For most of my teaching career I had gone by Miss Abi or Miss A. This alleviated the simple problem of pronunciation. Apparently my maiden name 'Aldrich' came across as 'Ostrich.' One or two times it is alright, but last year there was an entire 1st grade class who were convinced that my name was Ostrich and would proceed to correct any new student trying to say Aldrich. There was a bright student who was very confused as to why they kept calling me Mrs. A instead of Miss O, because Ostrich starts with an O.
I was so excited when I got married because I figured if I had to teach everyone how to say my name then it would alleviate mispronunciations because we would have all been practicing together. 'Paytoe Gbayee' is intimidating to say if you are looking at it, so we practiced in class. Paytoe is pretty straight forward, it is like you are paying the toe on your foot, pay-toe. Gbayee is much more intimidating, as the Gb sound is not part of western languages. However if you know that the G is silent it makes it easier. Then comes the end part of the double e's. They are also both silent. So really Gbayee becomes bay, like a bay of water or a bay horse. So all together it sounds like pay-toe-bay. Easy right. I sent out a pronunciation key to some peers who wanted to teach it to their classes before I got back from Africa. The kids caught on quicker than I did. I still sometimes will pause between my first and last name. When I returned everything was running smoothly, and I made the mistake of thinking how wonderful it was to have my name pronounced correctly at last; a wonderful kindergartner came up and asked, "Mrs. Potato Day, can I get some help." The truth of my last name is that it is actually Irish. Who knew?
