Misspelled Names Movement

Way back when I was still an egg, whilst in elementary school, I was asked by one of my peers why my name was spelled differently. By differently she meant why my Elisabeth’s ‘z’ was an ‘s.’

“The nurse had an awful penmanship,” I smartly replied. “Her ‘z’ looked like an ‘s’,”

Everybody bought it. Either I was a good liar or I had really gullible classmates. It never really occurred to them that the ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’ was intentional, if other people had oddly spelled names, I had every right to have the ‘s’ in my name.

Just to make it clear, my name is not a typographical error and the nurse did not have an ugly penmanship. And no, I was not named after John the Baptist’s mother.

I get upset when people misspell my name. At times, even my friends misspell my name – which in turn makes me question my friendship with them (“After so many years, you still can’t make out the difference between an ‘s’ and a ‘z’?!”) My name on most certificates and awards are misspelled, which is quite upsetting – I am this close to getting a professional calligrapher have them all corrected. (Let’s not even talk about my family name – I’ve lost count of how many times it has been misspelled.)

Years ago, I had a school ID wherein my name was Elizabeth – now that is just sad. After so many years of studying in an institution, you’d expect that at least the school would know how to spell your name. I guess I was wrong.

Is it not enough that I put much effort in pronouncing my name, making the ‘s’ sound like an ‘s’ and not a ‘z’? Is it not a dead giveaway that one of my nicknames is Lis and not Liz?

If this continues, I might as well start wearing a nametag everywhere I go. If that doesn’t work, I’ll write my name on my forehead. That has to definitely work (if by then people still misspell my name, then they are all stupid and can’t read.)

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of other people out there who have their names butchered by other people. So our names are spelled a bit differently than what you are used to, but the least you could do is double check and not assume that our names are spelled as they are pronounced. For all you know, our names could be French and have too many silent letters.

I understand that it’s pretty embarrassing to ask how to spell Elisabeth, because if you’d do ask me that question, I’d probably laugh at you. But at the very least, people could ask if it is with a ‘s’ or with a ‘z’ (after all, the letter z isn’t the only letter in the alphabet).

It won’t be long before I shall be launching the Misspelled Names Movement – whoever misspells our names shall be hung upside-down by the toes. Our parents thought long and hard before picking our carefully planned (and spelled) names. If misspelled names continue, certificate writers will have to think twice before writing down names on certificates.