My Name Is….(huh?)

Hi! My name is.. (what?) My name is.. (who?)
My name is.. [scratches] Slim Shady Lilly
Hi! My name is.. (huh?) My name is.. (what?)
My name is.. [scratches] Slim Shady Lilly

Ahem.. excuse me!
Can I have the attention of the class for one second?


Eminem lyrics aside, I do have to make this statement, and I hate making it.

My name is Lilly.

It’s not spelled Lily.

Why?

The name Lilly is derived from an old character name (Lilliana) that I used in an MMORPG game. I was frequently called Lilli for short, but in the aspect of visual appeal I changed the ‘i’ to a ‘y’ for blogging. Since the flower, lily, is the more common spelling of the name I get a lot of people who incorrectly spell my name that way (despite Lilly being part of my domain name).

So – it’s Lilly, 3 ‘L’s, a nickname for Lilliana. Now you know!

I hate to admit, but it does bother me when people misspell my name, especially over and over again. In my signature for my blog email address, I use my name. “Lilly” is part of my email address and my domain name. It’s all over the blog, in fact! The way I see it, when people don’t care to take the 3 seconds to note the spelling of my name, I feel it’s a sign of disrespect in a way. In a text-based world where our on-screen writing is so much of who we are….it’s really an issue of identity to have your name spelled correctly. No, Lilly isn’t my real (birth) name. But it IS my online name, it is what I answer to in so many facets now…..that I feel I need to correct. I feel I shouldn’t need to correct, given that if they are spelling my name right in typing in my email address/blog address/twitter name, they should therefore spell just “Lilly” correct if they give half a crap.

Strangers, the first time they misspell, fine. That’s ok. But for people I interact with weekly via Twitter and blog comments? It’s becoming unacceptable. For the first and only time and place for many of us, we have gotten to choose our name. I chose it. Won’t you take the time to notice and spell it properly?

Am I wrong for being bothered? I’ve actually gone so far as to turn down form-letter requests for a link exchange solely because they couldn’t get my name right. But yet….if it’s someone I “know”, I won’t outright correct them. I don’t know why I haven’t. But I think I will, from here on out. Gently, nicely, at least the first time ;)

9 Responses

  1. Aurore says:

    Amen!

    It’s not that hard and people should notice the difference. If you don’t you’re careless. Correct people and correct them often :)

    ~ yes, careless is one word to describe.

  2. I would have lost my patience with that long ago. It’s really not that damn difficult to find out the proper spelling of somebody’s name. I fail to see why anybody has trouble with yours. You’d think that the different spelling would make it EASIER to remember, rather than more difficult. It has for me, anyway. :)

    — PB

    ~ Hrmmm you pose a very good point there!

  3. FG says:

    Umm I believe that you already had this rant once or twice or …..

    Oh fuckit keep on repeating yourself they may get it one of these times :D

    Sorry about the fuckwits.

    ~I probably have, an quite obviously it needs to be said again and again because people are too lazy or disrespectful to give a shit. But then, if the worst I can be accused of on this blog is repeating myself occasionally….then I guess that’s not so bad.

  4. hubman says:

    I go through the same thing, at work. My last name, there is more than 1 capitalized letter, but they ALWAYS seem to forget that. Oftentimes when I correct them I get the feeling they’re thinking “oh, get over it, no big deal”, but it’s my name!!!!

    I was gonna be a smart-ass and misspell your name, but I decided not to ;-)

    ~ i’m sure a lot of people that I correct have the same silent reaction you assume, lol

  5. Emmy says:

    My real name is often misspelled as the male version of my name. I got to the point where I stopped responding to it – written or spoken. It was until that happened that it stopped.

    Ironically, I am often still listed as male on forms. But I usually fix that by going in asking for a sex change.

    It drives me nutty….so I understand where you are coming from totally! :)

    ~ I guess I feel undeserving of my rantyness simply because this is not my “real” name. But yet, on the other hand it still is part of my identity so it does matter.

  6. Kitten says:

    I not only get a little miffed at misspellings, but mispronunciations as well. I didn’t walk at my high school graduation, because I didn’t want to growl at the principal for mispronouncing a common french last name.

    I can understand laziness at times, but when it comes to a person’s identity, I find it to be important to try to get it right. It’s called respect.

    Rant on, Lilly. You are deserving of any rant that you have.

    ~ Aww that’s horrible that you didn’t walk at graduation just for that reason!! What a sucky principal.

  7. Amen! It’s rather embarrassing to all concerned when we’re talking on twitter, and we can’t tell which of us they’re talking to… because they can’t be bothered to check which spelling they should be using, Lilly or Lily! In real life, I’ve had to fight to get people to pronounce my last name correctly. There are 4 e’s, and all of them are pronounced differently. Yes, it’s a bitch… but once I tell you 20 times how to pronounce it, get it right! It isn’t that hard to say!

    On another note, crazy as it sounds… my Lily came from an old MMORPG character name, too! Small, small world it is.

    ~ Yay! Geek gamer girls FTW! hehehe

  8. vanimp says:

    Yay! Good on you for writing this. I always try and make sure I have spelt someone’s name right after years of dealing with my RL name being spelt wrong and pronounced wrong it’s something that drove me nuts. As it is I have two people online one is you ‘Lilly’ and the other is ‘Lily’ hehe so I always double check. It may not be your ‘real’ name but it’s still a name you use.xx

    ~ quite true….thank you for double checking ;)

  9. Black Pearl says:

    Set ’em straight!!!