My name is constantly mispronounced. The incorrect pronunciation of the spelling is in the Top 40. It’s the equivalent of being named [name]Isabel[/name] but pronouncing it EES-abel, while everyone else says IZ-abel. It’s incredibly frustrating. I’ve given up correcting people.
I hate how hard it is for most people to spell. Really though, C-h-e-y-a-n-n, what’s so difficult about that??? Seriously! I think most people just don’t care to take the time to remember it, which says more about people than the “difficulty” of the spelling because it’s not THAT difficult. In fact, my mom said she just “spelled it the way it sounded.” I guess she should have paid more attention in school or actually watched the game show she heard my name on. 
I used to loathe it with an unexplainable passion. I cringed when I had to tell people what my name was. And for like 4 years I wanted to change it so bad (to Sophie, which is a name I’m not particularly fond of anymore or Temperance which is a name I still love — in a guilty pleasure sort of way.) Buut, I’ve grown to accept, and even appreciate, that it’s a fine name and it fits me really well; I can’t imagine my name being anything else.
There are multiple legitimate spellings for my name, but really two core ones. [name]One[/name] is Sanskrit, the other Greek and most popular in western and northern Europe. My parents chose the Sanskrit spelling (and perhaps weren’t even aware of the Greek version), despite our pale British ancestry.
So I guess what I hate most about my name is that my spelling doesn’t match my appearance. People often expect me to be of [name]East[/name] [name]Indian[/name] appearance if they see my name before meeting me, and frequently comment to that preconception. On the flip side, if they hear my name first, they most often spell it the Greek way since that is the most logical given my ethnicity.
I think that if I had a sanskrit name that didn’t have a sound-alike from another language, I wouldn’t mind as much.
Your name is spelled [name]Cheyann[/name], pronounced like the city [name]Cheyenne[/name]? I can definitely see the difficulty there. If not [name]Cheyenne[/name], I think I’d probably assume Shaianne/Shaienne, [name]Shyann[/name]/[name]Shyanne[/name], [name]Chyanne[/name], [name]Shayan[/name]/[name]Shayanne[/name] (all arguably legit spellings) before getting to [name]Cheyann[/name] 
My name is [name]Olivia[/name] and there’s not much I dislike about it, but it IS a bit of a mouthful. Two of my best friends in elementary school were [name]Elizabeth[/name] and [name]Amelia[/name]. Introducing the three of us together took a decade.
@mscrabby I understand what you mean by [name]Zoe[/name] sounding like “so he…”! I always think someone is calling my name when I hear “I love you”. Many people I know say it like “[name]AH[/name] love ya” and I have a moment of wondering who’s talking to me.
And of course the popularity of my name now. The year I was born, my name was #123. I didn’t meet another [name]Olivia[/name] til I was out of high school. Now they’re everywhere!
I’ve always disliked my name! My name is [name]Andrea[/name], I just always wanted a more feminine name. It just never felt like it ‘fit’. I also dislike the meaning of my name, ‘manly’…I’m definitely not manly, at all! I also dislike how there are multiple pronunciations of my name, one I REALLY dislike. Back when I was in elementary school my 5th grade teacher decided to use this pronunciation and everyone thought I pronounced it like that, I was just to shy and embarrassed to say anything. [name]Every[/name] time I hear someone using that pronunciation of my name, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. I also really dislike all the nicknames for my name, [name]Annie[/name], [name]Andy[/name], Dre, [name]Drea[/name]. In high school my close friends would call me Dre or [name]Drea[/name] but it was more of just for fun when we were joking around.
I also never liked that my name is actually a masculine name in [name]Italy[/name] and I’m half Italian! Wonderful if I ever go to [name]Italy[/name].
I wish my parents would have picked one of their other choices, [name]Adriana[/name] or [name]Katherine[/name] ‘[name]Kate[/name]’.
Sorry my phone is being difficult; this comment was meant to be in response to “yellow”.
That’s not where the problem is. The problem is when I REPEATEDLY spell it for them and they sit there and spell it Cheyenne or Cheyanne when I’ve JUST told them how it’s spelled. Personally I don’t think it’s that difficult, Cheyanne is one of the more popular spellings, leave off the “e” and viola.
My name is [name]Amy[/name] [name]Sarah[/name], I like both names but the flow is awful. My maiden name stated with a "K "
But they did not think of what would happen if I married a [name]Smith[/name] or Simmons, luckily I married someone with an “A” surname!
I’ve learned to essentially love my name. haha. I used to absolutely loathe it when I was younger, though! I still pretty much despise my MN ([name]Marie[/name]), though, and I feel that [name]Ashley[/name] [name]Marie[/name] doesn’t really fit me at all. If I could rename myself, I would be either [name]Ashley[/name] [name]Lila[/name] or [name]Ashley[/name] [name]Eleanor[/name] [name]Grace[/name]. I love [name]Ashley[/name] enough that I would keep it, and I feel it suits me really well.
My one hang-up with my FN, though, is its unisex nature–my uncle and his brother are [name]Bruce[/name] [name]Ashley[/name] and [name]Ashley[/name] [name]Bruce[/name], respectively, and then I’m [name]Ashley[/name] [name]Marie[/name]. I’ve always found that kind of weird, haha. I feel like it’s always held back my femininity–I feel like if I had been a [name]Sarah[/name] or [name]Rachel[/name] or [name]Grace[/name], I might have been more of a girl, which I admit I would have preferred. I’m not a tomboy by any means, but I’m also not a girly girl, either.
