Mispronunciations of my name tend to drive me absolutely nuts. Yeah, I realize that Tighe isn't a common name and few people recognize that it's Irish ( and therefore the gh is silent, as in "sigh".) But we get some of the most bizarre pronunciations you can imagine! "Tig-hee", "Teeje", "Tig", even "Thigh". How the heck do they get that out of Tighe??
Well, by now I'm used to all the usual mispronunciations and try hard not to laugh out loud at the new ones people come up with. But I do politely correct people, figuring that I'm doing future generations of Tighes a favor. When one of my daughters got married, she hyphenated her name; the other kept her maiden name. My son, of course is a Tighe, as are his wife and kids.
I'm sure if you have a name that's at all unusual or hard to pronounce you've had similar experiences. There are bound to be days when you're severely tempted to change your name to Smith or Day or something simple to pronounce---and that would be such a shame! We have friends from around the world, and many of their names are difficult for US to pronounce. But they are our friends and we love them as they are, names and all! In truth, variety is the spice of life.
Can you begin to imagine what fun we would be in for someday in the future if aliens from another planet showed up on our doorstep with some REALLY weird names? I'm laughing already just thinking about it!
MRTighe
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