I've Been "Banned"

Since my last name is “Malan”, I’ve had the joy of having people spell it various ways, including “Malen”, “Maylen”, “Malin”, “Maylin”, “Milan”, and "Mulan”. You can also imagine how many variations are for saying it (someone actually called me Ben Miller once!). And I would think that “Ben” is a pretty simple first name, but several people have thought it was “Dan”. Young children have accidentally called me “Bean”. Today I got an e-mail from a friend who for whatever reason spelled my name “Ban”. So, it’s official: I’ve been “banned”.

When I played Little League baseball, I liked the times that they announced the batters over the loudspeaker, but they’d often pronounce my last name different than my family says it. On one occasion I was walking up to the plate and they mispronounced my name over the loudspeaker, and I turned and yelled at the announcer’s booth, “It’s Malan!”, after which the announcer corrected it for all to hear.

Since then, I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t care how people spell or say my name. As long as I know that they’re talking about me, I overlook the misspellings and mispronunciations. I figure that if I am never going to meet a certain person again, there’s no use correcting them. But not everyone shares that comfort level. Some people get quite offended by people messing up their name. There’s something about a person’s name that is intrinsically tied to their personhood, and a change to the written or spoken name can be quite offensive. Forgetting a person's name can also be offensive.

But there’s an upside to this. Whereas messing up a person name can be offensive, calling them by their actual name can go a long way toward building a good relationship with them. I was challenged by reading another person’s blog entry called “The sweetest sound in any language”. He pointed out that people like to hear others call them by name. Rather than saying, “Hey!”, it’s better to say, “Hey John!” (unless of course their name is Larry in which case calling them John is not good). I tried out the advice of the blog I read and found that it’s much more personal to call people by their name. Even if I’m sitting at lunch with one other person and there’s no doubt that I’m talking to that person, I like to use their name throughout the conversation because it seems to show that I’m connecting with them as a person.

How do you feel when people misspell, mispronounce, or even forget your name? Take a moment to consider how you can show respect for people by simply using their name.