This is a baby. It probably has a weird name.

So at my job, I set a lot of appointments and need to spell a lot of names correctly. Sometimes they are foreign names and they scare me (like my friend Ariunjargal Uranchineg from Mongolia – who, thank heavens, goes by Angie), and sometimes they are just curiously spelled common names. Whatever reason, dozens of times a week you can hear me spouting the phrase, “Will you spell that for me please?”

I am not really an exception though. My name is not extreme, but it gets spelled wrong all the time. The common spelling of my name is Lindsay, so I always have to explain, “My name is Lindsey, with an e-y.” A few times I’ve been tempted, when someone is writing my name, to say something ridiculous. “I’m Lindsey, with a K,” just to see how confused people would get. Still, I count myself lucky when I see some other spellings of my name I have come across, such as ‘Lindzie’ or ‘Lindzy’ or ‘Lyndsie’.

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