I love the natural aspect to [name]Ashley[/name], though–that it’s not frilly, not flashy, feminine enough, and I love how natural it feels, it reminds me of nature, a meadow surrounded by ash trees (fitting, I know, given [name]Ashley[/name]'s meaning, haha).
My only other problem with [name]Ashley[/name] lately is that if I ever want to use [name]Asher[/name] for a son (which I likely will!), I’m not sure how we’d distinguish each other. I’m thinking about going by the nn [name]Lela[/name] (lee-lah), but I’m not sure it suits me as well as just [name]Ashley[/name] does. For sure I won’t go by [name]Ash[/name] anymore, though, haha.
I think [name]Jessica[/name] is a pretty name, and I love how much history it actually has (even if feeling like an 80s-90s trend only), with being coined by and used by [name]Shakespeare[/name] (Merchant of [name]Venice[/name]) and having a sort-of-presence in the Bible (Iscah, a minor women character, which is where scholars think [name]Shakespeare[/name] got the inspiration for [name]Jessica[/name]). My mother chose it from a pretty inspirational dream she had about me, so I love that too.
I don’t really think it suits me at all. It’s very feminine and has a popular girl vibe, neither of which suits me. But [name]Jess[/name] does. Simple, straightforward, smart, strong, those are all fine for me. When I had an awkward phase growing up, I was grateful my name didn’t make me stand out more.
I love my middle name which I won’t share for privacy reasons. I always felt it suited me more, but I never did try to make it work, and now I’m too old : D. Maybe if I ever do decide to have a son named [name]Jesse[/name] I’ll try to make the change. Seems a lot of work though : D.
Supposedly [name]Frances[/name] and [name]Margaret[/name] were in the running for me. These might have fit me better (and shows my parents kind of deviated from their natural taste in picking [name]Jessica[/name]!). But I like [name]Jess[/name] better than the nicknames for [name]Frances[/name] and [name]Margaret[/name] (although I like those too).
That was fortunate!
I have a friend named [name]Kristen[/name] [name]Kaye[/name], and she always says, “there is no way I’m gonna marry someone with a surname beginning with K, or if I do, I won’t be taking his name!”
[name]DIONNE[/name] -
*No-one can spell/pronounce it (been called [name]Diane[/name], [name]Deanne[/name], Die-on, etc)
*Has an ugly sound, not pretty in any way
*Always get asked if I was named after [name]Dion[/name] [name]Dublin[/name] (football player), [name]Celine[/name] [name]Dion[/name] or [name]Dionne[/name] Warwick (yes, my mum DID name me after her!)
*Used to get called [name]Dee[/name] or [name]Dee[/name]-dee, which I liked (shame no-one calls me that anymore)
*[name]Don[/name]'t have a middle name, so couldn’t even choose to go by another name. [name]Hence[/name] my obsession with my own children having middle names and them being of a different style to the first, with lots of NN potential!
The nicknames. Welsh people are incapable of not giving people nicknames…it would be endearing if the ones gifted to me weren’t awful!
Hay,Hayles (like Hails) are the two most common. But ever since a young age I told people I only liked being called [name]Hayley[/name],so Hay and Hayles mostly came from teachers or people I didn’t know very well.
My family call me H,which I like.
I find all the variant [name]Hayley[/name] spellings baffling because in the UK only [name]Hayley[/name] is used!
I have made peace with my name, but it took about 25 years.
[name]Celeste[/name] always seemed like such a pretentious first name to me. The meaning (heavenly) didn’t really help. And it also didn’t help that it was so uncommon. Those things combined to make me feel like I stuck out at school with a fancy, snobby name. In second grade I tried to go by my middle name which I did like- [name]Emelia[/name]- but it didn’t stick. (Yes it is [name]Em[/name]elia. It was supposed to be after my great grandmother [name]Emilia[/name] but my parents misspelled it.)
The lack of a clear nickname annoyed me too. My friends in high school called me [name]Lessie[/name] which I liked. It seemed more down to earth. I tried to go solely by that nn during a year abroad, but it didn’t stick either.
Now I’m OK with [name]Celeste[/name]. After two failed attempts to be called something else I guess I’ve just gotten over it. My biggest complaints with the name, now that I am resigned to keeping it, are:
- I can’t tell you how many times I get called [name]Chelsea[/name]! It starts to get annoying after awhile.
- No one can spell it properly. Usually it is written [name]Celest[/name] (a version which used to drive me nuts!) but sometimes Selest.
- It is a bit awkward to say in Swedish (which is where we live right now) and even more uncommon than in the US which is sort of a constant red flag to others that I’m a foreigner. (Although to be fair, it is lovely in French and Spanish so I can’t really complain that my parents weren’t thinking internationally…)
Hm. I’ve never disliked my name even a little bit until recently. [name]Kylee[/name] is in the top one hundred now and I’ve seen a lot of people make comments about it being “tacky” and things of that sort. That kind of hurts my feelings, haha. Twenty years ago when my mother named me, there werent many other Kylees and NONE where we live. But now I meet them all the time and they’re all under ten. Blah.