So I have a coworker whose name I don’t know how to pronounce and one astonishing observation I have is that I haven’t heard anyone actually say his name either. Since I have been working with this person for a few years now I think it would be kind of weird to ask how to pronounce his name.
I might try to rip the band aid off someday.
I used to work for this one company identified by an acronym. I knew it used to stand for something but the top brass seems to have spent a lot of effort in preventing people (both internally and externally) from knowing what it stands/stood for in what I suspect to be some kind of marketing stunt.
I never asked what it stood for, although I think there were some long-tenured employees who knew the answer.
I ask. I’d rather struggle a time or two than mispronounce someone’s name forever.
Related, I forget the name of one of our coops bf. I started calling him ,the millwright’. And now the coop just refers to them as the millwright’ so I guess I’ll never know.
Back in middle school there was this girl who was clearly interested in me, and seemed to have made every effort to hang out with me between classes and during break, would ask me if I already had a girlfriend, etc.
This went on for about a year and I never actually asked what her name was. So, I wonder what would have been. I guess I’m glad i didn’t, because then I wouldn’t be where I am today.
What’s a ‘coops bf’?
I once worked with a woman who had a difficult to pronounce foreign name. But I already had an acquaintance with the exact same name, so I already knew how to pronounce it.
When we were introduced our boss pronounced her name wrong.
Not wanting to embarrass or challenge our boss, I later privately confirmed with her the pronunciation and she assured me that in her country they do not get creative with name spellings or pronunciations and she pronounced it the exact same as my other acquaintance from the same country which is also the exact same as literally every person from her country who has that name.
So I continued to pronounce her name correctly and everyone else continued to pronounce it incorrectly. And their incorrect pronunciation actually migrated over the years from one incorrect pronunciation to a completely different incorrect pronunciation.
And my co-workers would periodically tell ME that I was wrong and I explained that actually that was correct but she didn’t want to say anything to them (which was true) and they continued to say it wrong and continued to correct me when I said it right. 
I’d say she should say something, but I had a coworker spell my name wrong in email several times, and at some point it’s just, you really don’t care to spell my name correctly if we’ve worked at the same company for years and you don’t already. I’m not being creative with the spelling of my name either.
Yeah, the spelling is pretty easy to verify. I assume there’s a company directory, your name appears in emails / contact lists and probably a lot more.
I thought she should say something too, but I think she really didn’t want to correct anyone / ruffle anyone’s feathers. She claimed it didn’t bother her. That’s her choice.
But it was annoying to me when people told me I was wrong. Oh well.
actually, my last name gets mispronounced often and I don’t always correct people.
Probably partially because my grandmother changed the pronunciation of the name, but it’s not a common name and people probably just don’t know. I should correct them. That can get awkward though. First name is a bit different since you get called that all the time.
Co-op students boyfriend.
My name can be hard to pronounce. I never correct minor errors. I don’t care, and i really don’t want to engage with someone trying over and over. It’s just awkward. So long as they are close, I’m happy.
Shouldn’t there be a dash and apostrophe in there then?
Those rules don’t apply to me.
I should probably have asked ao fan a while back how to pronounce her name
It just never came up in conversation
“Colo-nel,” right?
I’ve known people who have names that are way harder to pronounce than how they’re spelled. One girl I tutored 20+ years ago was named “Nurit.” Not “Nur’-it,” not “Nerr-eeet’.” “Noo-reet’.” Just right, else you get the teen girl sneer.
You mean like it is usually pronounced in Hebrew?
I used to hang out with someone called “Nurit”. I’m not sure what problem you are trying to describe. Maybe we all got the name wrong, but I don’t recall anyone stumbling over it.
Probably. But, I’m not up on my Hebrew pronunciations since, well, ever.
It’s like they have a different word for EVERYTHING!
my last name is a typical chinese name, but i’m not chinese and it’s actually spelled wrong. But people just assume i’m chinese