could be saying a lot of people's names wrong!!

But...I always have my name butchered. My name is Z. and it rhymes with China. In high school they called me "Z., Vagina" (jokingly but it was an all-girl school and it just seemed worse somehow:). I get called, "The warrior princess" all the time. I find this odd since I don't say my name is, "Xena" or "Zeena." I always say, "Z., with a long 'i'."

I worked for a company for a whole year and they all called me "Z." as if it rhymed with "Tina." I never corrected anyone. I had grown tired of correcting people and it really didn't matter...I knew who they were talking to, right? Well, my mom called me one day and someone else answered the phone. My boss walked over and said, "Is your name 'Z.'?"(pronounced correctly) She seemed so embarrassed that I had to apologize to her!

I tell people the spelling like this, "Z, like the last letter of the alphabet, I, N, A" and I get mail that reads, "X, I, N, A." I have to ask myself, "What alphabet are they using?" It is just so funny. On the phone, I say, "It's Z." and people respond, "Ina?" I guess the "s" and "z" run together? Caller ID has helped a lot with that one.

Anyway, you are so not alone on this. I always appreciate it when people say something about getting it wrong. It makes for a good laugh and usually people get it right after that.

I need advice on how to correct people. I usually come across as sounding rude so I don't say anything.

I was in the hospital with this girl one time who was sooo quiet and I kept hearing her pronounce it differently then it was. So for a whole day I called her by the wrong name till I heard a nurse call her diffrently. i felt so bad! but she never corrected me.

The first time I met my daughter's MIL, I called her Julie for about the first hour we were together - until my daughter quietly corrected me - her name is Lisa!!! Talk about embarassing!!! No - you are not alone.

I sometimes get peoples names wrong, but I get called the wrong name ALL THE TIME! Even by family members I don't see that often...I don't think NOELLE is that hard, but I've been called, Michelle, Nicole, Danielle and once, when I ordered a pizza and spelled my name for her, she wrote down MELLOW! So, when I went to pick up my food, she couldn't figure out who I was til I gave my phone number! That one cracked me up! I usually don't correct people (unless it's family who just messed up!) because I figure they probably aren't paying enough attention to remember or care anyway! (Unless it's someone I know I'll see regularly and it's important!) hehe! Great question!

Met a girl names fatima (how weird is that!) I told someone her name was vagina. (I did not know my body part names until i was in the upper teens)
I also had a man in town whose name was Birin (sp?) I told my family something about the man "Urine". They still tease me to this day. I was pretty old for this too. I am so glad i never called either of them these names to there face!

My sister recently called one of our best friends new Fiance by his ex girlfriends name! The ex was a Molly and the Fiance is a Jenny. As they were leaving my house the other day, my sister goes "Bye Joseph-bye Molly". We all started cracking up and my poor sister turned beet red. Luckily, Jenny has a great sense of humor and was able to just laugh it off.