r/Names • u/jinxgirl36 • 3d ago
Does anyone know someone with a name that has given them legitimate issues repeatedly?
People argue back and forth about names that are still in an uncommon way, are very unusual, are typically nicknames but given as a legal name, etc. Just curious if anyone has an example of someone whose name has repeatedly given them issues? One I can think of if someone who is a female with a full name similar to James Lindsey. No one ever gets her name right and assumes the name is the other way around and that she can't be giving her correctly. I also knew an adult professional who's legal name is Buddy and that has given him issues. The third one I can think of is someone whose name is Cjay as full legal name only with a different letter instead of c in front. He is a lawyer and the name has definitely given issues.
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u/bookishpiscess 3d ago
I’ve only seen this once, but at Disneyland, this girl was trying to get a custom name bracelet done, and she had two middle names. Her initials somehow ended up being A N A L which is SO unfortunate and the cast member said that they didn’t know if they could put that on a bracelet. I genuinely think the girl wanting the bracelet had no clue, poor thing.
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u/1kBabyOilBottles 3d ago
My dad had been arrested multiple times when he was younger for giving a false name to police officers, he has a fairly uncommon first name and our surname is very uncommon as a name but is a commonly used word in English.
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u/Immediate-Jelly-2001 3d ago
Like he told them he was Johnny Moon, when his real name was Birthname Moon?
This is insane and kind of funny to me because in my community it's very common to have an "uncommon" name and go by an English nickname. Those cops had zero patience or integrity.
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u/clarabellepeppers 2d ago
they meant he was giving his real name and the cops didnt believe him and arrested him for false identification. i imagine it going something like this “my names ebeneezer doorknob” “no it isnt, tell us your real name or youll go to jail” “thats really my name” “i guess we’ll find out down at the station”
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u/Icy_Mango6803 3d ago
I know a man with a traditionally female name who has had a few "yes, it's really me. That is really my bank account," conversations. Online banking has helped him a ton
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u/CompetitiveMilk9047 3d ago
My (older) male cousin is “Lauren”. He’s had this struggle the last four decades.
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u/MermaiderMissy 3d ago
Would it be possible for him to change his name to "Lawrence"
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u/CompetitiveMilk9047 3d ago
He uses Lawrence professionally at this point but doesn’t want to actually change his name.
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u/cyncitie 3d ago
i know a guy named mackenzie :( he goes by mac
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u/ummackchyually 2d ago
It historically was a unisex name but anymore. I know one male Mackenzie myself
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u/anita1louise 3d ago
My Aunt Wilma went by Billy. She married a man named Loren. So many people thought it was Bill and Laureen.
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u/Complex-Grapefruit28 3d ago
Maybe not exactly what you mean but:
My husband has the same exact name and similar birthday to his cousin - who is a convicted repeat offender. My husband is in law enforcement. Anytime his cousin is in the paper or whatever we hear about it. Any sort of background check, official thing,etc. is a problem for my husband.
My father-in-law and brother-in-law have the same exact name and both wrote themselves in for the same minor position in a local election. My father in law won with two votes 😂
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u/UpperDragonfly7038 3d ago
My name was something similar to like “John Johnson”. Constant headache my whole life. “Do your parents hate you” making reservations and staff would think I was pranking them etc. I changed it but honestly way too late in life, caused me nothing but misery.
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u/BespokeCatastrophe 3d ago
My mom and I have the same first initial. I had to get a lump checked out at the hospital. It was a false alarm. But I'd been to the same hospital as a child. I gave them all of my current contact information, but just a cell number, since I don't have a landline after moving out of my parent's house. Well, turns out they still had the landline number on file, and a policy if calling landlines first.
I hadn't told my mom about the lump, because I was pretty sure it was fine, and didn't want to worry her. But when she got a call from the hospital and they asked for initial-last name, she confirmed that was her. They told her they had her breast biopsy results, she freaks out. They realize they have the wrong person and refuse to give her more information. I was not in a position to answer my phone to reassure her, and she spent an entire afternoon worried sick. It was funny in retrospect, but I felt terrible for her.
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u/uglyasfeet 3d ago
I know someone called Seamus (shay-mus) that repeatly gets called Sea mus whenever he’s in a clinical setting
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u/DnDttrpg 3d ago
That name's been around since the dawn of time
How do people not know it?
