Spelling my name

[jack]

I was talking about this in the pub, but when I was a teenager it seemed like I'd constantly have to spell my surname, and I'd usually have to spell it several times because I'd get half way through and then the person taking it down would get overconfident and assume they knew how to spell the last half.

But I recently noticed, nowadays I never have to do this any more. And I'm not sure why. I suspect it's some combination of some subset of:

* In this database age, people are much more likely to have an existing record for me, so when they ask my name, they're just checking it's the right one, not typing it

* Because of databases and/or multiculturalism, people are less overconfident that they know how to spell names, and just automatically wait for it to be spelled

* My demeanour has changed, and now I more successfully signal "more to come" than I did when I was 15

* I imagined the whole thing by over-extrapolating from two or three instances.

* There's a cultural difference between the west midlands and cambridge

* The various spellings of my surname are more common in the midlands and people assume it's the "common word" spelling

But I don't know which is/are true :)

Comments

[gerald_duck]

Personally, I'd say your surname is spelled in the second most obvious way. Once I knew it wasn't "Vicarage", I knew how to spell it. (-8

[redbird]

I doubt it's databases and multiculturalism: I am still constantly spelling my name, and it doesn't get much more multicultural than New York City. (I actually have to spell it less when dealing with locals than with call centers elsewhere in the world, because New Yorkers may have seen the name before—I'm not even the only Rosenzweig in this apartment building.)

[mathcathy]

I still get asked all the time - but then I know that there is only one way to spell my last name correctly (and that even if someone else does have a weird spelling of it, mine is the most common spelling) so I don't volunteer the spelling.

In Scotland I never get asked, in England I always do.