Can a Name Be Misspelled?

The other day, I saw an article that snarked, "kids these days think 'Britney' is the correct spelling." Seriously? So, what is the "correct" spelling? Brittani? Brittney? Brittny? Britnee? Brittnee? Brittany? I'm pretty sure the writer would choose the last one—after they yelled at me to get off their lawn.

This got me thinking. What constitutes a "correct" spelling of a name? Is there such a thing? I believe there is and there is not.

If, like the aforementioned writer, you think there is only one true "correct" spelling of any given name, well, I hate to tell you this, but that's wrong. Almost every name has variants. Don't believe me? Check behindthename.com for yourself. Even John can be spelled differently. In fact, you can make up new ways to spell a name if you are a new parent and you want to name your kid J'onh or Marri or whatever. That's entirely up to you.

However, if you know someone named Teri, and you write it down as Terri or Terry—or anything else other than Teri—you are spelling it wrong. For example, my name is Esther and so very often, I have people writing it as "Ester" instead. This is wrong, because my name is spelled "Esther." If your name was Ester, I spelled it "Esther," that would be wrong too. If you called Britney "Brittany," that would be wrong. Each person's name is spelled a certain way that their parents chose for them (or, rarely, they chose themselves), and that is the correct spelling for their name.

However your name is spelled on your birth certificate, that is the correct spelling for your name—or if you use a nickname, you decide how it is spelled, and that is the correct spelling. But others with a name that sounds the same may have a different spelling, and that is the correct spelling for their name. Therefore, it is possible to misspell a name, but only when that name belongs to a specific individual and you are writing about that person.