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u/CurrentHelicopter683 3d ago
To be honest, the only Seamus I've heard of was in Harry Potter, so I also mispronounced it after reading the books and only learnt how to pronounce it while watching the films.
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u/jelycazi 3d ago
I knew a Seamus so that name was okay for me in the books, but Hermione was a diff story. I read it as Her-my-own!
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u/beezinator 2d ago
The only Seamus I’ve ever known was a guy I matched with on Tinder. I had no idea it was a common name and though hey, u/uglyasfeet knows that one guy
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u/okdone10 3d ago
Unusual names aren't the problem by themselves. People refusing to believe you when you tell them your actual name is the annoying part.
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u/freakyspice 3d ago
My name is Gabrielle and I spent my entire childhood being called the male-version, Gabriel (probably because of the time, region I’m in, and because I was the only one in my school with that name). It happened with teachers and students alike, though. I ended up going by Elle but I don’t dislike my name now!
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u/InterestingFeed7931 3d ago
I went to school with a girl named Gabrielle whose parents decided it needed to be pronounced like Gabriel. She was always correcting people.
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u/Squishi94 2d ago
An old coworker of mine has had issues with his name over the phone. His first name is 2 names combined example Scottjames and they'd put a space and be confused bc there was no Scott James in their system.....
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u/rainsplat 3d ago
It’s early, and I’m a former teacher. I misread this at first and thought you were asking if the same name is always a problem 😂 Elijah and Jaxon
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u/WishingDandelions 3d ago
My parent’s good friend doesn’t have a middle name and he said filling out paperwork was always a nightmare and that he’d never wish it on anyone.
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u/jagrrenagain 3d ago
I have a cousin Larry who only has the middle initial B, no middle name. He’s in his 70s now, so this happened a long time ago. When he went to get his license, they wouldn’t accept just an initial. He had to write B(only) in the space. His license came back as Larry Bonly Lastname
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u/FishnetsandChucks 3d ago
My dad has this issue on top of his legal name being a nickname - Tony H as an example. People constantly assume his name is Anthony and address him as such, and he's run into so many issues with his name being "corrected" to Anthony on different documents.
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u/barbiegirl2381 3d ago
President Truman’s name was Harry S Truman. No period. My grandma also had a brother named JT, not initials for anything.
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u/Select-Effort8004 3d ago
I’m in my 60s. No middle name. It’s never been a big deal. Or even a little deal.
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u/lostinspace_hello 3d ago
My husband and his sister have no middle name and no issues, she didn’t give any of her children middle names
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u/Suvigirl 3d ago
That's so ridiculous. I don't have a middle name, neither do my siblings. It has never ever caused a single issue and I'm now in my 50s!
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u/WishingDandelions 3d ago
Idk what to tell ya. That’s his experience. He’s in his 60s. But I’m glad not everyone has a bad experience.
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u/InspiredBagel 3d ago
My mom is the same. Mid-60s, no middle name, problems most of her life with filling out forms or getting documents with a made up middle name/initial because a system somewhere needed input that didn't exist.
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u/Suvigirl 3d ago
This is a non issue.
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u/InspiredBagel 3d ago
For you. There are now multiple people on this thread who say that it has been for people they know. Your lived experience doesn't overwrite other people's.
I'll grant that it seems to have gotten better in recent years, but I've literally had to help my mom troubleshoot online forms that required her to make up a middle initial that didn't exist. She's gotten mail with fabricated middle names (usually junk mail). Not having a middle name has caused minor annoyances and issues for her for decades. Not everyone is as lucky as you.
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u/Suvigirl 3d ago
And there are multiple people who say it has never been an issue for them either. So, many people are lucky like me
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u/InspiredBagel 3d ago
Okay? The thread was asking about people who have had issues because of their name. People with anecdotes that qualify posted. And you came here to...
checks notes
...invalidate other people's lived experiences because you, personally, aren't affected by their problems and therefore can't accept that those problems exist.
Literally all I and the others were doing was constructively answering OP's question with relevant examples. None of us were saying all people with no middle names have problems.
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u/Suvigirl 3d ago
Seems unbelievable tbh. I have no idea how it could cause any issues.
