hahaha!

my wife's name is MAKI. easy enough (and super common; the japanese equivalent of sarah) but when we're in the usa everyone, EVERYONE, screws it up. even my folks sometimes mispronounce it (we've been together for 8 yrs and my dad still says makye from time to time). i once had to explain the pronunciation as something similar to saying "my key" with a thick southern accent (mah-key). wow, really, middle america?

she got sick of it about two years back during a trip to the states to visit my folks. at the coffee/donut shop she went to the counter and said her name was maggie.

Not even a story for an uncommon name, but couple years back my ex ordered a coffee and they wrote 'wizard' on his cup. His name is Richard.

and I really regret watching that video, because I was just about to go to sleep
:') not anymore.

http://starbucksspelling.tumblr.com/

I'm not sure how someone could mess up Yuko. Especially with Nicole @_@ It sounds really obvious how to spell it to me.

I never knew just how many (horrific and ugly) ways their were to spell Jacquelyn until I started to go to coffee shops. Even when I spell it out people usually put a 'i' instead of a 'y' so I always put this really loud emphasis on the Y when I'm at some place that actually needs to get my name right. Obtaining health services has several times been extremely complicated due to people spelling my name wrong -_- I think my 'favorites' have been Jaklyn and Jaqulin. Everyone asks how to spell it but I just tell them I don't care anymore. Only one person has ever spelled the right incarnation without me having to tell them.

I can only imagine the variation on names that Ananth gets. Of course, he doesn't really drink coffee, so perhaps he gets this problem less often?

My sister-in-law used to give random names when ordering at Starbucks; she once gave her name as "Satan," and once embarrassed her son when she gave his name as "Samurai Jack."

I usually just go with "Dee" (my first initial) since its easy.... enough. Even then sometimes it gets all messed up. I've basically given up on having anyone spell my name right. This includes friends, family, co-workers, etc.

I feel your pain, Yuko. :( Whenever I need to give my name for a takeout order or drink, I just say "Maggie." Otherwise I end up with Marda, Martha, Merdan (???), etc. Life is hard!!

You guys gotta get Starbucks names!

Omg yes. I don't even try anymore, I just use "Rachel." :[

Oh please oh please do part two for Ananth's drink cups :) I've gotten my share of way-off spellings as well… haha :)

I'd like to see what they write if you ask them to put Genevieve in there.

In the few years since I've been following the Topato gang and the Pants Press and related friends (which means you two) I've seen Yuko go through a lot of names and for me Y-u-k-o seems the easiest to write of all. But what do I know about the USA?

I have a pretty easy name, It's just Ariel, but I still get weird mispellings. .___.
I'm used to the occasional Arial, ro Ariael or whatever but once I got something like this...

Aurieallia

I honestly didn't know what to make of it.

My name is Jamila (Jah-Mee-Lah) Every year my friends would laugh about how long it would take the new teacher to learn how to pronounce my name. I won't even start on substitute teachers awkward attempts while taking the roll.

I hate it when I have to wear a name tag at work. Every third customer or so likes to comment on it for some reason. A co-worker once borrowed my spare name tag because she forgot hers. The next day she promised to never borrow mine again, because people just wouldn't leave her alone with comments about the origin and meaning :P Welcome to my life!

As a Stu, after getting FAR too many Starbucks cups with Steve written on them, I started giving my name as Stuart. Too bad I waited to do so 'til after all the employees at the Starbucks near my work knew me. They just started writing my name as Stupid.

I've been pronouncing it wrong this entire time.

You Koh.

XD

Nicole.
What?
Nicole...
W H A T?

I'm glad my name is only three letters and very easy to spell. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they wrote my name as "Jerrold" or something...

Hehe, yeah; it's not just unusual names, either.

... if you spell it out for them, they have no excuses. I at least have dyslexia working in my favor (the most common one I see is "Brain" instead of Brian").

Although, I do have to give one dude props. I saw him lift the cup, quirk his eyebrow at it, and do a zombie voice until I came to grab my coffee. It was a special moment.

A bunch of my friends get this actually, we're a multi-cultural group :P. I've adopted Morgan as my Starbucks name.

My name is also Yuko and I have started using an pseudonym for these situations.

