Don’t call me Liz

This article is based on the transcript from the Cafe Grit Podcast 046

🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵

How important is it to use someone's preferred name and pronounce it correctly?

It’s simple really:

“How do you pronounce your name?”

“Do you go by Thomas or Tom or Tommy?”

I have been dealing with people getting my name wrong for my entire life.

The names I have been given (or chosen) have evolved over time.

I'm an Elizabeth, Elizabeth Anne is my legal name. But when I was a kid, I always went by Beth or Bethie.

My mom called me Bethie. That was my common childhood name until I forbade my mother to call me that ever again when I was in my freshman year of college.

She came to my dorm room for a visit one weekend and embarrassed me in front of my new friends. In part that involved her calling me Bethie. When I told her she couldn’t call me that anymore I'm sure it probably broke her heart, but I had to put my foot down.

I was 18 years old and had come from a very small school to a large university. I already had to fight for the fact that I don't have rich parents and I didn't come from a big exclusive high school. And I grew up in the country.

After many failures and much growth, I eventually gave her permission to call me Bethie again.

When I was a kid and in trouble, it was Beth Anne. If I was really in trouble, it was ELIZABETH ANNE!

I generally go by Beth. But my brand name is Beth Anne.

My husband calls me Beth Anne. I generally go by Beth or on occasion, Beth Anne.

If you call me Elizabeth, that's fine. I've worked at a few places where my email was set up with my legal name, which is Elizabeth.

So I get it.

The problem is, Elizabeth is a name that has many, many derivatives.

Common derivatives:

👉 Liz,

👉 Eliza,

👉 Lizzie,

👉 Beth,

👉 Betty.

So it’s a great opportunity when someone has a name like that to use your grit and just ask what they prefer.

But that rarely happens.

Often, I will get people calling me Liz.

Now, again, a lot of derivatives come out of Elizabeth. I would not assume that because your name is Elizabeth, you go by Liz.

Some do, some don't. But I can't tell you how many times I've been called Liz.

I've even been called Liz twice on the same conference call by the same person after I corrected him.

He said, “Liz was asking a question.” I responded, “Thank you. By the way, I go by Beth, not Liz.” He even acknowledged it.

Half an hour later (it was a long meeting), I got called Liz again by the same person!

This has happened in email too!

I was employed at a company in Michigan that I wrote about in my book, Where the Hell Is My Bacon.

I was working with this project manager and in an email, he referred to me as Liz. Of course, I corrected him. Gently. And then the very next reply he called me Liz again.

He was mortified. But I had to say something when he did it again.

And so that's another thing too. Grit goes both ways.

Having the courage to speak out and ask questions or clarify things goes both ways.

When it comes to names, it's important for me to ask a person what name they prefer. If it’s not obvious, then I need to ask how they pronounce their name.

It's equally important for me to speak out if someone is misnaming me.

Names are a part of our identity, right?

So it's important to get them right.

As an Elizabeth who's been misnamed many times, I do speak out when someone mislabels me.

It does bother me when I've corrected somebody and they continue to do it, or when someone just assumes a nickname when there may be multiple options.

How do you pronounce that?

Pronunciations are another thing.

I don't generally get mispronunciations, but I know a lot of people do.

My town here in Virginia has a Facebook site where people offer things for free. One day I put out a post offering some free plants.

A woman named Siobhan responded very quickly and ended up coming right over.

I happen to know how to pronounce her name correctly because I have Irish friends in my network, and because I also watched the series Orphan Black, which had a character of the same name on the show.

Siobhan is pronounced Shuh-VAHN.

When the woman drove up to get my plants I yelled out, “Are you Shuh-VAHN?” And she said, “Yes! And thank you for pronouncing it right!”

It seemed like such a little thing, but it was important to her. Imagine if I had yelled out, “Are you SYOBHANN?”

TIP: You can go to YouTube or you can Google it to find out how to pronounce a name.

I had a guy who worked for me for a few years. His name was fairly unique, and I was pronouncing it a certain way…the way someone had used it when we were first introduced.

I left the company and then came back 5 years later. During project meetings, I would hear people on the calls pronouncing his name differently.

I actually corrected a few of them. Then I thought, am I pronouncing it correctly? So I reached out to him and asked. “I just want to make sure that I'm not completely slaughtering your name.”

He said, “Well, actually, it's pronounced the other way.” Not the way I was pronouncing it. So I WAS slaughtering his name.

He never corrected me. I’d corrected people saying, “No, you're pronouncing it wrong” only to find out that it was me pronouncing it wrong..

Lesson learned. So what can you do about that?

Just ask!

No one's going to think badly of you because you ask them how to pronounce their name, what they go by, or what their nickname is. So just ask.

One of the things you can look for is how they sign their name, that's usually a good indication of what they go by. If you get an email from Michael Smith and Michael Smith ends his notes with “Sincerely, Mike”, then you have a pretty good idea what he goes by

You can still ask, but it's probably a good indication.

Just ask.

I prefer Beth. That's what I go by.

If someone mis-labels you as I have had happen many, many times, just correct them. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

“You probably didn't know this because my email is Elizabeth, but please call me Beth.”

If someone introduces me and calls me Elizabeth (or something else), I’ll gently correct it. “Thank you so-and-so, and please…call me Beth.”

Again, there's nothing wrong with correcting someone and there's nothing wrong with asking how somebody pronounces their name or what their preferred nickname is.

You'll probably make a friend when you do that because I'm telling you…this Siobhan, when she heard me pronounce her name right, she was downright giddy.

She's probably getting daily mispronunciations. It's probably like the actress Saoirse Ronan, she's talked about some of the bastardization of her name. Saoirse rhymes with inertia.

Names are important. They're very personal, they're very much a part of our identities.

So get them right and make sure people get them right when they're talking about you.

🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵🍵

🙋🏻‍♀️ Hello, I am Beth Anne Campbell - author of "Where The H*** Is My Bacon?" and "From BLAH to BADA$$" - two books about leadership from a woman who survived corporate madness for 23 years.

I also host the Cafe Grit podcast, where I cut through the bs and talk openly and honestly about life and careers.

Let's follow or connect if you've got a hankering for purpose, a taste for fulfillment, and you're tired of living the rat race!