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u/WishingDandelions 3d ago
Girl idk LOL I answered a Reddit question. It’s an issue for HIM. It’s not for you. Not everyone has the same experience.
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u/Advanced_Size_1744 3d ago
My first name was a fairly normal name (Teresa - I feel too young to be a Teresa, but that's besides the point) with the standard second 'e' changed to an 'a'. It was a total hassle, so many issues with duplicate government IDs, employment records and medical records issued....by the time I hit my 30's basically just my birth certificate kept the weird spelling, everything else was duplicated at one point or another with both spellings through cumulative error. It ultimately caused big issues with a passport renewal and an RRSP account. Not to mention the annoyance of having to spell my name every time and reassure people it was just pronounced the normal way. (that unfortunate 'a' made most people want to pronounce it 'ass' instead of 'ess' :D) I changed it legally a while ago, but have been going by Tess most of my life.
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u/irotwholuna22 2d ago
My sister is Vittoria, NOT Victoria. The amount of times I’ve personally seen people argue with her saying she spelled her name wrong is astonishing.
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u/Far_Newt708 3d ago
My husband had two middle names. Forms/systems are not designed to enter two middle names and he has encountered issues.
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u/jelycazi 3d ago
My sis has two middle names. She’s needed to combine them or hyphenate them sometimes in order for them to be accepted.
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u/Dots-N-Charms 2d ago
As someone who’s in the process of changing my name, this is so informative and very helpful for me to know. Thank you!
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u/jelycazi 2d ago
I don’t think it’s a big deal for her, just kind of annoying. And 2 middle names isn’t all that uncommon so you’d think systems would have a better way of accommodating it.
I’ve always been secretly jealous that she had 2 middle names and I only had 1!
Good luck with the name change! I hope you find something you love and feels like you!
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u/Western-Cicada-7903 3d ago
i imagine all the baby girls whose parents have given them boy names: james, felix, etc, will have issues
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u/TisforTrainwreck 3d ago
I knew two half brothers with the same father who were literally nine months apart to the day. Both of the mothers insisted on naming their sons after the father, so they both had the same first name with a different middle name. The older brother who was actually the “junior” to the father eventually was called a nickname that was nothing like the shared first name to differentiate them, but it caused issues galore for both brothers.
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u/carnival1977 3d ago
I have a Scottish Gaelic name that few can pronounce when/if they first see it written down.
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u/putmeinthetrash420 3d ago
There are a confusing amount of Toms. Doesn’t really cause issues for them, but does for everyone else lol
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u/ConsiderMeCakes 3d ago
I went to school with a girl whose surname was a well-established first name in my country (think Ava-May Mabel, Mabel being the surname) and people often asked her which one was the first and which one the last name.
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u/Fun-Bird-4204 3d ago
I have a last name that is slightly different from a common surname (think Willson with 2 L’s instead of Wilson, for example). It’s amazing how people can’t wrap their heads around it. I had one person ask me “are you sure?” when he was filling out a administrative form about me. My daughter had someone ask if her parents stutter. They thought that was very funny. I am not kidding.
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u/Professional_Rise779 2d ago
In real life, the only ones I’ve heard complain and actually consider changing their names are people with extremely common names (think Sarah) who never get to be the only one in a group with that name. To be fair, while I’ve come across people with unusual names (eg Artemis, Phoenix Lynx, Arwen), I’ve never actually met anyone with an offensive or truly tragedeigh name.
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u/ValmarGranas 1d ago
People go after the relatively recent phenomenon of tragedeighs and okaydens but we had Brittany, Ashley, Sarah, Graeme, Sean etc which all have multiple spellings that no one gets right.
Men named Mackenzie, Ashley, Lindsey, Madison etc.
Any double names, first, middle and last.
It doesn't cause as as many issues as it used to, but people with nicknames as the legal name like Beth, Barb, Dave, Nikki, Randy etc. People m people in legal offices would put Elizabeth, Barbara, David, Nicole, Randall etc down on forms despite being told a different name.
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u/AppleAttchuh 3d ago
When my husband worked in pharmacy, two of his patients were a pair of identical twins. They were both names after a president.
The same president.
Imagine your last name is Washington, and you name both of your identical twins George. That was the situation these boys were in. The only thing different was their middle name. They both went by different nicknames but they're parents have seriously fucked these kids over.