You Spell Your Name Wrong

In which Emily shares about how the interesting things parents do when selecting names for their children make her job that much harder.

Thank you to Jer at http://www.nyquil.org for making a widescreen version of the TV test pattern.
You were right. It was useful to someone.

Apologies to:
Charlie McDonnell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVo-S9...
Natalie Tran
http://www.youtube.com/CommunityChannel
Craig Benzine:
http://www.youtube.com/WheezyWaiter

I try to be open minded about most things, I've heard all about registers of speech and communication styles, that different dialects are not "wrong" or "right"....but I wish there was a little more agreement with certain things that affect my life.

The idea with registers of speech is that you have different styles of speech (registers) that you use with people you are more intimate with (usually involving more slang, coloquialisms and the like) as opposed to people you are business like with (usually employing jargon, proper grammar, and and five-dollar words you are comfortable using), with a whole range of in-betweens. The hope is that though you may have your more intimate speech, you are able to use the business-like register when the situation calls for it.

I want to enforce something like this on names. If your name is from a different language, then it should follow the rules of that tongue. If you want to force a pronunciation of a group of letters that breaks away from the rules of your name's language, you can really only do that to those who you're intimate with.

Maybe I'm being snobbish here.

I've also heard many a teacher complain that it is becoming increasingly difficult to teach phonics when students names are phonetical disasters. If you are basing a name on American English, please base the spelling on the same.

But, do what you want. It's a free country, and you're gonna anyhow.