I also have people who misspell my name after I send them an email with my name in the signature. I'm not quite sure how one takes text, and then misspells it afterward, but I'm sure it's a special process.

I will also confirm that Yuko can magically turn into "Nicole." MAGIC.

remind me of the time ananth was called paranaxia or something.

Yup. I'm always amused by how people think "Tillie" is spelled. Starbucks has named me "Tili", "Tiloy", "Chili", and somehow "Britney".

I tried once to have a little fun with it and told them to put me down as "Frankenstein" but it turned out that they only wrote "Frank". I got some weird looks picking up my order that day.

My name is Annabelle. Usually they're surprisingly good at spelling it, but I did get "Anible" once.

The Starbucks at the student union had one worker who consistently wrote Becky on my cup. I would say "Megan" loudly and she would say back "Becky?". Sigh, yes, sure.

Ever get a YUCKO?

My friend Seong always goes by my name (Chris) when he orders from Starbucks. The closest they've ever gotten to spelling his name right was Sung.

As a former barista, I feel obligated to apologize on behalf of all baristas everywhere....epic fail, Starbucks.

LOL - I hate it when people misspell my name! Yuko - Nicole. I get it. In a loud coffee shop, it rhymes-ish.

People mess my name up all the time. Either just in the spelling ("normal" name, with slight difference in spelling) or just verbally. Can't tell you how often I've been called "Michelle", "Melissa", etc. And those don't even rhyme or sound like "Nichole" in any way, shape, or form. So now I just laugh.

Haha - I'm a fan of Yercy myself.

My name is Joanna, and after a certain number of misspellings and deer-in-the-headlights looks from baristas I started telling them "Jo" instead, but more often than not they get "Jill" out of that. You just can't win.

I had the same problem. My name is uncommon and I'm paranoid (it rhymes with Jenna, that's all I'll tell you) but I've gotten things like "Amy" and "Gemma" over the years. At some point, I've noticed the coffee people only take names half the time and when they tell you your coffee is ready, they typically yell out what the coffee is rather than who owns it.

I have a friend with the first name Nghi. I always kid him about it when we go to Panera and he gives his name as "Alex"!

I eat in a lot of places where you write your name on an order card. I'm so tired of hearing "Gallon" that I've taken to just writing "G."

My name confuses many a barista because no one knows the Americanized spelling of Jacqueline. Also no one knows how to spell Jacqueline to begin with. I've seen Jackline, Jacklice, Jacline, Jacquelice, Jacklynne, Jacklane, Jackquelane. The list goes on. The smart ones just write Jackie and are done with it. Of course I have seen someone spell it "Jacky" so even that is not a good solution. I haven't seen anyone completely mishear my name yet.

My first name is a last name, my last name is a common Chinese surname and I have 2 middle names. So I often get people confusing and switching around my first name and last name and getting my last name screwed up with any Chinese name that starts with "Ch".
Then there's my middle names. One is a fairly common first name, but for females. So I sometimes get called that as my first name, but with a questioning look. And then my other middle name is the phonetic equivalent of my first name in Chinese, it's hyphenated and uses a Romanization of Chinese that is at least 2 decades out of date.

Nicole... odd... o.o I think they were yankin' on yer chain Yuko dear

Not the same problem, but it's a name problem.

My name really is Shawn, and I really am a girl... People always don't believe me when I tell them my name. Heck, I started going by "Shawn 'the girl'" online so people would stop asking if I am a dude upon finding out my name- and they still do!

-_- can't win.

One time I worked with a man named Shelly. He shadowed me as I took on accounts and I covered for him a couple times- so people constantly called our direct lines looking for the other. My favorite was how they would always assume I was Shelly, and I'd say, "Oh, no. I'm Shawn, let me get him for you." and they'd always say, "... huh... him?"

My first name is Karine (it's French) and when I worked in a call center and got English calls, I would just say my name was Karen, because otherwise 98% of callers would ask me to repeat and spell it and that gets old fast when you take 50+ calls each day.

This one Asian sales rep from Vancouver would invariably call me Candle. "Hi, my name is Karen. How may I help you" - "oh, hi Candle!" ...

Yep. Hang in there Yuko! :)

I wonder why the cups are so small, they're the same size as Yuko's hand...

Misspellings of Ananth's name default to the very first AG Lite comic. Oh Agatha.